How To Setup Invoice Numbering

Collect! has the capability to automatically number your invoices as they are generated. Below are the steps required to activate this feature.

Requirements

You have applied at least one payment transaction to a debtor.

A user ID and Signon Password to use that will give you access rights to make these changes. By default, operator OWN will have these rights.

Ability to use Windows Explorer to find and open a text file.

Knowledge of the drive and folder where your working Collect! is installed.

Step One

If you have previously generated statements, then you can go to Step Two. If you have never generated statements before, just follow the instructions below.

1. Sign into your Collect! database and go to the Main Menu or Work in Progress form.

2. Select PRINT from the top menu bar and a drop-down menu will appear.

3. Select MONTHLY REPORTS and a submenu will appear.

4. Select GENERATE STATEMENTS from this submenu and the GENERATE STATEMENTS AND INVOICES form will display.

5. Leave the field CLIENTS WITH BILLING PERIOD as is.

6. Notice the words DATE RANGE, select the CALENDAR ICON to the right of the FROM field and a calendar will display.

7. Click on the top left (<<) button to move the year back a few years. This is just to insure that we capture some transactions.

The invoices we create will be deleted without any harm after we have completed this setup.

8. Click the OK button on the lower left of the Calendar form now to return to the GENERATE STATEMENTS AND INVOICES form.

9. Now the date FROM should display a date that is a few years back and the TO date can be left as is.

10. Now Click the OK button to the lower left and Collect! should generate at least one invoice.

If you are prompted to LOCK OTHERS for SPEED just select NO and continue. If Collect! reports 0 Invoices generated you have not yet put a transaction against a debtor. You will need to do this and begin from Step One again. If you do not know how to post a payment to a debtor, go to the Debtor form and press F1.

See Also:

- Payment Posting

11. If Collect! did generate one or more invoices proceed to Step Two.

Step Two

1. Sign into the Collect! database.

2. Select BROWSE from the top menu bar and a drop-down menu will appear.

3. Select STATEMENTS and a list of statements should appear. If you have not created your invoices yet, you will be prompted to create a new one. Refer to Step One above.

4. Click on ANY invoice that appears in the list and the actual INVOICE STATEMENT form will appear.

5. Near the top left you will see a field labeled COUNTER. Click into this field to make it active. It should turn light blue.

6. Press ALT F2 or right click in this field and select PROPERTIES from the pop up menu to display the ACCESS RIGHTS form. Note the NAME, there will be a number such as 02503 followed by Counter. The number is not important but the name Counter should be there or you may not be on the proper field. If not, click cancel and start Step Two again.

7. You MUST enter an ALIAS to the field before a counter will work. Let's click into the ALIAS field to make it active.

8. Enter any short name you would like.(eg: Inv. #)

9. Now look for the field on this ACCESS RIGHTS form named COUNTER.

10. Click this field to place a check mark in it.

11. Click OK to the lower left and we are ready to test.

12. Keep selecting the OK buttons until you are back to the Main Menu or your Work In Progress form and proceed to Step Three.

Step Three

Now we will re-generate to test that the counter is working.

1. Proceed to Step One if you have do not have real invoices previously generated. You may be prompted that there are invoices already - would you like to delete them?. Click YES to proceed.

2. If you have previously generated statements you may want to regenerate for just this month and just replace the invoices previously generated.

3. Once generated select BROWSE from the top menu and the drop-down menu will appear.

4. Select STATEMENT and a list of statements will display.

5. Click on ANY statement newly generated and you should see in the INV # field a number. This will increase as each invoice is generated.

That's all there is to it! If you would like to have a different number in this field, you will need to edit the counter file Collect! generates when you have the counter switch on a field. Proceed to Step Four to change this number.

Step Four

Collect! automatically increments a counter field by 1 for each record created. If you wish to start the numbering from a different number, we need to edit the number in the counter file Collect! has created for you.

1. Open your Windows Explorer and navigate to your working database folder. Open the MASTERDB folder and you will notice a new COUNTERS folder.

2. Open the COUNTERS folder and you should see a file named invoicestatementcounter.cnt.

3. Open the invoicestatementcounter.cnt with Notepad or any text editor.

4. With the file open you will see the last number used in the field on the record where you invoked the counter option.

5. Simply edit the number to one less than the number you wish to see when creating new records.

6. Save the file (as a text file) and exit out of Explorer.

Next time you create this type of record, the number will be incremented by one and the number will be written to this file.