Once you've connected Dext to Sage 50 UK, you can publish costs, sales, and expense claims directly from Dext. If you haven't set up the connection yet, see How to connect Dext to Sage 50 UK. Published items appear in the Transactions tab in Sage 50 and under each supplier or customer's Activity section.
Important: Admin users, including accountants and bookkeepers accessing a client account, can publish by default. Standard users need additional publishing permissions. See Roles and permissions in Dext for more details.
Before you publish
Before publishing, make sure:
The item is in Ready status
The Dext Connect App is running on the computer used to set up the integration - see What is the Dext Connect App? for more details
To publish an item, open it in Dext and select Publish at the top of the item detail page, or select items from the inbox and use the Publish action.
Note: Auto-publish is not supported for Sage 50 UK - items must be published manually. To automate how items are coded before publishing, see Rules and automation in Dext.
Publish costs
Cost items can be published to Sage 50 UK as a Purchase Invoice, Bank Payment, Cash Payment, or Visa Payment. The default destination is Purchase Invoice. You can change the destination per item using the Publish to dropdown in the item detail page, or set a default for all cost items in Business settings > Connections > Manage > Settings.
Purchase Invoice
Purchase Invoice is the default publishing destination for cost items. How the item publishes depends on the Paid toggle:
Unpaid items publish as a single Purchase Invoice (PI) in Sage 50.
Paid items publish as two linked transactions: a Purchase Invoice (PI) and a Purchase Payment (PP). The PP uses the bank account nominal linked to the payment method selected in Dext. The PI and PP are linked to each other in Sage via Payment Allocations.
Bank Payment, Cash Payment, and Visa Payment
Bank Payment, Cash Payment, and Visa Payment each publish as a single transaction in Sage 50 - there's no separate Purchase Payment created. These destinations are always paid.
The transaction type in Sage depends on the destination selected:
Bank Payment publishes as a Bank Payment (BP)
Cash Payment publishes as a Cash Payment (CP)
Visa Payment publishes as a Credit Card Receipt (VR)
The nominal used for the transaction is the bank account linked to the payment method selected in Dext. The payment method must be linked to a bank account of the matching type - for example, a Cash Payment requires a payment method linked to a Cash account.
If the types don't match, Dext shows a warning, and the item can't be published until a compatible payment method is selected. See How to link a payment method to a bank account for more details.
Publish sales
How a sales item publishes to Sage 50 depends on its type. The Publish to field is greyed out for all sales items - there's no destination to select.
Sales Invoice publishes as a Sales Invoice (SI) in Sage 50. It can only be published as unpaid.
Sales Receipt publishes as a Bank Receipt (BR) in Sage 50. A payment method linked to a bank account is required - see How to link a payment method to a bank account. Sales Receipts are always published as paid.
Sales Credit Note publishes as a Sales Credit Note (SC) in Sage 50. It can only be published as unpaid.
Note: For Sales Credit Notes, the Document Reference is not published to Sage. Sage receives the Item ID in the Reference field instead.
Publish expense claims
Expense claims publish to Sage 50 following the same logic as cost items with line items. The claim itself maps to the parent Purchase Invoice in Sage, and each item within the claim publishes as a separate line in the Item Line Details of that PI - and as its own separate PI in the Transactions list.
The following claim details map to the parent PI in Sage:
Claim description → Description
Claim owner → Account
Reference - empty (no document reference for claims)
Each item within the claim carries its own category, department, project, and image link across to Sage.
Paid and unpaid behaviour follows the same rules as cost items - unpaid claims publish as PI only, paid claims publish as PI and PP.
Line items
If an item in Dext has line items, each line item publishes as a separate transaction in Sage 50 - with its own nominal code, description, department, and project from Dext. Opening any of the individual transactions in Sage shows the full grouped Purchase Invoice with all line items in the Item Line Details section.
If the item is marked as paid, each line item generates its own Purchase Payment (PP) in addition to its Purchase Invoice (PI).
Where to find published items in Sage 50
All published costs and sales items appear in the Transactions tab in Sage 50. You can also view items published against a specific supplier or customer by going to that supplier or customer's record and selecting Activity.
Field mapping
The table below shows how fields in Dext map to fields in Sage 50 UK on publish.
Dext | Sage 50 UK |
Supplier / Customer | Account |
Document Reference (if filled) | Reference - costs and Sales Invoice only |
Item ID (if Document Reference is empty) | Reference - costs and Sales Invoice only |
Item ID | Reference - Sales Credit Note always |
Date | Created on |
Due Date | Due on - Purchase Invoice, Sales Invoice, and Sales Credit Note only |
Description | Description / Details |
Project | Project Ref. |
Department | Department |
Total Amount | Net |
Tax Amount | Tax |
Tax Code | T/C |
Image (if Image Sharing is on) | Ex. Ref. (as a link - copy and paste into a browser to view) |
Default Cost Code (set in Dext Connect) | Cost Code |
Image sharing: Dext cannot send PDF attachments to Sage 50 directly. If Image Sharing is turned on in Business settings > Exports, a link to the item image is sent to Sage 50 in the Ex. Ref. field. To view the image, copy and paste the link into a browser.
Due Date: The Due Date field only publishes for Purchase Invoice, Sales Invoice, and Sales Credit Note. It doesn't publish for Bank Payment, Cash Payment, Visa Payment, or Bank Receipt.