MS Excel Template Building and Mapping for Neat 5

Neat 5 provides the opportunity to export data directly from the Neat 5 program

to an Excel template, entering in column information using receipts saved in a

folder. This tutorial will guide you through the process of creating a template for

use with Neat 5 if you have not already created one, and then the actual process

of “mapping” Neat to export to your template.

Before getting started:

You must have Neat 5 installed on your machine

You must have Microsoft Excel 2003 or later installed

Building your Excel Template:

In order to export to a template from Neat 5, you must first create a template for

the program to read. If you have not yet created a template or would like to

make a new one for use with Neat 5, continue reading the steps here. If you

already have a template you would like to use, please read through these

instructions to make certain your template has all necessary components.

1. Open Excel and begin entering appropriate column names. In the example

on the next page, the column names reflect the names of the columns in

Neat, but you do not have to do it like this, as these terms will be imported

into the program later.

2. Select the location where you would like the Data to come in on the

template. We will refer to this as the Starting Row. In the example above,

the Starting Row is row five. Once you have decided on this row, shrink

down the rows directly above and below the Starting Row. To narrow

these rows, hover over one of the borders of the number appearing at the

far left of the row, and drag up or down. This will keep the rows from being

used later on.

3. Next, name your template workbook’s pages. The page tabs can be found

at the bottom of the screen, and by default will be named Sheet1, Sheet2,

and Sheet3. To rename a page name, double-click on it. In order to map

successfully, you must have three pages. These pages will include Data

(first page), Receipt Images (second page), and Comments (third page). An

example appears on the next page.

Note: You can name these pages what you wish, but you cannot change the

order in which this information appears on these pages (for example,

images will never appear on page three), so you may want to keep the

names relevant to the information.

4. After creating your template, or making any necessary changes to an

existing one, Save the file. Go to File, and choose Save As. Select Excel

Template.

NOTE: When you create columns in Excel, you will want to format those columns

to reflect the sort of information you are bringing over. Most columns will be

fine, but for example, if you include Amount or Sales Tax columns, the carried

over information will only have dollar signs ($) if they are formatted to show

them. To format these columns, right-click on the letter at the top of the column

to select it, then choose Format Column. Select Currency or the appropriate

formatting from this list, then press OK.

Mapping your Excel Template in Neat 5

1. Now that you’ve created your template in Excel, you are ready to map it in

Neat 5. To get started with this, open Neat 5, click on Settings Excel

Expense Report Maps.

2. In Step One of the mapping process, you will want to give a name to your

template map, and select the template.

First, click New to name your new map (this is done because you can map

multiple maps to Neat 5). Give it a name that will allow you to easily select

it from the list in the future, and then press Create.

3. Next, press Browse and navigate to the template file you just created.

Select the file and choose Open—the file path will appear in the box next to

the Browse button. Press Next to advance to Step Two.

4. In Step Two, you will map the pages of the report to the corresponding

pages in your Excel template. Change the names in these boxes to match

exactly with the names you gave your sheets in your template, in the

correct order. Be sure to capitalize the same way you capitalized in the

template.

5. On this same page, click the Details button to tell Neat a bit more about

how you want the information to carry over. It is very important that you

match the starting row in this box with the Starting Row in the template. In

our sample, we decided Row 5 was going to be our starting row, so that is

the row we have selected here. If you would like Neat to bring over the

column headings used in the program, check off this box as well.

6. In Step Three, we tell the program which information should appear where

when Neat sends its information to the Excel template. You do NOT have

to map every column in the Unmapped Columns box; just bring over the

ones you want to use. For our example, our template had Vendor, Expense

Category, Receipt Date, Sales Tax, and Total Amount, so these are the

columns we are going to map. If you created columns in your template that

are not the same names as columns in our program, they will appear here

now, with an appropriate value added, like “Amount only.”

7. Click on one of the columns you wish to map, then press the Map button.

8. In the window that appears, choose the column that you wish the

information to appear in. Since in our example “Receipt Date” was mapped

to column B in Excel, that is the column we have selected. Press Update to

apply this change. Repeat to map all the other columns you wish to add,

going between Neat and Excel to verify which column headings are

assigned to which columns.

9. When you have made your desired changes, press Save. You are now ready

to export to Excel from Neat.

Exporting to an Excel Template from Neat

With the template created and mapped, the only step left to do is to export the

information from Neat to Excel.

NOTE: After you have completed the first two steps, you will skip right to this

portion in the future. You can use this template over and over, and will not have

to map again until you create a new template to use apart from this one.

1. Select a file or folder in the program you wish to export to your template.

Click the Export button at the top of the screen and choose Excel. Select

Selected Item(s) or Selected Folder depending on what you wish to export.

2. Select your Excel Map from the dropdown box. Look for the name you

assigned in Step One of the mapping process. Select it and press Export.

3. A progress bar will briefly appear, preparing your file for export. A save

window will appear. Choose a name and location for your expense report,

and press Save.

4. When the export finishes, you will receive a notification that the export was

successfully created. Press OK.

Viewing your Excel Expense Report

To view your finished expense report, simply navigate to location where it

was saved and double-click on it.

Page One (Receipt Data/information)

Page Two (Receipt Images)

NOTE: If your receipts have multiple images, they will appear on this screen

as “Receipt 1, Image 1/ 2, Image 2/2,” etc., until all have appeared.

Page Three (Comments)

NOTE: Comments on page three are comprised of the contents of the

Notes column in the software.

TIP: In this sample template, a Total Amount and Total Sales Tax box have been

included. These are created by creating functions in Excel, and not information

that would automatically be imported by Neat. To create this box, click in a grid

box and then press the function button at the top of the template.

Select Sum (first entry) in this list then press OK. On the next screen, you will be

asked to choose the range of information you wish to add up. The easiest way to

do this is to select the first number you wish to add, and dragging your mouse

straight down the column, end with the last number you wish to add. This will

create a run in the first number column telling the program to add up all the

numbers in the range. This appears in the software separated by a colon ( : ).

Clicking back on the spreadsheet will not close your window. Press OK. Repeat

this step to create any additional sum total boxes you wish to create.