Printed journals are a valuable audit trail
Your Sage 300 CRE software LOVES to produce printed journals. When you click the Finish button in any accounting module task, the system displays a Print Selection window.This window lets you not only specify a printer but also gives you the option to print the journal to a file. If you mark the checkbox to “Print to file,” the next window that will appear will prompt you for a destination and name for the file.
Use printed journals for troubleshooting!
Some Sage 300 CRE users print all of their journals to a junk file and never even glance at them. However, these journals contain valuable information about what just took place in your system (think audit trail), including information about posting issues and error messages. Journals are one of the first things to review when troubleshooting an issue, so we strongly encourage you to preserve your journals!
Other Sage 300 CRE users will print their journals to paper so that they can be reviewed, and then they will either toss them or file them in binders for documentation. Either way, printed paper is vulnerable, and digital storage of important documents is now the norm for risk-adverse organizations. Besides, does anyone really want to store all of those binders that just seem to take up space and serve no real long-term purpose?
For those Sage 300 CRE users who mark the checkbox to print their journals to file and then select a destination and name for the file, we applaud you! Now we want to take you one step further to automate that process, provide you with a systematic way to store those journals digitally, prevent files from being accidentally overwritten, and create an audit trail of all the activity that takes place in your software!
Setting up the folder structure and file naming convention:
- Use Common Tasks > Tools > Options > Journals
- Mark the checkbox to Automatically print journal to file
- Select the Journal Folder structure. The folders and subfolders will be automatically created by the system as journal printouts are created.
- Select the Journal File naming convention. The files will be automatically named as the journal printouts are created. To create the best audit trail using journal printouts, always include the following in your Journal Folder and Journal File selections so that journals file will never be overwritten:
- Year
- Month
- Day
- Time
For example:
- Use Windows Explorer to navigate to the network location where your Sage 300 CRE data is stored. This could be \\[your servername]\Timberline Office\Data. In that location, create a folder named Printouts, Print Files, or whatever you prefer.If you produce printouts for multiple Sage 300 CRE company folders, create a subfolder for each company. Make sure to place the main printouts folder outside any company data folder so the company folder contains only actual data files. This helps facilitate the File Tools backup process.
- In each of your company folders, go to Common Tasks > File > Company Settings > File Locations, and set the Printouts folder where your Sage 300 CRE system will store the journals.You’ll need to do this in each of your company folders if you have more than one.
- Be sure to use a UNC path and not a mapped drive when assigning File Locations! Your Sage 300 CRE software does not fully support mapped drives. A UNC path will always begin with \\[your servername]. Check with your IT provider if you need help determining the correct path to enter.
The end result:
Once you complete the setup, the system no longer prompts you with a Print Selection window. The journals will automatically print to a file with the naming convention and folder structure you selected.
We still recommend that you review your journals for posting issues and error messages, so use Common Tasks > File > Printouts to locate the journal and print preview. And if you just can’t help yourself, you can still print the journal to paper – just keep the digital copies of your journals as well.
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Related content
https://ethosystems.com/blog/how-to-print-sage-300-cre-reports-to-excel/
by Kyle Zeigler, Sage Senior Certified Consultant