Custom Fields and Serial Numbering

Dear Lubos,

I am using Manager for my business and implemented dated based numbering system as you can see in snapshots attached. My concern is there is often 2 or 3 types of dates in transactions specially in my case where in field sales, the salesman will make sales invoice and to enable him to invoice there and then, the serial number is like 17 (year) 10 (month) 11 (date) 01 (Serial number) AHS (salesman short code) so it becomes “17101101AHS”.

End of day or within next 1-2 days, the summary comes to finance for posting in system so there is an actual transaction date (the date salesman did transaction with customer or generated manual invoice / delivery order in field sales), posting date (entry in Manager once documents come to Finance) and often a document number or any other reference number (any other serial number necessary).

Problem is if I enter 17101101 and 17101102 today, then next week, salesman says there is 1 invoice which he did not submit to finance earlier then I have to go back and look what was the last number for 11 October sales so that I can make the new invoice as 17101103 accordingly. This can happen 2 days later again and will pile up with time making it a mess.

This numbering system was adopted to enable decentralized invoice generation at salesman level as Finance function is basically not set up yet and it is more sales oriented start up with weekly bulk data entry in Manager software for financials.

To avoid the mess due to back dated pending entries, is it possible to enable auto numbering in CUSTOM FIELDS so I can designate it like “Posting Date” or “Document date” and continue with current date based numbering without having to look back at last used serial number for the previous days. Can this be done?

Further, can you MAKE CUSTOM FIELDS APPEAR IN EVERY SYSTEM SCREEN, DOCUMENTS AND REPORTS for the respective heads as shown in images below? That way, no matter when entry is posted, when document is submitted, whether it is back dated entry or whatever situation, I can track and assign different tracking numbers to custom fields and set them to generate automatically for new document.

It’s not currently possible to do this - there actually isn’t even an integer field type. The only field types available for custom fields are:

  • Single line text
  • Paragraph text
  • Drop-down list
  • Image

In the past, some columns have been removed from screens to reduce clutter.

You can enable custom fields to appear on some screens using the “Show custom field as a column” option – but I suspect you’re already aware of this.

why not utilize the automatic numbering for invoices?
to identify the salesman, create custom fields with default drop-down names. this way you do not have to worry about atleast the salesman code in invoice and just filter the invoice number which has reference to date in your case.

Thanks Shane for letting me know that show as column will actually show the custom field in system screen. Just to confirm, is there any way to show it in the reports also?

I was thinking it might show another column in the invoice (like we tick discounts to show them as a column) but I was misunderstanding its use. This is going to be really helpful I can now track two reference numbers for one transaction and separate posting date from transaction date as I was hoping to do as anyway my numbering system requires manual typing.

Thanks for feedback. Good idea to show salesman in drop down menu. However, as I said, cannot use automatic numbering because salesman making manual invoice in field so he is not aware what serial number to give at that time, that’s why we went for date based format so his first invoice of today will be 17101101 and second invoice will be 17101102 and AHS short code will be the identifier to prevent duplication of invoice numbers in system and documents. I can now add posting date in custom field based on Shane’s input that will differentiate on late submitted invoices no matter which day they come after that actual sale.

Is there any way to move custom fields to top right of the invoice where the invoice date and invoice number comes so during data entry do not have to scroll down every time for input in the custom field?

Also, any way to expand the size of field to show full figures for the invoice as my numbering format is a bit long as you can see the issue in screenshot.

image

You can’t change where they’re located on the edit form.

You can change where they’re located on the printed invoice, but you have to switch to a custom invoice layout for this - and you may need to consult with a local IT professional if you’re not familiar with HTML / Liquid syntax, to do this.

This is what the size option is for, when creating a new custom field:

51 pm

You can’t change the width of built-in fields, however. So the invoice number field cannot be made wider.

this is not possible at user level. the underlying form design has to be modified to make this possible and this will be possible only by the Manager development team.

Thanks for clarification. Quick responses appreciated from @ShaneAU and @sharpdrivetek.