Automatic Invoicing

[cadmen]

In alpha_sport sample, let�s say you have created a new product in 'Products� form and you want to automatically generate invoices for all the customers living in NY by just pressing a button in the form. How would you go about doing that?

Your help would be most appreciated.

Ninus Daniels

[Keith Hubert]

RE: Automatic Invoicing

Ninus,

What are you going to have on each Invoice?

RegardsKeith HubertAlpha Guild MemberLondon.KHDB Management Systems

[Peter.Greulich]

RE: Automatic Invoicing

1. Do a query on the "NY" value in the state field.
2. Print: Make sure the report's detail section is set to "Base report on current selection of records"

[cadmen]

RE: Automatic Invoicing

Thank you for your response, but my question was how do you generate automatic invoices for clients living in NY by pressing a button on the �products� form.

Lets say you create a new item in �Products� form called �monthly service fee� after saving the item by just pressing a button new invoices will be automatically generated and the new invoice item (monthly service fee) will be added to the invoices.

Again I appreciate your responses.


Ninus Daniels

[Peter.Greulich]

RE: Automatic Invoicing

Well, you can code that in xbasic and/or action scripting. Attach the events to the button's OnPush event.

[CALocklin]

RE: Automatic Invoicing

I think part of the problem here is defining exactly what you want to do. When I first read this thread I thought to myself, "Wow! That's a pretty neat business. Come up with a new product and then bill all your customers for it. Don't even worry about whether or not they ordered it!" Obviously it makes more sense now that we see it's a service fee.

However, will this automatic billing be a one-time issue? If not, will the service fee always be billed separately or will it sometime be part of a regular bill? What about the invoices for other things - how and when is that done? What is your general table structure for invoices and customers? (Invoice_header, Invoice_Items, and Customer tables?) Are you tracking unpaid balances? Interest? Taxes? Credits? Refunds?

I'm finding that each situation/business brings up unique invoicing issues and nobody else can tell you exactly how to do it. Someone might be able to help with the logic or even the code but the first problem is to know exactly what it is that you need to do. (Also, if it isn't repetitive, it probably isn't worth the time to code it.)

What's obvious to you (especially with invoicing) may not be obvious to others and any code we gave you without knowing all the details would probably not work. Even knowing all the details, it still might take hours, days, or even weeks to get it working as needed. I had one situation that was so complex that it was months before I got it working correctly for all the possible input variations and the resulting script is 900 lines long. (That's just to build the invoices and doesn't count a few other scripts for payments, updating past due amounts, reporting on taxes, entering credits and refunds, etc.) Of course, some situations are much simpler.

In this message at message ID 22073, I outlined the procedure I use for the situation where I'm building invoices for multiple customers once a month. Maybe that will help get you started.

Here are the modifications I think you would need for your situation:
- The first query would just be on the customer table for all NY customers.
- In step two you would not only build headers for each NY customer but also build an invoice line item for the service charge in the same loop. If that is the only thing to be included on the invoice, you could probably do both in one loop and add the invoice number to the line item as you build each line item. (I'm assuming the total cost will always be the same for everyone since it is only a service charge and that only the service charge will be on the invoice.) Build and save the invoice header first so you can get the new invoice number. (Assuming this is the only charge for this invoice, don't forget to enter the total charge in the invoice header as you build it.) Then build the invoice line item record using the new invoice number to link it. Then repeat the loop for the next client. That would basically handle items 2a through 4 in the referenced message.

Of course, you will need a set to generate and print the invoices themselves. I presume you already have that.