Import using the Schedule Transaction Importer Tool (external application)
This site is only for Avalara customers licensed for Returns Excise, AvaTax Excise and Government.
Documentation of operation, usage and release dates is confidential and proprietary information of Avalara.
This document applies to Enterprise customers. Content last updated 2020-01-14.
Avalara offers two methods for importing records:
- Schedule Transaction Importer (STI) tool, an optional external application, explained on this page.
- Schedule Transaction Importer (STI) widget, on the Home page of Avalara Excise.
.png?revision=1)
| Feature | STI widget (runs in the cloud based Avalara Excise) | STI tool (runs on Windows) |
| Import transactions and master data (e.g. locations, business entities & accounts, etc.) | Yes | Yes |
| Import master data (e.g. locations, business entities & accounts, etc.) separately | Yes | Yes |
| Use custom scenarios, profiles and mappers (additional fees) |
Yes (see Additional fees, below) | Yes (see Additional fees, below) |
| Import records from Excel or CSV files | Yes | Yes |
| Connect to and import records from SQL databases | No | Yes |
| Can be called by other programs as part of a customer's automation. | No | Yes |
Additional fees
Excise taxes are complex, often changing and may require customization to work with your business systems that record your transactions. To simplify this, Avalara creates and modifies custom scenarios, profiles and mappers for additional fees. Routine version upgrades to custom scenarios, profiles and mappers are at no additional fee. Customers can choose to be trained for a fee and maintain their own cloud-based custom scenarios, profiles and mappers without additional fees. Your Avalara Customer Account Manager will help you plan customization.
What you'll need for the STI tool
- The current release or up to 2 previous minor releases. For example, when release 5.43 is current, 5.42 and 5.41 are also supported and older releases are not.
- Look in the bottom right for the STI tool release and the bottom left for the release of the site that will receive your data
- Click Releases in the menu above to find release dates and more
- A user account for the site that will receive your data.
Import records
After the STI tool is installed and configured, you are ready to import.
- Launch the Schedule Transaction Importer tool.
- The last used mapper will be shown in the dropdown list at the top. If needed, you can choose another.
- On the Data File tab, click the Browse button. If you are importing from a database, you will see options for the import table.
- Select the file from your computer for import.
- Click Transmit Data. This step sends the file to the software for processing.
- The display will switch to the Transmission Log tab, which gives you a status at the end of the transmit.
- (Optional) Click Clear Log File to clear the previous log, and then click Yes to confirm it.
Track the import status
- Click Admin > System Activity in the Excise software.
- Click the grid row and then the History Log tab to see the import detail from the receiving site.
