Forms Design Service
One of the benefits of Simple Accounting is its adaptability. This includes the ability to set up the system to print any forms in almost any format you choose. This section describes how this is done, and the limitations.
Although you can use the standard forms we include, virtually all our customers take advantage of this service for at least a few forms. Why? Your forms say a lot about your company. It only makes sense to have them look exactly the way you want them to!
Simple Accounting ships with a separate file containing the design of each printed and faxed form used by the program, such as purchase orders, invoices, statements, etc. We can easily modify this file to customize the positioning and field contents of each form to your taste. We can specify what data will be placed on the page and where it will be placed, as well as rules, boxes, images (such as your logo!) and shading.
There is a charge for each form we customize. Our current rate is $75.00 per form, however complex forms may cost more. Please contact us for current rates. You are free to use any combination of standard forms and customized forms. We'll need the following information from you in order to provide this service:
| Artwork | Simply send us several samples of the forms you wish to use, or a replica of any examples proposed to you by your forms dealer. Please do not send us facsimiles or photocopies as these tend to have distortions which affect our ability to determine the correct positioning of text on the page. |
| Images | If you are sending images, these must be in a standard bitmapped format; either BMP, WMF, or TIF. Do not send EPS files. Also, there will be any hard copy images that need to be scanned! |
| Presentation | You should also include information regarding how data should
be presented on the form: The formatting of each field, including length in characters, positioning, type size and style, all caps, bold, italics, etc.A description of each field and its purpose. |
| Printer Type | We'll need to know what printer make and model these will be used with. |
You will receive the new file by disk or e-mail (your preference) within ten working days, plus instructions on how to install it (its easy!)
IMPORTANT NOTE:
You may need to order separate forms design for printing or faxing. In other words, forms designed for printing may need to be changed in order to fax properly. For example, you may wish to use a pre-printed purchase order form and have us design a print version which simply fills in the various fields on the form. You may also want to fax this form from your computer. Obviously the computer cannot fax the pre-printed form so we would design you a separate fax version of the form which filled in the various elements of the pre-printed form (headings, rules, blockouts, etc.) in addition to the fields. In this case you would be charged for designing two forms (print and fax) even though both forms are used for the same purpose in Simple Accounting.
And while we're talking about P.O.s, if you would like separate purchase order designs for various types of forms you buy (for example, a separate design for labels vs. one for cut sheets or business cards, each of these is billed as a separate design.
| Adding New Fields | You may find that you want to include fields not currently included on the your current forms. Simply inform us of the change, and we'll do the rest. Examples might be the vendor's Contact Name on a purchase order or the full name of the Employee (salesperson), rather than just his code on an invoice. |
| Calculated Fields | On the other hand, there may be information which you need to display which is not stored in the system, but which can be derived from data that is. For example, our customer order entry does not specifically store a backorder quantity. However, this can be displayed on an invoice as the result of subtracting the shipped quantity from the original ordered quantity which are stored. |
| Form Limitations | You may also find that in creating a form definition to fit an existing form, there may be incompatibilities. For example, your existing purchase order form may only provide enough room for a twenty character vendor name. However, Simple Accounting provides up to thirty characters for a vendor name. In a case like this, you must decide if creating a new form is warranted, or printing only the first twenty characters of the name will be acceptable. |
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