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Management > Costs > Import cost file

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Entities, such as fuel providers or parking service providers (among others), give their customers the option to receive files with all fleet's cost for a certain period (usually one month). Frotcom is able to import these cost files directly, by allowing you to upload the corresponding file from your computer. The file is validated and the resulting data inserted in the Cost management module.

For that, go to the Management > Costs panel and click the menu button on the upper-right part of the screen:

Select Import cost file from the drop down menu:

The Import cost file panel will be available to you:

On this panel, you can perform the first step, which is to choose the Cost file type and Upload the file.

From the Cost file type, select the type of the file among the available options:

Note that if you want to upload a cost file of an entity that is not on the list, you must identify and inform your Frotcom Certified Partner, of which entities (and corresponding cost files) need to be imported. Please send also samples of the identified cost files.

After selecting the Cost file type, you are able to upload your file to Frotcom's Data Center so that it is processed.

Please note that if you select General cost file type, a Download button becomes available for you to download the general template and fill it:

Let's consider that cost file you want to upload has the General format and the following information:

After selecting the Cost file type as General, click on the Select File button, to upload the file. After, a window will open and you will be able to navigate through the directories of your computer and select the location of the file to upload:

After selecting the desired file, click on Open, so that the file is uploaded to Frotcom's Data Center.

Please note that the previous figure might vary according to the operative system (and operative system version) you have installed.

After, wait for the file to be uploaded:

When the file is uploaded, in case there are License plates defined in the imported cost file which does not match the license plate of any vehicle defined in your Frotcom account, you will see the Unmatched vehicles panel:

This panel indicates that both license plates BUS 2 and BUS 27 do not match any of the vehicles defined in your Frotcom account.

At this stage, you have three options:

  • Associate to a vehicle in Frotcom: this option will allow you to select a license plate from one of the existing vehicles on your Frotcom account and associate it to the respective row of the imported cost file. This option is helpful if you detect a typo on the imported cost file or if you have different license plate tags in Frotcom than the real license plate of the vehicle.
  • Create new vehicle in Frotcom: this option will allow Frotcom to create a vehicle with default parameters with the defined license plate to be in accordance to the one written in the imported cost file.
  • Discard cost data from vehicle: with this option, Frotcom will not read the information of the concerned row.

Let's suppose that you want to associate BUS2 to another vehicle and discard the information of BUS27. We can do that by selecting the respective option under the Action drop down menu on the respective row:

Note that after selecting the Associate to a vehicle in Frotcom option on the Action field drop down menu, a new drop down list will be available on the Vehicle in Frotcom column. This allows you to choose the specific vehicle which you want to assign the cost:

When you are done, click Proceed button:

If you have several nonmatching records concerning the license plate defined in the imported cost file and the vehicles recorded in your Frotcom account, you can use the Action for all functionality. You can enable this feature by selecting the desired option on the Action for all button located on the upper-right part of the screen:

Take into consideration that the vehicle you associate to a license plate on the imported cost file (in case there is no initial matching), is registered by Frotcom to be suggested in future situations in which the same aliasing is detected.

You can manage the aliasing suggestions under Management > Preferences > Vehicle Aliasing.

 

After, click on Proceed button. The Import cost records screen will be displayed:

This panel provides a secondary stage of the validation of the data uploaded from the Imported cost files.

On the Status column, we can see the quality of the data for each entry that we created in the Imported cost file. You can have three situations:

Status Description

Validation successful

''Ready to import'' string in black color. 

No additional action is available in the Action column.

NOTE: No validation issues, all the data of the respective row will be processed.

Validation unsuccessful: Mandatory fields missing/incorrect

''Unreadable columns:(...)'' string in red color. 

Read the only option on the Action column stating ''Ignore line''.

NOTE: This message represents that mandatory fields are empty or incorrectly filled. The information of this row will be ignored

Validation unsuccessful: Non-mandatory fields missing/incorrect

'Unreadable columns:(...)'' string in red color. 

Available options on the Action column:

It is allowed to choose between both options:

  • Ignore line: the entire line information will be discarded. Similar treatment to the situation when mandatory fields are missing or incorrect.
  • Ignore fields: only the mentioned fields will be discarded since they are not mandatory. All the remaining information will be processed.

NOTE: This message represents that non-mandatory fields are empty or incorrectly filled. You have the option to discard totally this particular row or consider the information of this particular row but ignore the non-mandatory fields with issues.

 

Following is a matrix stating all the fields in the General template and indication which of those are mandatory and non-mandatory.

Field Mandatory Non-Mandatory
License Plate X  
Date X  
Time X  
Cost type X  
Cost entity X  
Quantity X  
Unit cost * *
Total cost * *
Odometer   X
Location   X
Country   X
Cost description   X
Notes   X

* means that at least one of the fields between Unit cost and Total cost must be defined. I.e. if Unit cost field is defined, the Total cost field is not mandatory since Frotcom calculates its value by multiplying the Quantity field value by the Unit cost field value. On the other hand, if Total cost field is defined, the Unit cost field is not mandatory since Frotcom calculates its value by dividing the Total cost field value by the Quantity field value. 

 

The Import cost records state that there are issues with the third, fourth, fifth and eighth rows:

Third row: the third row was considered not valid since the cost type, quantity, unit cost, total costs and odometer fields are wrongly defined or missing. Refreshing now what is written in the third row of the imported cost file:

In order to fix this column, we would need to define correctly the cost type to one of the registered in your Frotcom account and enter integers (instead of characters) in the quantity, unit cost and total cost fields (indicated in red). After that, the row would still be not valid but it would be possible to process since the odometer value is not mandatory. In order to fully process this row, we would need to define an integer on the odometer value instead of a character.

Fourth row: On the fourth row, we experience the very same situation as the one of the third row. Moreover, instead of having wrongly defined Cost type, we have a Cost entity which does not exist in the current Frotcom account:

Fifth row: On the fifth row, we experience the very same situation as with the third row with the particularity that now, instead of having wrongly defined Cost type, we have a date and time fields wrongly defined:

 

Since for all these rows, mandatory fields are missing/incorrect, their data cannot be processed. Contrarily to this, on the case of the row eighth, only the odometer field is missing/incorrect. Therefore, Frotcom gives us the possibility to consider the information but just ignore the value of the odometer field. For this example, let's choose the option to ignore just the field that is not properly defined:

When you are done, click Proceed located on the upper right part of the panel, so that Frotcom considers your changes. Otherwise, click on the Back to costs button located on the upper left part of the panel, and your actions will be discarded.

If you click Proceed, you will see the following Costs import summary panel:

Before saving the costs in the database, the costs are shown in a dialog (Import preview) containing information of the number of valid and invalid costs and the sum of the valid costs. 

To finalize the Import cost file action, click on Proceed. You will see the following confirmation pop up:

 

The Management > Costs panel is now updated with the imported information:

 

If you wish to enter a new cost manually, click here.

If you wish to edit an already existing cost, click here.

If you wish to delete a cost, click here

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