Vendor Data of Automotive
A/C & Cooling System Parts

Please send comments, corrections and additions to: PParish@delanet.com

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What Vendors Supply Data: When I set up my point of sale program I had to enter part numbers, order points, and prices for ever item I had in stock. Now many vendors will supply you with the information off their price sheet on diskette(s). I receive a disk from Four Seasons, Gates and Modine with their current part numbers and prices once or twice a year. I will add any other vendors to this list as I become aware of their data being available.

Four Seasons: Four Seasons
Four Seasons supplies a full line of replacement air conditioning parts. I think it is the best air conditioning line available.
They supply their price informatin in an ASCII text file with fixed length fielded records. They provide a memo with the layout (format) of their data. The memo has a record format that describes the length, content and position of each field within the records.
The Four Seasons text file layout.

Gates Rubber Co.: Gates supplies belts, hoses, thermostats, gaskets, radiator caps and various other related products.
They supply their price informatin in an ASCII text file with fixed length fielded records. They provide a memo with the layout (format) of their data. The memo has a record format that describes the length, content and position of each field within the records.
The Gates price text file layout.

Modine: A supplier of automotive radiators, heaters, and cores.
Modine provides diskette(s) that have Excel XLS files on them for the different category of parts they have. They have a separate XLS file for passenger car cores, completes, condensers, and their heavy duty lines.

What Can You Do With The This Data: If you have a point of sale program that imports, you could import data rather than having to manually type it in. The format that a program uses to import or export is determined by the company that writes the program. I use a point of sale program called "The General Store". It allows for data to be imported into it and exported from it.

What Format Does The General Store Use: The format for the import and export is a comma separated value text file (*.csv). The text file has to be in an exact format, see information on text files and the format below.
The General Store Import Format
Text File Information
Note:
The General Store offers a free evaluation copy that can be down loaded from the internet.
Link To The General Store Site
It only allows you to have 10 inventory items in it. So if you want to try the import, only import a small number of records not exceeding 10 total. For more information on The General Store click the link below.
The General Store Review
For other Point of sale programs click below.
Point of Sale Software

How I Change Data To The General Store Format: I use QBasic, The Program File Editor (shareware), and Excel to change the data from the vendors format to The General Store format. I keep a sheet of the vendors format and The General Store import format in front of me as I organize the data. I use the *.csv (comma separated value) file format while I work on the data because it opens in Excel and Access. I know every one will not want to go to the trouble or effort to convert their own data. You could pay some one to do this for you, in fact some software point of sale companies do this for free. If any one has a need for the vendor data that I have please E-mail me. Also I have cross references available for Four Seasons, and Modine. The Four Seasons cross reference took me all winter last year to create. I used every cross reference I could find and then evaluated the differences. The Four Seasons cross references to Delco, Everco and Murray. The Modine Cross references to Go Dan, Delco and CSF. I got this information from the Modine, Go Dan , Delco and CSF catalogue. They are intended for cross references purposes only.

PParish
70 North West St.
Dover, DE 19904
DATE: Jan. 21, 1997
E-mail address: PParish@delanet.com/