Attaching Files

A very nice feature in Acumatica is the ability to attach files. It’s surprising that more accounting systems don’t offer this feature. Actually, sometimes they claim to offer this feature, but they don’t actually store the files in the database (they just store a link to the file). Not only does Acumatica store the files in the database, but you can control who has access to the file, keep track of versions on the file, and do some other cool stuff. Suffice to say that this is much better than storing paper in a filing cabinet or storing scanned .pdf files on a windows shared drive by department, etc.

In Acumatica you can attached files to many different types of screens (maybe even all of them?). All you do is click the Files -> Add file… button in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

Once there, you can either upload a new file or link to a file that has already been uploaded. It looks like the maximum file size is 25 MB on my demo system, but I’ll bet there is a setting somewhere that will allow you to increase the allowable size.

Once you upload some files to a screen, you can easily see how many files there are and what they are by clicking on the Files button again.

If you click on the of the [Edit] links in the screenshot above, you will be taken to the File Maintenance screen. Here you can view the versions of the file (if you replace the file with a new version, it keeps track of all the previous versions), who has access to the file, and even what screens in Acumatica are referring to the file. In the example below, I uploaded a file to an AP Bill, then I used the Link to existing file feature to add the file to another AP Bill. When you look at the File Maintenance screen you can see all the AP Bills that are referring to the file:

A HUGE advantage of storing files in Acumatica is that you don’t need to clutter up you email servers with large files. Simply upload a large file to the most relevant Acumatica screen, then send the web link around in email. This keeps your email profile from getting really big and it enhances security since email is not very secure. Anyone who wants to access your file will need the appropriate permissions in Acumatica to do so. And, since Acumatica is licensed for unlimited users, you don’t have to be concerned about leveraging this feature for everyone in your organization. A link would look something like this (you could make the link text whatever you want and still display the blue hyperlink to the file):
http://localhost/AcumaticaERP/(W(3))/Frames/GetFile.ashx?fileID=9eba0e2d-a4c4-4012-9f0e-682c571dd4a3

This is yet another benefit of having an ERP system that is web-based.

ps. (for the geeks)
It looks like the files get stored in the UploadFileRevision table. I ran “EXEC sys.sp_spaceused UploadFileRevision” and noted the table size to be about 209MB. Then I attached a 10MB file, ran the SQL command again and noted the table size to be about 219MB as expected.