Flat Rate Plus Online to Total Office Manager Import Wizard

How to Import Flat Rate Plus Online Data into Total Office Manager

Introduction

Flat Rate Plus Online (FRPO) is Aptora’s cloud service for building and maintaining professional flat-rate price books – ready-made repair and service tasks, each with its parts, labor, and an upfront price. This feature lets you bring those price books directly into Total Office Manager so you can sell, estimate, and invoice from them without re-keying anything. Each flat-rate task is imported as a group item complete with its component parts and labor, and Flat Rate Plus Online supplies the pricing, so your catalog stays accurate and consistent with the price level you choose. You can re-run the import at any time to pull in updates, and the wizard will match and refresh existing items rather than create duplicates.

This help topic walks you through the Import from Flat Rate Plus Online wizard from start to finish. You’ll learn how to connect Total Office Manager to your Flat Rate Plus Online account, select which price books and price level to import, map the income, cost, and asset accounts the new items should use, and set the options that control how parts and labor are created and how existing items are updated on a re-import. By the end you’ll be able to run a complete import and understand the results it reports.

Import Wizard Steps Explained

Note: The wizard remembers settings per company database.

Step 1 of 4: Connect to Flat Rate Plus Online: Enter your Flat Rate Plus Online web address and API key, then click Test Connection to confirm the wizard can reach your account before continuing. Your API key comes from your Flat Rate Plus Online account. You can submit a support ticket on the Flat Rate Plus Online website to obtain one. You do need to have a Premium Membership on the FRPO web app.

Step 2 of 4: Choose books and price level: Check the flat-rate book(s) you want to import, and for each one pick which price level feeds Total Office Manager’s price (the default is the book’s primary level).

Step 3 of 4: This is where you set various options. See definitions of each option below.

Step 4 of 4 – Import: Click Import to run the import. The status box shows live progress as categories, items, and group items are created, followed by a summary of how many tasks and items were added, updated, and skipped (and any errors).

Default (as-shipped) State of Each Step 3 Control:

These are the values a brand-new install shows on first use. Note: after your first import the wizard remembers your last settings, so on later runs these controls show whatever you used previously — not the defaults below.

Dropdown Selections

Import parts as: Non-inventory Part
Sales tax: Tax Exempt
When TOM already has the record, overwrite: Only if Flat Rate Plus is newer

Checkboxes

Parts sold to a specific customer (non-inventory): Unchecked
Labor performed by subcontractor/owner: Unchecked
On update, refresh – GL accounts: Unchecked
On update, refresh – Pricing: Checked
On update, refresh – Descriptions: Checked
Keep dashes in part numbers: Checked
Use item vendor as preferred: Checked
Append item notes to description: Checked
Append task notes to description: Checked
Create item categories: Checked
Include trip / dispatch charge: Unchecked

Chart of Account Dropdowns for Parts and Labor

Parts Income/COGS/Asset and Labor Income/COGS — start empty; you must pick them, and the Asset Account stays disabled until you choose Import parts as → Inventory Part.

Parts and Labor Types

Import parts as: Choose how the parts inside each flat-rate task are created in Total Office Manager — either Inventory Part (stock you track quantities and value for) or Non-inventory Part (parts you buy as needed and don’t keep on the shelf). Most flat-rate catalogs use Non-inventory Part. Once an item has activity in Total Office Manager, you cannot change this value.

Sales tax: Controls how the imported items are taxed. Tax Exempt marks them non-taxable, Taxable marks them taxable, and Let Flat Rate Plus decide uses each task’s own taxable/exempt setting from Flat Rate Plus Online.

Parts Accounts

Parts – Income Account: This comes from your Chart of Accounts list. It is the account used to recognize income derived from selling the part.

Parts – COGS/Expenses Account: This comes from your Chart of Accounts list (Cost of Goods Sold or Expense type). It is the account used to record the cost of the part when it is sold. You will only have a cost if you purchased the item in Total Office Manager. Normal accounting rules still apply.

Parts – Asset Account: This comes from your Chart of Accounts list (Other Current Asset type). It is the inventory-asset account that holds the value of the part while it sits in stock. It applies only to Inventory parts, so it is disabled when you import parts as Non-inventory.

Parts sold to a specific customer (non-inventory): Check this when your non-inventory parts are purchased for specific jobs/customers rather than treated as general overhead. It marks the parts as purchased and assigns the COGS/Expense account so their cost can be job-costed.

Labor Accounts

Labor – Income Account: This comes from your Chart of Accounts list. It is the account used to recognize income derived from the labor portion of a task.

Labor – COGS/Expense Account: This comes from your Chart of Accounts list (Cost of Goods Sold or Expense type). It is the account used to record the cost of labor — used when the labor has a real cost (see the next option). Normal accounting rules still apply.

Labor performed by subcontractor/owner: Check this when the labor is done by a subcontractor or owner and therefore carries a cost. It marks the labor items as purchased and assigns the Labor COGS/Expense account so that labor cost is tracked.

Re-Import Behavior

When TOM already has the record, overwrite: Controls what happens when an imported task already exists in Total Office Manager (matched by its Flat Rate Plus key). Since normal accounting and TOM usage rules still apply, some fields may not be updated or changed.

• Always = update it every time;
• Never = leave the existing item untouched; Only if Flat Rate Plus is newer = update only when the online task was changed more recently than the TOM item;
• Only if Flat Rate Plus is older = update only when the online task is older.

On update, refresh – GL accounts: When an existing item is updated, this re-applies the Income/COGS/Asset accounts chosen above. Leave it unchecked to keep the accounts you may have already set in TOM. Changing the COA is not always possible – the same restrictions apply as if you were working in TOM.

On update, refresh – Pricing: When an existing item is updated, this re-applies the price and estimated cost from Flat Rate Plus Online. Leave it unchecked to preserve prices you’ve adjusted in TOM.

On update, refresh – Descriptions: When an existing item is updated, this re-applies the description from Flat Rate Plus Online (and the “common task” flag and internal-memo notes). Leave it unchecked to keep your own wording.

General Import Options

Keep dashes in part numbers: When checked, part numbers are imported exactly as they appear in Flat Rate Plus Online (e.g., RCC-FD430-060). When unchecked, the dashes are removed (e.g., RCCFD430060). We typically recommend you keep the dashes.

Use item vendor as preferred: When checked, if Flat Rate Plus Online supplies a vendor for a part, that vendor is set as the part’s preferred vendor in Total Office Manager (creating the vendor if it doesn’t exist).

Append item notes to description: When checked, any notes attached to a part in Flat Rate Plus Online are added to the end of that part’s description in TOM.

Append task notes to description: When checked, the task’s details/notes from Flat Rate Plus Online are added to the end of the group item’s description in TOM.

Create item categories: When checked, the item categories used in Flat Rate Plus Online are created in Total Office Manager (if they don’t already exist) and assigned to the imported items, so your catalog stays organized the same way.

Include trip / dispatch charge: When checked, the price level’s trip/dispatch fee is added to each task as a shared “Trip Charge” service line, so the dispatch fee is part of the task’s price.

Tips and Other Information

• Group Item Price Override: When group items are created from FRPO tasks, the items in that group have their ‘Override’ box checked to allow the import to use the price in FRPO. You can safely uncheck this or modify the price of any item.
• Deleting Imported Records: If you wish to delete any or all of the records you imported from FRPO, you can safely do so. Open the invoice item list and use the various filters to isolate the records you imported. For example, you might use Last Revised Date. Select as many records as you wish and delete them as you normally would in TOM. The same restrictions and safeguards apply as if you created them in TOM by hand.
• Re-Importing Is Safe: You can run the import as many times as you like. Each task is matched to what’s already in Total Office Manager by a hidden Flat Rate Plus key, so re-importing updates the existing group items instead of creating duplicates — even if you’ve renamed an item’s number or reworded its description. What gets refreshed on a re-import is controlled by the “When TOM already has the record, overwrite” setting and the “On update, refresh” checkboxes on Step 3.
• The Wizard Remembers Your Settings: After your first import, the wizard saves the web address, API key, account selections, and all of the Step 3 options for that company. The next time you open it, those choices are already filled in, so routine re-imports take just a few clicks.
• Shared Parts and Labor: A part or labor line that appears in many different tasks is created only once in Total Office Manager and then reused by each group that needs it. This keeps one master cost and description for every part. Keep in mind the flip side: if you edit a part’s cost, description, or accounts, the change applies to every group item that includes that part — which is usually what you want, but worth knowing before you edit.
• The Trip / Dispatch Charge Is Shared Too: When “Include trip / dispatch charge” is turned on, a single “Trip Charge” service item is created and added to every task that uses it. Editing that one item (or its price) affects all tasks that include the dispatch charge.
• Changing Price Levels Later: Each book is imported at the one price level you pick on Step 2. If you later want a different pricing tier, simply re-run the import for that book, choose the new price level, and make sure Pricing is checked under “On update, refresh.” The existing group items will update to the new prices.
• Active / Inactive Stays in Sync: If a task is marked inactive in Flat Rate Plus Online, it imports as inactive in Total Office Manager — and if you later deactivate (or reactivate) it online and re-import, the group item follows. This is a handy way to retire tasks across your whole catalog from one place.
• Common Tasks and Internal Memos: Tasks flagged as common in Flat Rate Plus Online come in with the “This is a Commonly Used Item” box checked, and anything in a task’s Internal Memo is copied into the group item’s Notes. Both stay in sync on a re-import as long as Descriptions is checked under “On update, refresh.”
• Identifying What You Imported: Imported records all share the date you ran the import and the user who ran it, and they’re filed under the categories that came from Flat Rate Plus Online. Any of these — Last Revised Date, Created By, or Category — makes a quick filter in the invoice item list for reviewing or deleting a batch. The Created By will be the name of the user who performed the import.
• Back Up First: As with any bulk operation, take a database backup before a large import. Imports are designed to be safe and re-runnable, but a backup means you can always return to a known-good state.
• One-Way and Authoritative: The import flows in one direction — from Flat Rate Plus Online into Total Office Manager — and Flat Rate Plus Online is the source of pricing. Changes you make to the group items in TOM stay in TOM; they are not sent back online, and they may be overwritten on a future re-import if the matching refresh option is turned on.
• If a Connection Test Fails: The Test Connection button on Step 1 reports where the problem is, not just that one occurred — whether this computer can’t reach the internet at all, can reach the internet but not the Flat Rate Plus Online website, or reaches the site but the API key is being refused. Read that message before calling support; it usually points straight at the cause (network/firewall vs. web address vs. API key).
• Audit Trail: The import will be recorded in the Audit Trail along with some basic information about what was imported.