RELIEF says my DAT file has invalid characters. How to fix it.
Letters, numbers and spaces. That is the whole rule for names and addresses.
When a RELIEF purchases or sales file will not validate, the cause is very often a name or address with a symbol in it: a dot, a slash, an ampersand.
The rules we use
- Only A to Z, 0 to 9 and spaces. Everything else goes.
- Capital letters.
&becomesAND, and#becomesNO..'and/are simply removed. Other symbols become a space.- Extra spaces are squeezed to one.
- A name is at most 50 characters. An address is two lines of at most 30.
Before and after
| As printed | In the file |
|---|---|
| ACME & SONS, INC. | ACME AND SONS INC |
| STRONG MEDIACORP GROUP INC. | STRONG MEDIACORP GROUP INC |
| G/F 21 STA. ISABEL ST. | GF 21 STA ISABEL ST |
| UNIT #4 ORTÍGAS AVE. | UNIT NO 4 ORTIGAS AVE |
| 12 FOLDS PH CORP. (RESTAURANT) | 12 FOLDS PH CORP RESTAURANT |
Find the exact line in seconds
- Open the free file checker.
- Drop in your DAT file. Nothing is uploaded; it is read in your browser.
- Every line with a bad character is listed, with the line number and the offending text.
- Fix the source list, make the file again, drop it in once more.
The same checker also catches header totals that do not match the lines, a file name whose TIN is not the one inside, and TINs that are not nine digits.
Why it happens
Receipts print names with dots, slashes and ampersands, and a free AI that reads receipt photos will copy them faithfully. The fix is not to read less carefully but to clean once, in one place, before the file is made. ClockIN does this step for you when it makes the DAT file.
Questions
Does RELIEF accept commas in a name?
We remove them. Fields in the file are separated by commas, so a comma inside a name is a risk we never take.
Do lower-case letters pass?
We write everything in capitals, the way the files that passed were written.
Will cleaning the name change what the BIR sees?
The file holds the cleaned name. The receipt keeps its own spelling; the TIN is what identifies the supplier.
Skip the hard part
Photograph the papers. ClockIN checks every line and makes the files.