Submitting New Spend Files
- Submit via ZenDesk by going to Submit a Request, selecting Data Services and completing the Ticket. This is the preferred method.
- Submit it directly in the system by going to the Files tab, either through the menu in the top left, or link on the Homepage, and uploading it into a shared folder. There should be one called "Spend Uploads" which will be shared with Atamis Data Services. Note:- Files MUST be in a shared folder for us to have visibility of them. If it is not uploaded in this way then it will remain in the Users Private Folder and also, Atamis will not be notified of the upload.
- Email directly to our mailbox, which is dataservices@atamis.co.uk
- Link on the Classic Homepage that says "Upload New Spend Data File". Will send a notification automatically. This is limited to files up to 5Mb.
- Upload into the Libraries tab in Classic. This is similar to using Files in Lightning, although the page layout is different. This is limited to files up to 5Mb.
Spend File Format
Atamis does not impose a fixed format for receiving your spend data. Instead, the format will be defined when we load your first file in a Spend File Format Template file, or files if appropriate. If you are uncertain of your Template, please request it from Atamis Support.
Spend files uploaded in a format matching the Template (exact column headings, column order, data formatting and file extension) are normally loaded within 48 hours (often less) and you will be notified by Atamis Support when the load has been completed and checked.
Spend files sent in a format not matching the Template may incur a delay of up to 2 weeks to process if your Import Routine needs to be modified.
Requesting Changes to Templates
It is possible to request Atamis to modify your Spend File Format Template if, for example, you change your finance system or you identify extra columns you would like to include.
Changes to the templates should be submitted in the same way as a normal Spend Upload, and should have an accompanying message to highlight the changes. Processing a change of this nature can take up to 2 weeks, depending on the complexity of the change, and may also incur costs if multiple changes are made in quick succession. This should be discussed with your CSM ahead of any changes being made.
Re-Loading Data
Again, depending on your SLA, if you realise you made a mistake in spend data that Atamis has already loaded, you may have provision to be able to resend the file with corrected data and for Atamis to re-process the load. The re-loading of a full year of data, or more, however normally incurs a one-off data charge.
The Expenditure Detail Page
Some of the key fields on the Expenditure detail page are explained below:
| Field | Notes |
| Expenditure Record | e.g. E0012889 – a unique code automatically assigned by Atamis SA to an Expenditure transaction. |
| Invoice Number | The Supplier’s Invoice number, except when data has been aggregated, in which case this field normally displays the number of invoices that have been aggregated to create this Expenditure record. |
| Item Description | The Supplier’s invoice line item text, except where data has been aggregated when this will normally display the text ‘Aggregated data’. |
| Period | The payment date. |
| Expenditure | The invoice line item amount (excl. VAT), except when data been aggregated when it will contain the total amount of all the aggregated transactions. |
| Supplier | The supplier name, which may have been cleansed by Atamis Data Services to make it identical to a duplicate supplier. When new spend data is loaded, Atamis SA uses the Creditor Ref field to determine which supplier record to use. If one doesn’t exist, it creates a new one. |
| Supplier Original Name | The supplier name as you provided it in the source data. |
| Contract |
The Contract Name is set depending on the configuration you use. If you use Compliance Rules, the system sets it for you based on the Rules. Otherwise it can be set from the Contract Ref column in the spend data files you provide. |
| Department |
The Department Name is taken from the spend data you provide, but if it’s missing this field is automatically set to UNKNOWN. See section on Cost Centres and Departments about rectifying this. When new spend data is loaded, Atamis SA checks the Department object to see if the Department already exists on the system. If it doesn’t, it creates a new one. |
| Cost Centre | When new spend data is loaded, Atamis SA checks the Cost Centre object to see if the Cost Centre already exists on the system. If it doesn’t, it creates a new one. |
| Detail Code | Also known as Account, Expense, GL or Subjective Code |
| Account type | Normally used to distinguish between Capital and Revenue expenditure, if provided, but can be used for other purposes. |
| Approver | Commonly re-used by clients for other purposes, e.g. Requisitioner, Buyer, etc. |
| Category | Set according to the Atamiser Classification Rules. The other category fields are either set automatically by Atamis SA or are lookup fields from the Category page. |
| Transaction Details |
If your data has been aggregated this field will show details of the rows that have been aggregated. Each column is delimited by a ‘#’ to enable you, if required, to copy/paste the data into Notepad, save as CSV and import into Excel using the Convert Text to Columns feature. The merged details in order are :- Period, Invoice Number, Amount, PO Number, Item Description, Flexi3. It then repeats for the next Aggregated line. Note that this field is normally truncated at 5,000 characters. |
| Flexi fields | These are 12 fields that are available for use in spend data loads. 10 are Text based and 2 are numeric only. They can be used for any additional data fields which need to be loaded and aren't covered by any of the Standard fields. When used, these fields are relabelled by Atamis to relate to your requirements. |
Data Aggregation
The standard data allocation for an Atamis SA system is 10Gb, which roughly equates to 5,000,000 rows (above which a small incremental storage fee applies). For clients with more than 1,000,000 expenditure records per year we normally recommend aggregating your data either prior to loading, or after loading to avoid having to purchase additional storage, and to improve the performance of running large reports.
Pre-Load Aggregation
As part of the preparation of your spend data prior to loading into Atamis SA, Atamis will aggregate multiple transactions into a single record, while retaining the following level of granularity:
- Supplier & Creditor Ref
- Period - Month and Year only
- Department
- Cost Centre & Description
- Detail Code & Description
- Category
- Approver
- Account Type
- Flexi Fields 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, & 7
- Flexi Field 8 retains an Average of the numeric values in that field across Aggregated records.
- Flexi Field 9 retains a Sum of the numeric values in that field across Aggregated records.
With each aggregated row, the Expenditure and Number of Invoices reflect the totals from all aggregated rows, the details of the aggregated rows are stored in the field Transaction Details.
Post-Load Aggregation
Normally conducted by Atamis on historic data, e.g. more than 2 years ago, this form of aggregation retains just the following level of granularity:
- Supplier
- Department
- Category
With each aggregated row, the Expenditure and Number of Invoices reflect the totals from all aggregated rows.
Cost Centres and Departments
The Cost Centre and Department fields are set on Atamis SA Expenditure records as described in The Expenditure Detail Page section above.
It is common for Cost Centres to ‘move’ Departments from time to time. Provided you are sending the latest Cost Centre and Department data in your spend files (i.e. that is correct at the time of sending) then your data should always display correctly in Atamis SA.
However, if you wish to, you can alternatively change all Expenditure with a given Cost Centre to be displayed under its new Department by rehoming Cost Centre (see below). This feature can also be used to assign spend under the UNKNOWN Department to the correct Department.
Rehoming Cost Centres to a Different Department
Rehoming Cost Centres requires user to have a Power User Licence Type.
To change reset the Department for all Expenditure associated with a particular Cost Centre, locate the
Cost Centre detail page and edit the Department field, using the Picker icon to select the department. This action will trigger off a batch process that will take a few minutes to ‘rehome’ Expenditure records to the selected Department.
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