Thank you for downloading this package of FileMaker II templates! I think you will be
pleased with what you find here. This package provides everything a small to mediumF
sized business needs to produce invoices, statements and aging reports on a regular basis. Please use the Custom menu to access information on the various things these templates will do before you actually beg
A Collection of FileMaker II Templates to Produce Invoices, Statements & Aging Reports
B
by
George E. Spicer
Rt. 2 - Box 170V
Let's Begin!I
and aging reports on a regular basis. Please use the Custom menu to access information on the various things these templates will do beforeG
you actually begin to use them. I recommend reading the topics in order, page by page, starting with this one.
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Let's Begin!I
As a FileMaker II user you know what a great database program it is. You also know that, because of its flat file nature, certain tasks are not as easy to perform in FileMaker II as in some of the relationaB
l database programs. This is especially true in the case of a billing database which needs to consolidate individual invoices into a monthly statement and which needs to gather data to produce an aging report.
This package of templates meets the challenge and offers an inexpensive way to handle your billing needs. Because of the difficulty and time involved in creating such a database application, I am offering this D
package of templates for a $25.00 shareware fee.
Please feel free to take this package on a test drive. You can create customer lists, produce invoices and print statements. In fact, you can do everything w
ith this package except produce an aging report, look at the field definitions or change the layouts in the Billing file. The Customer and Company Data files are not protected.Upon receipt of your shareware feeF
, I will send you the password allowing you full access to the Billing file. I'll also be happy to answer any of your questions about the templates so that you can modify them in any way you like. For a fee, I'
ll even modify the templates for you to meet your special needs. Please make your shareware fee checks payable to George E. Spicer and indicate whether you prefer to have the password sent to you via AOL or by HRregular mail. Press Comand Tab for next page;Shift Command Tab for preceding page.
Let's Begin!I
Here, in a nutshell, is what the templates do:
Provides a Customer file containing the names, addresses and phone numbers of all your customers. It automatically assigns account numbers and lets you prodB
uce an alphabetized printout of your customers. It even lets you decide how a name should be alphabetized. For instance, you can decide if an account named John Doe Inc. should appear in your customer printout
in the J's (for John) or the D's (for Doe) without having to enter an atrocious account name like Doe Inc., John. This file links to a billing file so that when creating an invoice, you need to enter only the D
customer's phone number or account number to have his full name and address appear automatically.
Allows you to produce invoices with up to 25 items for each invoice. You enter the Quantity and the Price
Each for the items and the total is automatically calculated. Sales tax, at whatever rate you set, is added. Full or partial payments may be posted. You may print a single invoice for one customer or a batch oF
f invoices for several customers at any time.
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Let's Begin!I
Statements which consolidate all the unpaid or partially paid invoices for your customers are created automatically. You may print all the statements for all of your customers each month without any addiB
tional work. The layouts for both statements and invoices are designed so that the customer's name and address will appear in the opening of a standard No. 10 "window" envelope, saving you the trouble and expe
nse of addressing your envelopes separately.
Upon payment of your shareware fee, you will receive the password which will allow you to age your accounts and produce an aging report. This report will showD
you how old each customer's balance is in Current, 30, 60, 90 and 120 Day categories. Total amounts due in each category are also shown.
Also upon payment of your ShareWare fee, you will receive the pa
ssword which allows you to change the layouts in the billing template. By altering the Invoice or Statement layouts, for instance, you could print invoices or statements on any pre-printed forms you might be uF
sing. You can also look at the field definitions and modify the program in any way you want for your specific needs.
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Set Up Company DataI
Some sample records are included in the Basic Billing templates to give you an idea of how the system works. Before you begin to use the templates for your own billing you will need to set up your own compan
y data. You'll probably want to get rid of the sample billing records, too.
Entering your company data is easy. Just open the Company Data file and replace the existing data with your own Company Name, AddreC
sses, and Phone Number. Be sure to enter the correct tax rate in that field.
The easiest way to get rid of the sample records in the Billing file is to open the file, make sure all the records are found by p
ressing Command G, then selecting Delete Multiple from the Edit menu. This must be done before you begin enterint your own records.
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Enter Customer DataI
To enter your own customer list, first open the Customer file and select Data Entry from the Custom menu (or press Command 1). You will notice that a couple sample records are included. Feel free to delete B
them.
To enter a new customer, press Command N (for new) and a new record will appear on the screen. The customer's account number will be filled in for you automatically. You need to enter the customer's
name (on the first line), followed by the first address line, the second address line, the city and state, zip code and finally the phone number. As usual, you will use the tab key to move between fields.
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A special feature has been built into this template which allows you to decide where you want the customer's name to to appear when you sort your list alphabetically. You indicate how a name is to be alphabet
ized by using the @ key. Here's how it works:
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Enter Customer DataI
Suppose you have a customer named John Doe Inc. If you want the customer to appear in the J's (for John) when you print a customer list, you simply enter John Doe Inc. in the name field. If, however, you B
want the name to appear in the D's (for Doe) you should enter the name in this fashion: John@Doe Inc. The @ symbol inicates that the record should be alphabetized by Doe Inc., rather than by John. The @ symbo
l will appear only on the name field in the data entry screen. It will not appear when you print out a customer list or when you call up this customer in the Billing file. You should enter the @ symbol without D
any space before or after it.
Here are some other examples:
NAME HOW IT WILL BE SORTED
First National Bank First National Bank
First@Na
tional Bank National Bank
First National@Bank Bank
To sort and print your customer list, select Print Customer List from the Custom menu or press Command 2.
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Create An InvoiceI
The billing process begins with the creation of an invoice. Start by opening the Billing file. Unless you know your customer's phone number or account number, you will also need to open the Customer file. (B
You can do this at startup, by clicking on the Customer file, shift clicking on the Billing file and then double clicking on either of the files.) With both the Customer and Billing files open, it's easy to swi
tch back and forth between them using the Window menu.
From the Billing File Custom menu, select Create Invoice (or press Command 1). Press command N (for new) to create a new record. Notice that an invoiceD
No. is automatically entered, as is the current date. If you know the customer's phone number, tab to the Phone field and enter the number. The account number and address data will be brought in .
If you d
on't know either the customer's phone or account number, switch to the Customer file by selecting it from the Window menu. Use FileMaker's find feature (Command F) to find your customer by name, or simply scrolF
l through the list. When you locate the proper customer, select the phone number. If the phone number was entered without spaces (ie 123-4567) you can double click in the phone field to select it, otherwise c
lick to the left of the first character in the field and drag to the right to select it all. Press Command C to copy the number, then switch back to the Billing file by choosing it from the Window menu. --PleasH2e press Command Tab for next page on this topic.--
Create An InvoiceI
On the Create Invoice screen in the Billing File, tab to the phone number field and press Command V to paste in the customers phone number. When you press the Tab key again, the customer's account number aB
nd address will be brought in automatically. On the rare occasion when a customer has two or more accounts using the same phone number, just delete the account number on the Create Invoice screen (click in it a
nd press Shift Clear) then type in the proper account number and the correct address information will be brought in.
Once the customer's account and address data has been entered, tab to the Description fD
ield and enter a description of the item to be invoiced. Tab to the Qty. field and enter the quantity of the item to be invoiced. Tab to the Price Ea. field and enter the cost for each unit. When you press the
Tab key, the total price will be calculated automatically and the Sub Ttl, Tax, Total and Balance fields at the top, right of the screen will be updated as well. You may continue tabbing down the list entering F
additional Descriptions, Quantities and Prices Each. When finished, click in the Payment field (upper right screen) and enter any amount paid. The Balance field will reflect this payment when you press the Tab
key.
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Print StatementsI
Printing statements is the easiest part of the billing process. There really is nothing for you to do but make sure your printer is turned on and then select Print Statements (or press Command 3) from the C
ustom menu on the Billing file.
The FileMaker template, on the other hand, has quite a bit to do during this process but it does it all automatically. Here's what takes place:
First the billing fileC
is examined and all invoices with balances greater than 0 or less than 0 (for credit balances) are separated from the rest. Then this group of accounts is sorted by customer account number and invoice number.
Then all of the invoices belonging to a particular customer are located and the current amounts due from the individual invoices are totaled. Finally, the statement itself, (including the details of the unpaid Eminvoices) is printed.
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Aging The AccountsI
Aging is the process of placing customer balances into the following categories: Current, 30 days past due, 60 days past due, 90 days past due and 120 (or more) days past due. The aging report is an essentiB
al business tool. It not only shows you the status of each customer's account, but also gives you the total amounts due for all customers in each of the categories.
This billing template splits the aging pr
ocess into two parts: aging the balances and printing the report. Both processes are very easy to do, since the template does all of the work.
To age the accounts, select Age Accounts from the Custom menu iD
n the Billing file. (You will not be able to do this unless you have paid your shareware fee and have received the password.) When the aging screen appears, enter the date you want the aging report to be based
on. Normally this is the last day of the month, but it could any date you choose. You may want to get an up-to-date picture of your accounts receivable status several times during the month, so you can age the F
accounts and print an aging report as many times as you like. To enter the current date in the field, press Command -
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Aging The AccountsI
Once the date has been entered, press Command = and click on Replace when the next screen appears. When the watch stops spinning and the aging screen returns, the accounts have been aged. You can print the B
aging report simply by selecting Print Aging Report from the Custom menu or by pressing Command 5.
While the aging and report printing process is quite easy to do, FileMaker has quite a task to perform. Fir
st, all of the invoices with balances greater than 0 or less than 0 (credit balances) must be found. Then each of the invoice dates has to be examined and compared to the aging date you entered. The amount due D
on the invoice has to be placed in the proper category. All of the invoices for a particular customer must then grouped and the totals for that customer in each aging category must be calculated. Finally, all o
f the balances in each of the categories must be totaled. Because of the amount of work FileMaker has to do to age the accounts, the process can take quite awhile if you have a lot of unpaid invoices. The time F
involved will depend on the type of Mac you are using as well as on how many unpaid invoices there are. The template was tested using a billing file with 2700 records, on a Mac SE with one meg of memory, and p
rinted on a LaserWriter II NT. The entire aging and report printing process took almost an hour, with the actual aging process accounting for about 45 minutes of the time.End of This Topic
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Print InvoicesI
You may print a single invoice, or a batch of invoices for a single customer or a batch of invoices for several customers based on a range of dates. The first step is to locate the invoice or invoices you B
want to print. You will work in the Billing file.
Begin at the Create Invoice screen (Command 1), then use FileMaker's "find" feature to locate those invoices you want to print. When the invoices have been
"found," choose Print Invoices from the Custom menu, or press Command 2.
Here are some ways you might want to find invoices for printing:
To print a single invoice (including one you might have just D
created): Press Command F (for find), click in the No. field and enter the invoice number. Press the return key and that particular invoice will be isolated from the rest. Press Command 2 to print it. If you w
ant, you can use the Copy and Paste functions to help with this process. Here's how: Locate the invoice on the Create Invoice screen and double click in the No. field and press Command C. Press Command F, clickF
in the No. field and press Command V, then return.
You might want to produce a batch of invoices based on a range of dates. To do this, start at the Create Invoice screen and press Command F. Click in the
date field and and type in the beginning date (ie 1/1/90) followed by ... and then the ending date (ie 1/31/90). Your entry would look like this: 1/1/90...1/31/90. Press the return key.
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Print InvoicesI
The group of invoices within this date range will be isolated and you can print them all by selecting Print Invoices from the Custom menu (or by pressing Command 2).
Here's how to print a batch of inB
voices for a single customer within a range of dates: Working from the Create Invoices screen, press Command F then click in the Acct. No. field and enter the customer's account number. Press Command N, then cl
ick in the Date field and enter the ending and beginning date ranges (ie 1/1/90...1/31/90). Press return and this group of invoices will be isolated from the rest. To print them, press Command 2.
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Let's Begin!
Let's Begin!
Let's Begin!
Set Up Company Data
Set Up Company Data
Enter Customer Data
Enter Customer Data
Create An Invoice
Create An Invoice
Print Invoices
Print Invoices
Print Statements
Print Statements
Aging The Accounts
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