Auto fill invoice

[Gingerbread Man]

Hi

I have a contact databse in filemaker 5.5

I am trying to set up an invoice database to create all my invoices from.

To save typing every invoice I wish to be able to select client from a pop-up list and their address and contact details automatically fill in from the corresponding fields in my contact database. This should be very easy but I can't seem to work it out. I think my brain's on the wrong side. anyone help? If there's a better way I'm open to options.

GBM

[mantral]

I have the same problem too... but I want the invoice to open as a word document so I could do some edits if necessary before printing it out.

thanks guys...

[bcooney]

You need to put the ContactID in the Invoice file. That will "relate" the two entities. Then you can display the Contact Info on the Invoice.

[bcooney]

This is really not recommended. The purpose of a database is to have a record of the invoice. If you edit data outside of the system, what do you really have in the database?

There's no reason your edits can't be done in FileMaker. What problems are you running into?

[Gingerbread Man]

Hi

Thanks for this I just don't know how to get the fields to fill with the information. What i'd like is to choose client from a pop up menu and the address fills automatically then type the job number and the job details fill automatically from job sheet. I'm quite a novice FM user but love what it can do, it just frustraites me that I can't get my head around how to do it. Could you gently explain how I might go about it if you have the time or email me an example if that's easier. Thanks. GBM

[bcooney]

Job details? What are they? Line items to the Job. A big text field on the Job?

I would suggest a good FM book, if not the manual. You're really asking basic questions and it'll take forever to get a system built thru forum q&a alone.

Otherwise, FM's site has a list of consultants, who do this for a living. Like me!

[Gingerbread Man]

Hey, we all have to start somewhere!!!

OK forget the rest, just help me with this.

My dadabase has fields Name, Company, Address, which I want to use on Invoice.

I have created a relationship from invoice to database where company=company

In my invoice I have created a pop up menu using values from Company field in database. When I select company in pop-up menu I want the name and address fields to fill with the name and address data from that record on the database. The name and address fields in the invoice are from the related database i.e. :Name :Address and it still doesn't work. I know I'm nearly there. I would appreciate a last push.

Thank you GBM

[The Big Bear]

gingerbread

Format the fields (address, City) to preform a lookup base on your company relationship.

Then when you chose a company the other fields would populate with the correct information

Lionel

Edited November 9, 2007 by Guest

[bcooney]

Didn't mean to put you off, sorry. It's just that a good read thru a FM book will give you the big picture, and this forum will help fill gaps. imho, learning FM thru the forum in bits and pieces would confuse me.

Anyway, put an ID key field in each table (file in FM5). So, Company would have __kP_CompanyID (key, primary). Set it to be an auto-enter serial, prohibit modification.

Then the relationship from Company to Invoices is Company:__kP_CompanyID to Invoices:_kF_CompanyID (key, foreign). Use a value list, if you want, to input the _kF_CompanyID on the Invoice. The value list would be from Companies and contain two fields, ID and Name.

Now that the tables are properly related, you can simply go thru the relationship from Invoice back to Company and get any fields that you want to display. No lookups needed.

You mentioned Jobs. I'm thinking, with the correct relationship setup, that you could have a button on the Job detail "Invoice" that creates an Invoice, pulling in the Customer that is related to the Job, and adds all the Job info that you want.

[Gingerbread Man]

YIPPEE – all working

Thanks everso.

I take your point about a book. Can you recommend one that I can delve in and out of rather than do a whole tutorial?

Thanks again

GBM

[Søren Dyhr]

imho, learning FM thru the forum in bits and pieces would confuse me

This is an excellent point made, although I would say that it's hard to come by a single book explaining this thoroughly, almost every book I could think about fall's in the ditch, by providing examples which can't be too generalized. The getting of the gist of things still have to reside on three-four pillars - forum topics, templates, books and experimentation, since formalized education hardly ever embrace other than microsoft products.

The dissection of templates dwnloaded in various sites, can't be underestimated though, but one single book have in my case substantiated these dissections - which is:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2002_May_28/ai_86392225

But it's designed for "intermediate users" requiring previous development experience to say the least. You have a problem with being on an earlier version, the sites with templates are likley to exhaust templates for your version, but you should still be able to find some here:

http://www.dwdataconcepts.com/

...and here:

http://www.databasepros.com/resources.html

Not to forget here as well:

http://www.nightwing.com.au/FileMaker/demos/demosFP5.html

--sd