Invoicing using Access

[Kathryn]

Hi

I am fairly new to Access - but totally sold on the possibilities and am
well on the way up the learning curve.

What I need to do pretty quickly is work out how to raise an invoice - one
was built for us but it doesn't seem to work :-( Rather than get the person
back to re-do it, I thought it would be better to learn the process so that
we can create our own in future.

We are using Acess 2007 with Windows XP Pro
Most of the information is in one table called Billing.

We need to include:
Hire of Centre (optional) +
Number of people * cost per person
Less deposit paid (optional)
Total

I have created queries/ reports/ forms, etc and am pretty comfortable with
layout and so on from other programs ... it's getting the calculation to work
that is the challenge.

If someone could offer a step-by-step how to - or point me in the right
direction, I'd be very grateful!

Many thanks in anticipation

 

[Kathryn]

PS I have created a simple report that does what I need to have on the
invoice - but looks like a table. Very neat and useful for our own records -
but not an invoice

 

[Mark Andrews]

You could purchase my $99.95 CRM Template it has Invoicing forms that you
could steal the code from and make minor modifications if needed. The
Access2007 version is a very nice template as a starting point for lots of
projects.

I based it off the invoice functionality in Quicken.

In general to make it work you need to have:
Basically linked form and subform with calculations to add up subforms lines
and show total on parent form.
tblInvoice
tblInvoiceLine
tblProduct for products choosen on tblInvoiceLine (invoice lines). Products
can be something generic like "Consulting"
so on each line you pick a product and then enter qty, description, price
and taxable Y/N. The products table supplies default
prices and descriptions, but they can be overwitten.

In the Invoice report you do more logic in the query itself.

I also give away (with purchase of the the CRM template) another CRM
template designed specifically for Access2007 (similar to the CRM features
in my donation software).

HTH,
Mark Andrews
RPT Software
http://www.rptsoftware.com
http://www.donationmanagementsoftware.com

 

[John W. Vinson]

You could purchase my $99.95 CRM Template it has Invoicing forms that you
could steal the code from and make minor modifications if needed. The
Access2007 version is a very nice template as a starting point for lots of
projects.

Mark, I sure hope you're not going to follow Steve Santus' lead.

http://www.microsoft.com/library/gallery/components/wn/3/locales/help/help_en-US.htm#RulesofConduct

Rules of conduct

Advertising/Solicitation: These communities were created as a forum for
providing peer-to-peer assistance on Microsoft products and services. **We ask
that you refrain from posting advertisements or solicitations that do not
pertain directly to the intended use and purpose of the newsgroup or chat.**

I see your point that the OP could take code from your hundred-dollar
example.... but she could take code from others' free advice too.

 

[John W. Vinson]

PS I have created a simple report that does what I need to have on the
invoice - but looks like a table. Very neat and useful for our own records -
but not an invoice

Open the Report in design view and use the Report Layout view tools to make it
look however you see fit. The wizard isn't really very bright and certainly
doesn't know how *your* business wants your invoices to look!

No code or query knowledge should be needed to do this, if it's just the
layout of the report.

Here are some free resources that might help:

Jeff Conrad's resources page:
http://www.accessmvp.com/JConrad/accessjunkie/resources.html

The Access Web resources page:
http://www.mvps.org/access/resources/index.html

Roger Carlson's tutorials, samples and tips:
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/

A free tutorial written by Crystal:
http://allenbrowne.com/casu-22.html

A video how-to series by Crystal:
http://www.YouTube.com/user/LearnAccessByCrystal

MVP Allen Browne's tutorials:
http://allenbrowne.com/links.html#Tutorials

 

[Mark Andrews]

Please don't lump me in with Steve! I have hundreds (maybe thousands) of
posts where I only help people with free advice. This person asked about
Invoicing so I mentioned one way would be to buy source code I sell that has
an Invoice form and report. I also in general described the tables needed
and approach to design an invoice form (if they opt for building instead of
buying). I guess I thought that was ok?

It sounded like this individual would need specific code examples of an
Invoice form. They could download my code and try it out for free to see an
Invoice form in action. Yes it's not the perfect solution because it's not
free and doesn't do exactly what they wanted, but it was the closest thing I
knew of to a solution to their question. Probably a 5 minute tweak to add
in the concept of an up front deposit (or no tweak if they just use the
comments section to mention the deposit). They also get built in searching
and filtering of invoices with my solution.

Since my code already does some of the trickier things mentioned by Ken
Sheridan I guess I still feel my post helps more than hurts?
I understand it's close to the line on the rules of conduct. It's not like
I said "give me a call I'll build it for you at a reasonable rate like Steve
does". I refer people to third party products all the time, this one just
happened to be my third party product. My intention was just to help this
person out. I'll try and keep mentions of products to a minimum.

As a penalty for my bad newsgroup behavior I am willing to throw together an
Access2007 example that does Invoicing for free and send it to Kathryn.
Just contact me if you are interested. That invoice example in Northwind
might be worth looking at as well? I forgot about that one.


--
Mark Andrews
RPT Software
http://www.rptsoftware.com
http://www.donationmanagementsoftware.com

 

[George Hepworth]

Dude, you are aware that these forums are not here to help you sell your
products, are you not?

Please be more careful in the future.

 

[John W. Vinson]

Please don't lump me in with Steve!

My apologies, Mark. I was out of line.

 

[Mark Andrews]

Understood. Lady was looking for source code to do an Invoice form/report,
just thought it would make sense to point out
one option to get to her goal. I tried to describe the approach needed if
she wants to build it herself.

However, I did do a little too much "selling" in my description. My bad.
If you noticed I did decide to just give her the
source code (if she wants it), an offering to appease the access forum gods
if you will. Also an extended offer to help outside of a
simple newsgroup post.

Mark

 

[GP George]

Yes, and I apologize for piling on. I realized after I had hit "Send" that
you'd already responded.
George

 

[Kathryn]

Many thanks to everyone - this was all really helpful... Still on the
learning curve but getting there!

 

[Mark Andrews]

My offer still stands if you want some free Access2007 code for Invoicing.
I would have to give you the entire database to look at.

Mark Andrews
RPT Software
http://www.rptsoftware.com
http://www.donationmanagementsoftware.com

 

[De Jager]

Hi

I am fairly new to Access - but totally sold on the possibilities and am
well on the way up the learning curve.

What I need to do pretty quickly is work out how to raise an invoice - one
was built for us but it doesn't seem to work :-( Rather than get the
person
back to re-do it, I thought it would be better to learn the process so
that
we can create our own in future.

We are using Acess 2007 with Windows XP Pro
Most of the information is in one table called Billing.

We need to include:
Hire of Centre (optional) +
Number of people * cost per person
Less deposit paid (optional)
Total

I have created queries/ reports/ forms, etc and am pretty comfortable with
layout and so on from other programs ... it's getting the calculation to
work
that is the challenge.

If someone could offer a step-by-step how to - or point me in the right
direction, I'd be very grateful!

Many thanks in anticipation

 

[joelgeraldine]

;;v;,,;,v