AccountsMate – Linking to RDA Company

The Issue

AccountsMate uses ODBC to link to Sage 50 companies. A company record is held in the AccountsMate configuration for the organisation for each company connection and contains the ODBC connection. This works fine when the data is stored on the same area on one machine even if that is shared across a local area network because we can use the same path or UNC path to reference the data path in the ODBC connection string for that company.

However, if the Sage Remote Data Access (RDA) is used to allow remote users to access the Sage data this can cause an issue. Because, by default when you set up an RDA connection to a company, Sage takes the next available data folder (by number e.g. C:\ProgramData\Sage\Accounts\2022\Company.004). This may not be (and is unlikely) the same on each PC that has access to the RDA data. So AccountsMate can not have one consistent company connection record in its configuration.

To get over this there are a number of methods:

1. Create the same path on each pc for the RDA company. There is an option to override the folder name used in RDA when you set it up. Create one that indicates the name of the company so that the folder is the same on each RDA pc. This takes extra setup in RDA and may not be feasible if companies are already set up.
2. Create a company connection record in the AccountsMate configuration for each pc connection to each company. This can be confusing as there will be multiple company records in AccountsMate and the user will need to use the correct one for their pc.
3. Create “symbolic links” in Windows to the company data paths.

The first two methods above can be done following the relevant documentation for Sage RDA or AccountsMate and as they have issues as outlined in italics we will not be covering them further here but will focus on option 3 which is the recommended method and should work in all  cases.

Solution – Create Symbolic Links in Windows

This method uses Windows symbolic links to create a symbolic folder name linked to the company data folder on the pc. The symbolic link  name and path should be the same on each pc and point to the company data path on that pc (which maybe different on each pc).

To do this,

On each PC:

1. Go to a common area on the pc e.g C:\ProgramData\Sage\Accounts (i.e. the Sage 50 root data folder)
2. At a Command Prompt (ran as administrator), create a symbolic link (e.g. SageLocalDemoData below) to the company data path required (e.g. \ProgramData\Sage\Accounts\2022\DemoData\ACCDATA below) – sample command below:
   mklink /d SageLocalDemoData \ProgramData\Sage\Accounts\2022\DemoData\ACCDATA

In AccountsMate Configuration – Company Maintenance add the symbolic link to the Connection. e.g.