Printing Invoices for customers

I print two copies of each invoice. When you click Print, on the next screen change the number of copies from 1 to 3. I stamp one using a generic "Copy" stamp from OfficeMax.

We use differently colored paper. Back when we did three copies, we loaded the printer with colored sets: white, pink, blue.

A dot matrix printer will do it with triplicate forms. But they'll still all be the same and you'll still have to make your changes by hand.

Of course. Simply set the number of copies to print to three.

What do you mean by distinctly different data? You want QB to *change* the invoices you create? In what manner?

Can WHAT be done in one step?

Define "distinctly different data".

Create different templates for "office copy", "customer copy" and "file copy". In the template edit mode you click the boxes to include/exclude data fields.

You then print off a copy of each and it will only show the data fields you "included".

Stan

The button would have to be very magic.. since you don't even specify what differences in data you want between the three copies.

Anything that can be done by humans that is repeatative such as this print job can be done by a macro program. I use Keyboard Express but there are many others. It may be the only practical way to do what you want since you could push one button and Keyboard Express would do everything else for you. more help at snipped-for-privacy@spamgourmet.com

I understand there is a number of reasons to use paper copies however in the business I am involved in the employees were writing PIF on the paper invoices and when there was a problem with the payments not clearing the (specially ordered) product was still leaving the premises since the customer PAPERWORK had PIF on it but in fact we had not recieved payment.

I would discourage working off of paper since your "data" will get out of synch..that is to say there should be one difinitive source for info and logically it should be the computer. Any backups should be done daily to a remote location. Backing up to paper is not a valid backup method since it does not protect from natural disasters.

PAPER BAD HARD DRIVE GOOOD

Solution, don't let the employees write PIF on the invoices. Only allow your receivables people to do this and then make their wallets responsible for mistakes. If they have to send a PIF invoice to a printer in another part of the building for a COD, fine, if they have to fax it to another office fine. For the case of the customer with cash or check in hand the shipping clerk can write in the payment type, number and their initials. If the money doesn't get back to accounting with the shipping record then their wallet gets hurt. Problem solved.

There is a right way to do backup and every other way. Paper isn't bad but it must be date and time stamped like every other record. Print three copies, one local, one in a remote office and the third going to a salt mine. Some times paper is the only system that will tell you exactly what the customer got, if some fool or virus starts playing with your data file undetected long enough that it gets into the backup stream.

Hard drives are thinking too small. Systems need to be backed up too. Operation in parallel, one in your local office the other in a remote office in another city. They need to operate so seamlessly that if an airliner loaded with fuel crashes into the main data center that the users don't even have to log in again and they are connected to the alternate data center. More likely some fool with a back hoe will cut the communications cables but same result; the main data center ceases to communicate with the outside world. If you get really big and the data is mission critical you have a third data center, but this one will have all its equipment come from different vendors so that no built in flaw will take everything down at once.

Obviously each data center will do its own backup, but they should be interchangeable. Again multiple copies, one stays local the other heads off to a salt mine. Data backup is a real time function at this level. Monthly backups, weekly backups, daily backups and a continuos log file of changes, all of this stored locally and streamed to a remote site. The point is to make a copy of the datum as fast as possible at two locations so there chances of losing both copies of the datum become next to nil. That is good backup procedure. Also very important is to test that the backups are good! Having all the backups is useless if the data can't be read back into the system!

Unless you are listed on the fortune 500 list you may not be able to afford that. Do what you can. How much data loss can you withstand and still keep a going business concern? How long can you afford to be without access to your data? Those are key questions for your emergency plan.