tradecontrol-exports

ERP-driven data export library for Trade Control Ltd.

Overview

tradecontrol-exports provides a service layer that connects to the ERP database and generates downloadable documents for end users. It is consumed by the ASP.NET web application (tradecontrol.web) via a direct project reference, brought into that repo as a Git submodule (or subtree).

Features

• Export ERP data to Office XLSX
• Pluggable document handlers for additional formats
• Experimental native OpenDocument Spreadsheet (ODS) Cash Statement generator
• Integration with ASP.NET endpoints
• Clean separation of requirements and implementation

Current Status

• XLSX Cash Statement: operational and the current supported export path.
• ODS (Libre) Cash Statement: feasibility confirmed across the four synthetic company and sole-trader template scenarios. Native ODS files can be generated and opened by LibreOffice, but numerical parity and deployment issues remain; the route is experimental and must not yet be used for production financial reporting.
• ODS development is deferred while tax/accounts integration is the active priority. Future work will use one format-neutral Cash Statement model with thin XLSX and ODS renderers rather than maintaining two independent calculation engines.
• Packaging: internal only; no NuGet publishing. The ASP.NET repo vendors this repo and references the project directly.

The investigation findings, confirmed defects, recommended architecture, implementation phases, and release acceptance matrix are recorded in ODS Cash Statement Generation.

Integrating with tradecontrol.web

Git submodule

1. In the tradecontrol.web repo root:
   • git submodule add https://github.com/TradeControl/tradecontrol-exports.git src/TCExports
   • git submodule update --init --recursive
2. Open the web solution and add a ProjectReference to:
   • src\TCExports\src\TCExports.Generator\TCExports.Generator.csproj
   • Visual Studio: right-click web project > Add > Project Reference... > Browse... to the .csproj.
3. Commit the updated .sln, .csproj, and .gitmodules.

Configuration

• Provide the ERP connection string via ASP.NET configuration.
• Disable ODS features via a feature flag until reinstated.

Developer notes

• Build: Build Solution
• Local testing: TCExports.WebHarness remains a harness in this repo and is not deployed.

Roadmap (paused items)

• Extract a shared, format-neutral Cash Statement model while preserving XLSX behaviour.
• Reduce the existing Python ODS implementation to a renderer of that shared model.
• Qualify ODS for Accounts Mode using the four-fixture numerical parity and LibreOffice acceptance suite.
• Add CSV/PDF exporters through the document-handler contract.

License

Licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. See LICENSE for details.