basic invoiceing question

[Mike Hollywood]

Hi,
I am very new to Access, like I started reading a book on it Tuesday. I am
familiar with excel and use it a lot. A friend has a company and he wants
to automate invoicing. currently the secretary writes them by hand each
morning. There is about 30 invoices a day and a customer base of about 500.
I experimented with the templets that are in access 2003 but none of them
are for printing a simple invoice. He bought 100,000 pre-printed NCR
invoice paper to run through a dot matrix printer which I finally have
working. The printer that it, not the data base. There are 2 invoices per
8 1/2 by 11 sheet so I will be printing to 8 1/2 by 5 1/2. I'm sure there
is somewhere in there where you can define the paper perameters.

Is there a templete available for simple invoiceing around somewhere that I
can get? I spent some time on Microsoft's web site last night and reviewed
all the access templates there, but non were for just creating an invoice
from a table. This is a very basic thing I'm trying to do. Customer name,
product, date, and invoice number. I figured out how to make a table, and
make a form for the secretary to use to type in the customers.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[tina]

well, you're in the right newsgroup, at least. if the invoice data is in a
table, you would use a report to print the invoices. if you want two
invoices to print on one 8.5x11 sheet of paper, then you do not want to set
report margins to 8.5x5.5 - that will give you *one* invoice per sheet. base
your report on the table (or on a query that's based on the table) and, in
report design view, place the controls appropriately so the data will print
where you want it to on the invoice paper. make sure that the report area
*in design view* is no bigger than the 8.5x5.5 parameters, so that two
records will print on each sheet of paper.

suggest you invest in a basic Access manual. see
http://home.att.net/~california.db/tips.html#aTip2, and it wouldn't hurt to
read the rest of the tips, too, starting with #1.

hth

 

[~AMDT~]

Tina, Thanks for the reply. Mike

well, you're in the right newsgroup, at least.

hal-la-lu-ya! finally, something's right.

if the invoice data is in a
table,

It is, after reading more about it, I made another
table last night, so there are now two tables.
A customer table, and an order table and I related
them one to many using the auto number thing.
I also made a form for inputting data in to them.
i.e., two forms, one for each.

you would use a report to print the invoices.

ah ha! To me a report is a report and an invoice is an invoice
so I never thought to use a report as an invoice. That explains
a lot.

if you want two
invoices to print on one 8.5x11 sheet of paper, then you do not want to
set
report margins to 8.5x5.5 - that will give you *one* invoice per sheet.

It's perferated NCR paper, and each invoice blank uses half of
a 8 1/2 X 11 sheet. It's continuous feed so I thought the dimensions
of the invoice would equal half a sheet of normal paper because that's
what they are. So I'm wrong about that?

base
your report on the table (or on a query that's based on the table) and, in
report design view, place the controls appropriately so the data will
print
where you want it to on the invoice paper.

The above is exactly where I'm currently stuck. I'll work on it this
week end.

make sure that the report area
*in design view* is no bigger than the 8.5x5.5 parameters, so that two
records will print on each sheet of paper.

suggest you invest in a basic Access manual. see
http://home.att.net/~california.db/tips.html#aTip2, and it wouldn't hurt
to
read the rest of the tips, too, starting with #1.

Thanks for the link! I'm sorry this is so long and appreciate it very much
that you have taken the time to help me. One more thing...

Here's the sceanariao:

the phone rings, the employee takes the order, up comes the order form, in
goes the order data, and now it's time to print print the invoice.

What's the best way to print it? To make a report that calls the data just
put in,
or to do a query on the data just put in, and print the query?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[tina]

comments inline.

Tina, Thanks for the reply. Mike


hal-la-lu-ya! finally, something's right.


It is, after reading more about it, I made another
table last night, so there are now two tables.
A customer table, and an order table and I related
them one to many using the auto number thing.
I also made a form for inputting data in to them.
i.e., two forms, one for each.

umm, okay. sounds like you're moving in the right direction, anyway.

ah ha! To me a report is a report and an invoice is an invoice
so I never thought to use a report as an invoice. That explains
a lot.


It's perferated NCR paper, and each invoice blank uses half of
a 8 1/2 X 11 sheet. It's continuous feed so I thought the dimensions
of the invoice would equal half a sheet of normal paper because that's
what they are. So I'm wrong about that?

well, frankly, i don't know. i've never used a continuous feed printer for
an Access report, so i don't know if there's a different premise at work
from using a sheet-fed printer. i can tell you that for a sheet-fed printer,
you're working with a finite size of paper: 8.5x11. if you change the
margins of the report, you're changing the size of the space that's
available to print on a single sheet - if that makes sense. in other words,
if you set the margins for a 5.5 length, such as Top Margin 2.75" and Bottom
Margin 2.75", you're left with 5.5 inches right in the vertical middle of
the paper. or you could set margins at Top .25" and Bottom 5.25" (AFAIK, any
printer has a "built in" minimum margin, so nothing prints as running off
the edge of a page). so you're left with 5.5 inches at the top of the paper.
in either case, NOTHING gets printed on the space outside the margins. so if
you want *two* records (invoices) to print on a single page, you have to set
top and bottom margins as appropriate, add the margin amounts (.25", 1",
whatever), and subtract that from 11". then divide the remaining space by
two. that's how much space in the report *design* view that you can use for
a single record, so that two records will fit on one sheet of printed paper.

The above is exactly where I'm currently stuck. I'll work on it this
week end.


Thanks for the link! I'm sorry this is so long and appreciate it very much
that you have taken the time to help me. One more thing...

Here's the sceanariao:

the phone rings, the employee takes the order, up comes the order form, in
goes the order data, and now it's time to print print the invoice.

What's the best way to print it? To make a report that calls the data just
put in,
or to do a query on the data just put in, and print the query?

after entering data into a form, you must save the record to the table,
before you can print that data in a report. so you're *always* pulling the
data from a table. generally, you only need to use a query as a report's
record source - rather than a table - when you need to include data in the
report that's not available in a single table. whether you base the report
on a query or a table, the easiest way to include only the form's current
record in your report is to use a command button on the form to open (print)
the report, and put criteria in the OpenReport action in a macro or VBA
code. take a look at the OpenReport Action topic in Help.

hth

 

[~AMDT~]

tina, thanks again for helping. using the margins to
take up the slack did it. Brilliant!
The button worked like a charm.
Your the best.
Mike

 

[tina]

you're welcome

tina, thanks again for helping. using the margins to
take up the slack did it. Brilliant!
The button worked like a charm.
Your the best.
Mike