Opening Your Company Data with Other Programs

Related topics

Set up a user for the first time

Any program that can handle ODBC (Open DataBase Connectivity) — such as Microsoft Word, or Microsoft Excel — can open the Sage 50 Accounting database directly. You can then use these third-party programs to create customized reports based on your company data.

You could also change the data, but we strongly discourage you from changing the database outside of Sage 50 Accounting, as you could cause problems in your data without receiving an appropriate warning.

Before you can gain access to the database file, you need an ODBC data source that points to the database. When you complete any task in Sage 50 Accounting, such as changing a record, a data source is automatically created. By default, its name is Sage 50 Accounting: Filename.sai (where Filename is the name of your company data file). Third-party programs use the information in this profile to open your company data.

If you send your data to someone who does not own a copy of Sage 50 Accounting, you must set up additional users in Sage 50 Accounting in order for them to be able to open your data in another program. The person opening your company data must then create an ODBC data source manually. To do this, they need to have:

  • Access to the ODBC Data Source Administrator tool on their computer
  • MySQL Connector driver (version 3.51.14 or higher) installed on their computer
  • A user name and password provided by you, allowing them to open your data in another program

For more information, refer to the following:

  • The MySQL documentation for setting up an ODBC data source
  • The documentation for the program that you are using to open the Sage 50 Accounting database for information on working with external data
  • The data dictionary on the Sage 50 Accounting disc, which contains a brief description of each box