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Sage 50 Product Line and Invoice Export Discussion
Q1: Does Sage 50 have a limit on the number of stock lines?
Answer:
Sage 50 Accounts does not impose a strict limit on the number of stock items (product records), but practical limits apply for performance reasons.
Practical Guidelines and Performance Considerations
- Recommended Limits:
While there’s no hard cap, Sage recommends maintaining fewer than 20,000 product records for optimal performance.
- User Experiences:
Some users handle up to 60,000 product records (especially when marked as non-stock or inactive), but performance degrades beyond that.
- Transaction Volume:
Sage 50 handles large volumes of transactions, but users report slowdowns with over 200,000 transactions.
Best Practices
- Use Non-Stock/Inactive Status: Reduce load for rarely-used items.
- Regular Maintenance: Compress data and clear old audit trails.
- Performance Monitoring: Watch for system slowness after large imports.
- Consider Sage 200: If needs exceed Sage 50âs capabilities.
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Q2: How to use 500,000 products without loading into Sage?
Goal:
- Avoid importing 500,000 products.
- Enable look-up during invoicing.
- Ensure used products are logged in Sage.
Suggested Workflow
1. External Product Lookup Tool
Use Excel, Access, SQLite, or a web app to host the product master externally.
- Look up product codes/descriptions.
- Copy selected line into Sage invoice.
- Keep Sage’s database small and fast.
2. Auto-create Product Entries in Sage
- Enter product codes directly into the invoice.
- Sage saves the code in the invoice but does not add it to the Product List.
- Later import used codes via batch (CSV).
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Q3: Will Sage save non-product lines?
Answer:
Yes, Sage does save all non-product lines within each invoice, but does not store them in the Product List.
Summary Table
| Line Type | Saved in Invoice | Saved in Product List |
|---|---|---|
| Product from Product List | Yes | Already exists |
| New Code (not in list) | Yes | No |
| Free Text Line | Yes | No |
| Comment/Service Line | Yes | No |
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Q4: What format are exported invoices?
Methods and Formats
| Method | Includes Line Details | Format | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| File > Export (Invoices list) | No | CSV, TXT | Summary only |
| Transactions Export | Yes (nominal-based) | CSV, TXT | Hard to read line-level detail |
| Report Designer Export | Yes | CSV, Excel, PDF, XML | Fully customisable |
| SDK / 3rd-Party Export | Yes | CSV, JSON, XML | Full access, developer-friendly |
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Q5: Can we export only product lines?
Answer: Yes, by filtering during export or using Report Designer.
Method 1: Report Designer (Recommended)
- Create a report using
Invoice Itemdata. - Add filter:
PRODUCT_CODE <> ""- Export to CSV or Excel.
Method 2: Manual Filtering
- Export all lines from Invoices list or Transactions.
- Open in Excel.
- Filter non-empty Product Code rows.
Method 3: SDK/Automation Tools
Use Sage 50 SDK or integration tools to export only product-linked lines programmatically.
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