Basics

5 Minute Tour of Ezy Invoice

This tour is designed to get you started with Ezy Invoice in the fastest possible time. It is suggested that you print this page so you can refer to it while practicing the tasks on Ezy Invoice 7. Or you can minimize this window when you want to toggle between working on Ezy Invoice and referring to this tour. You can return to this tour anytime from Ezy Invoice by clicking the menu option Help | 5 Minute Tour.

1. If you have not already done so, create a new database by clicking the menu option Database | New. This brings up the New Database Wizard. Simply follow the prompts on the wizard to create a new database. For detailed information see also : Creating a New Database.
2. Ezy Invoice uses the date and currency symbol as set in Windows Control panel. If the current date and currency formatting is not according to your needs, take note that you can change it as explained in setting the date format and setting the currency format .
3. If unsure what a button or menu option in Ezy Invoice does, just place your mouse pointer over it. A hint will be displayed at the bottom left corner telling you what that button or option does. Hit F1 on your keyboard anytime to get context sensitive help whenever your unsure about what to do.
4. If you do not bill or collect tax, skip to the next step. If you are registered to bill and collect tax, you should check your tax types to see that the rates and tax types matches your local region. Click the menu option Go To | Company/ Business Info | Tax Details . You can amend the tax types and rates according to your needs. To add new tax types, simply to the bottom of the list and hit the down arrow button from your keyboard to create a new blank row. You should compare the tax types to see if it corresponds to the tax types in your returns to your local tax authority. Getting it right at this stage ensures that submitting your tax returns will be a smooth, simple process when the time comes.
5. You are now ready to update your customer list. Click the Customer button on the main tool bar. Hit the Add button . This creates a blank new customer record. Fill in all fields as required. See also : Customer List . Repeat this for each new customer.
   NOTE : If you already have a customer list in another file format like MS Excel, Comma or tab delimited text file or other formats, you can import the entire list in one operation instead of keying each record one at a time. For example if you have a customer list in MS Outlook Express address book, you can import this list to Ezy Invoice. See also : Import Data and Importing MS Outlook Address Book to Ezy Invoice Customer List
6. If you maintain an inventory or stock list, you can enter it to Ezy Invoice at this stage. If the inventory is not relevant to you (e.g in the service industry) you can skip the inventory and go to the next step. You should first define your Inventory Groups followed by Inventory List then update your opening stock in that order. See also About Inventory . If you have an existing inventory or stock list in another file format like MS Excel etc you can import it over to Ezy Invoice. See also : Import Data .
7. You are now ready to create your first invoice. Click on the Invoice button on the tool bar or click the menu option Go To | Documents | Invoices . Click the Add button to create a blank new invoice. Fill up the Header page then click on the Body page . Fill up your invoice details here. If you want to manually type something in the description or productID, uncheck the "Pick From Inventory" otherwise Ezy Invoice is set to select items from your inventory.
8. Click on the Preview button to see how your invoice will look like when it prints. Take note of things in the layout that don't quite suit your need as you can amend it. Things like your company name and contact may need to be changed. Close the Invoice preview by clicking the extreme right button of the Preview toolbar. Now click the Layout button to bring up the Layout view for the Invoice. Click on any item that needs to be modified then amend its properties. Once your satisfied with the layout, close the Layout view and preview your actual invoice again. Repeat untill your satisfied with the invoice layout.
9. You can preview, print or change the layout of the invoices anytime. In the invoice preview, you can also email your invoice out to your customers as a pdf attachment.
10. Now is a good time to explore the reports available in Ezy Invoice. Click Reports | Sales | Sales Listing. This is a listing of all invoices entered for the report period. You can change the report period by clicking Reports | Report Period . Explore the other report options in the Report Menu. Note that the Sales Reports reports on the invoices, credit and debit notes for a given period. The Debtor reports only reports outstanding (unpaid) invoices, credit and debit notes as of a specified date. Also explore the Charts that are available under the Reports | Sales | Chart Analysis .
11. When you receive payments from customers you must knock them off against the corresponding invoices in Ezy Invoice. To to this, click the New Receipt button at the tool bar. After you enter a receipt, you can now view the Reports | Debtor | ?? and Reports | Receipt | ??? for updated reports after applying a new receipt.

The above is enough information for you to start using Ezy Invoice for basic everyday work. Once your comfortable with the task above, be sure to see Getting the Most From Ezy Invoice to get maximum productivity from the product. You can return to this tour anytime from Ezy Invoice by clicking the menu option Help | 5 Minute Tour .

Getting The Most From Ezy Invoice

1. You can not only create invoices, you can also create and manage Quotes, Credit/ Debit Notes, Delivery Orders and most other business documents. Click Go To | Documents | ?? the documents your want. Each document type has its own serial numbering. Only Invoices, Credit & Debit Notes are taken into the Sales and Debtor reports. Note that you do not need to do the document layouts all over again one at a time, you can import the layout from a document that is already done.
2. You can create your own custom document type (example works order, job sheets etc) . However these custom documents will not be included in the Sales and Debtor Reports. Use the menu option Go To | Documents | Create Custom Document .
3. As your invoice list grows, you can easily search and locate past invoices. At the Invoice or document form, click the drop down arrow of the Find button. This displays many options to find your past documents like : Todays, This Week, This Month, This Year, Fast Find etc. You can also use advance find options like Filter and Locate . Filter and Locate allow you to perform searches on most fields in the database.
4. If you use the inventory features (PRO version only), you can very quickly look up past inventory transactions. For example, you can in a second tell how much a certain customer bought a certain inventory item, when and under which Invoice number. To to this click the History button at the tool bar. This is useful when you need to give a quote to a customer while on the telephone.
5. Ezy Invoice provides comprehensive Job/ Project or Departmental Costing. If you do project work, you can set them up in Ezy Invoice (Go To | Job Maintenance). Assign all invoices to a job and all Purchases Orders to a job. You can then see a project profit/ loss from the menu option Reports | Jobs | ??? . You can even use this feature if you don't do project work but want to for example capture industry specific sales. As an example if you want to track your sales to the Mechanical, Shipping, Aircraft and Building industries, you can define these as separate departments in the Job Maintenance. You can then make use of the Sales by job or Job reports to see a breakdown of sales.
6. You can do a email broadcast to all customers/ vendors in your database. This allows you to send all recipients an email in one operation. Each email can have customized fields like Name etc so that the email looks more personal. This feature is available from Go To | Documents | Group Mail. This feature largely depends on whether your Internets Service Provide allows you to use their email server to send email broadcast.
7. There is a lot of use documentation and examples available on-line at our help desk knowledge base (http://ezysoftdev.crmdesk.net/?group=ezyinv). For example, under the Operation part of the Knowledge Base, you can see examples on how do adjustments in cases of overbilling/ underbilling. How to write-off bad debts. How to prepare an invoice from an existing quote etc.

About Databases

This application manages & stores your work in databases. You can think of databases as the equivalent of files in other software products like spreadsheets or word processors. You open, close or save a file in other software product. Likewise in Ezy Invoice, you open or close a databases (instead of a file). You need not save your work, Ezy Invoice automatically saves your work as and when you finish entering a new record, when you close the database or exit the system.

When you create a new database or open and existing database, you specify a folder name or path to the database files. You do not specify any filename.

Parts of the screen

Ezy Invoice is a MDI application (Multiple Document Interface). Meaning that it has a main or parent form and you can open and access several child forms or views to different data forms.

• Title Bar - This is the very top of the screen and displays the name of the application and the database that you currently have open.
• Menu Bar - Just below the Title Bar, the menu bar allows you to activate applications commands.
• Tool Bar - Just below the Menu Bar, it provides shortcuts to commonly used commands.
• Work Area - Below the Menu Bar, you will have the work area, If you have a database opened, this may be a data entry form, report or graphical chart.
• Status Bars - Located at the bottom of the Application screen. This bar gives you information like hints and gives you the currently opened database. If you have a database opened, you may have 2 Status Bars opened. The 2nd Status bars lets you know how many records are displayed and which record number you are on. It also displays the user name that you used to log in and your current security permissions for the form.