Sage 50 Customer Account Reference

In Sage 50 Accounts, the official guidance for the Customer Account Reference field (up to 8 characters) is to use alphanumeric characters only (letters A-Z and numbers 0-9).

While the software may technically allow you to type or paste certain symbols into the field, doing so is highly discouraged because they are considered "illegal characters" during data imports and can cause critical system errors.

Characters That Typically Work (But Are Risky)

If you are manually entering data and not planning to import/export or integrate with other software, the following characters often "work" within the interface, though Sage recommends replacing them:

Hyphen (-): Often accepted in manual entry, but can cause issues in third-party reporting tools or older integrations.

Underscore (_): Generally functions similarly to the hyphen but may be rejected by certain import modules.

Forward Slash (/): Sometimes used for complex references but is known to cause errors in some export formats.

Characters That Cause Errors

You should strictly avoid these characters as they are known to trigger "Illegal Account Reference" errors:

Spaces: Not allowed in account references.

Mathematical Symbols: +, =, *, %.

Currency & Special Symbols: $, @, #, &, ^, ~, |.

Punctuation: ,, ., :, ;, ?, !, ", '.

Brackets: (, ), {, }, [, ].

Directional Brackets: <, >.

Backslashes: \ (Often has a special meaning in Sage's reporting code).

Important Constraints

Permanence: Once you save a record with a specific reference, it cannot be changed using standard Sage tools.

Import Errors: If you attempt to import a file containing any of the special characters listed above in the A/C Ref column, the import will likely fail with a "non alpha-numeric characters" warning.