How to Create a Custom Template for Printing and Emailing
Custom reports have been added to Total Office Manager for ease in making customized Invoices and reports that reflect your company. You can use this same report builder to create Custom Invoices, Sales, Credits, and Estimates.
Custom Template orm Access
- From the main menu, select Customers |Invoice/Sale/Credit/Estimate List | Reports | Invoice Print Setup. From the print setup screen, click the Custom Styles drop-down and choose Add New.
- From an Invoice, select Menu | Print/Email Setup. From the print setup screen, click the Custom Styles drop-down and choose Add New.
Getting Started
To create your custom Invoice you simply need to know what information you want to appear where on the Invoice, how to get that information there and what you can and cannot do in the Custom Invoice designer.
For example; If you want your customer’s name to appear on the Invoice, you need to select the ‘Customer Phone’ field and drag it where you want it to be. Now, when you preview or print and Invoice using the Invoice template you created the customer phone number will appear where you wanted it.
Before discussing the various fields as they relate to information on the actual Invoice we will first cover the Custom Invoice template interface.
- Before diving in to create one, we highly recommend you study the default layout of a new Template and refer back to this Help Topic to help you understand why certain things are placed the way they are and how they work.
The Custom Invoice template in “Design View” (see Figure 2) The left side of the custom template (green arrow) consists of a list of fields which pull information from various parts of the actual invoice, all of which can be placed anywhere on the invoice and formatted individually. The right side of the window (red arrow) displays the properties and formatting categories for each component of the custom report. The top (blue arrow) shows the toolbar. The custom report template shows in the center pane.
The bottom right of the template window displays two buttons: Design and Preview (Figure 3). The “Design” button shows you the template as it is being modified. Selecting the “Preview” button will allow you to see the document in “Print Preview” without saving, that is, you can see how the Invoice will look with actual information from an actual Invoice. Toggling back and forth between these buttons is allowed (and recommended) during the Invoice modification process.
Sections
The Center Pane is broken down into sections. By default these sections are Page Header, GroupHeader1, Detail, GroupFooter1, and PageFooter. You are able to add additional sections as well as remove sections. All sections are collapsible and expandable. Items placed in a section are confined to that section and any manipulation to an item can only occur in that section.
Each section has its own properties (see the Properties section below for more information on properties). These properties control various functions related to each section and should generally be left alone. While you are free to edit and modify these properties, it is not recommended you do so unless you have knowledge of working with Active Reports.
Page Header
Information placed in the PageHeader section will appear at the top of every printed page. This means that if you print an Invoice or Estimate that is three pages long, the top of each page will contain the same information. This section is useful for:
- Company information, such as addresses and logos
- Customer information, such as names, addresses, and contact information
- Transaction information, such as transaction type (e.g Invoice) and number
- Column headers (read: labels) for information that will appear in the Detail Section.
Group Header & Group Footer
The GroupHeader and GroupFooter are lesser used sections as any information displayed here will appear below any information placed in the Detail section, creating an overlap of information. While it does have its uses, this is usually left blank or at its default. This section is useful for:
- WatermarksNote: When you create a New Custom Invoice, this section is populated by three images: Paid, Void, and In Progress. Based on the status of the transaction, one of these three images will appear when printing. Please take care when modifying or deleting these images. These are pre-programmed and these effects cannot be duplicated or recreated by users.
Detail
The Detail section serves a special purpose. This section should only be used for fields that include the word ‘Trans’, such as the ‘Trans Line Item’ field. All fields in this section will duplicate once for each line item on your Invoice, Sale, Credit, or Estimate. This means that while your Invoice may have 15 line items on it, you only need to place the Trans Line Item field once and when it prints its will display 15 different lines appropriate to your items. This applies to the Quantity field (Trans Line Quantity), Price fields (Trans Line Price), and all other line item related fields such as Serial Number, Description, and so on.
Page Footer
Information placed in the PageFooter section will appear at the bottom of every printed page. This means that if you print an Invoice or Estimate that is three pages long, the bottom of each page will contain the same information. This section is useful for:
- Customer Messages
- Disclaimers/Legal Information
- Contact Information
- Page Numbers
- Totals (e.g. Sales Tax, Subtotal, Customer Balances)
Usage
These custom reports allow changes to be made to the background color, additions of logos or graphics, and font styles and sizes to be changed. The separate elements of the report can also be moved. Essentially, the Invoice template can be formatted in a way that best suits the company information.
Step-By-Step
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- Before editing the custom Invoice, the first step is to determine whether the Invoice will include “Lines” or “No Lines”.
- From the menu select Templates | Lines or No Lines
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Review the template to determine what information defaults into the document. Adding a field to the template is easy as clicking and dragging the field box to the preferred location in the Invoice.
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Selecting to include a field in the Invoice from the Fields column will automatically display the appropriate information in the completed Invoice. For example, selecting “Customer Phone” from the Fields column and placing into the Invoice will show the words “Customer Phone” while in the “Design” view. Viewing the same revisions in “Preview”, however, will display the customer information associated with the corresponding field description, or the client’s actual telephone number.
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Review your changes in “Preview” view and go back to “Design” view to make any adjustments.
Below is a sample of a report in “Design” view. Note the usage of labels such as “Bill to Address” and “Work/Ship To Address”, as well as the Work Order Fields such as Trans: Bill Line 1 (which will be covered later in this topic).
Below is a sample of the report in “Preview” view, displaying the corresponding customer information for each field name in “Design” view. Notice that the date, number, Bill To and Work/Ship addresses are all complete with customer information. The name of the document, Work Order, has also replaced the “Trans Title” field found in “Design” view.
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Manipulating the size of a box simply requires clicking and dragging the box edges to the desired dimensions.
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This will not stretch the contents of the box but rather offer more room for content display.
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- Before editing the custom Invoice, the first step is to determine whether the Invoice will include “Lines” or “No Lines”.
- To add a picture or graphic to the Invoice, find and select the image icon on the toolbar. This selection will change your mouse cursor to a crosshair shape.
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Click the image icon on the toolbar and drag out the size of the image box preferred in the section of the Invoice you wish the image to be in. The box you draw is simply a placeholder which can be resized or moved later to suit the image and your needs.
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Inserting the image to the box requires returning to the Properties column to the left of the template. Make sure your image placeholder is selected, then locate the “Picture” option among the properties and select it.
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A gray square will appear to the right of the option (Figure 12). Click the box to open a browser window which will allow you to search for and select your image. Find the appropriate image and select the open button.
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There is a Line Wizard Tool on the Custom Report Writer. The icon for this Tool is listed as “Line Builder” on the Template Toolbar. The Line Builder can be used to build custom lines within the Detail section of any Custom Template.
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The cursor must be placed within the Detail section or the Detail Header must be selected before the Line Builder button can be selected to begin building lines.
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Enter the inch marker to select where the line is to be placed. A color and line style can also be selected. The offset selection allows you to make the line shorter than the end of the detail section, or longer than the detail section of the Template.
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Note: This tool will override the main Template selection of “Lines” or “No Lines”
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Toolbar and Button Definitions
The Custom Invoice document interface contains a number of buttons along the tool bar (top) and several of these have further customizable properties which are adjustable once you have created and selected an item in the document. These changeable properties appear on the right side of the screen.
| (Note: You can hover over each label to see an image of its related toolbar icon.) Select: The “Select” tool gives the ability to click on and drag a field box to another location in the document. (Right Clicking will produce a fly-out menu with further options.)Label: The “Label” tool will allow you to create a new label in the invoice. Labels typically include all field headers (e.g. PO #, Terms, Items, etc.)
Figure 14: Use labels to create field headers (Blue Arrows) that will designate what
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Properties
| The following section will cover all properties found within the Custom Invoice document when using items created using Toolbar Buttons (see Toolbar Buttons) or Invoice Fields (see Invoice Fields).
The following is a brief description of the available properties to help you understand their purpose. Modify these properties at your own risk.
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Invoice “Fields” Definitions
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The Fields section of the Invoice template (Figure 18) contains a list of 75 items (or fields) which when placed into a section on the Invoice will pull data from the related field on the actual Invoice transaction and place it into template field it belongs to.
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Tips
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Labels should be reserved for information that will appear on each Invoice. Labels only need to be entered once and the template will save the information for the next Invoice using the template. They are not based on information found in the database, like Text boxes.
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All boxes in the custom template can be moved and resized within their respective sections. Though boxes cannot be moved from one section to another by clicking and dragging, they can be copied and/or cut and pasted into a different section.
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To add additional sections (e.g. Group Footer 2), right-click and select “Insert”.
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To change font style or size the corresponding box must be selected.
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To select multiple boxes at one time, hold the Ctrl or Shift key while making your selections.
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To select all items in a section, hold the Ctrl or Shift key, and then click and drag the mouse cursor across the section.
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To select all items on a page, hold the Ctrl or Shift key, and then click and drag the mouse cursor across each section at a time.
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Place the mouse cursor over the toolbar icons to reveal the Tool Tip for the icons.
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Many toolbar icons mirror the properties in the right column of the custom template. In
some instances, changes to the Invoice can be made in the properties column rather than using the icons.
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All boxes can be resized by clicking on them to highlight and dragging the edges to the preferred location.
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When changing the background color of a box or a page, click on BackColor in the properties column and select a color. For the color change to take effect, click on BackStyle and change the condition to Normal.
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To change a previously selected color back to the grid default, simply change the BackStyle (in the properties column) option to Transparent.
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If a Field is added to the Invoice but no information is available in the database for that particular field for that customer, it will not be included in the Invoice.
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It is not necessary to include multiple fields for line items, such as Trans Line Item, onto the Invoice. All such fields placed into the Details section of the Invoice Template will produce a result for each line item on the invoice transaction.