Can you customise the printed Invoices?

[russell king]

Hi

Is it possible to customise the layout of the printed invoices?

I ideally want to remove the 'tax code', 'qty ship' and 'qty back' columns which are of no relevance to my customers. I also want to possibly change the font and tidy up the layout (which is very squashed and un-professional looking)

Also why is it I can only seem to ever get the option to 'reprint' invoices? At what stage can (or should) they originally be printed fro the first time??

many thanks

Russell King

[Duncan Rounding]

Yes you can, but you will need Crystal Reports V8.5 (and only that version).

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Russel,

Yes, you can. There are lots of previous threads on this topic. A search will thorw up plenty of results for you.

Mike

[russell king]

I've tried searching and come back with nothing...?

Mike

I've tried searching and come back with nothing...?

'custom invoices'
'customise invoices'
'change invoice'

etc etc...

Hi Russel,

Yes, you can. There are lots of previous threads on this topic. A search will thorw up plenty of results for you.

Mike

[Duncan Rounding]

Searching for 'crystal reports' will bring up lots of related info:
http://community.actinic.com/search.php?searchid=403516

[Mike Hughes]

Sorry Russell,

I made my post at the same time as Duncan and basically the answer is as he said. yes, you can do this but you need Crystal reports V8.5.

Crystal reports 8.5 is not cheap and many users get a customised report made for them by someone like Jan at Mole End.

The same question has been asked many times before and hence my answer about doing a search. A search for 'custom invoices' does give the answer Duncan provides about Crystal reports 8.5.

Mike

[russell king]

Duncan

Please correct me if im wrong...

In order to simply change the layout of the standard invoice I'll need to purchase and install Crystal Reports v8.5, (and also I assume a version of MS Access?)

I've just looked around on the web and Crystal reports is currently on version 11 (at approx £125) and only a handful of suppliers ship v8.5 at a cost of over £400 !!

I also have no idea how to use Crystal reports and have no wish to...
This is ridiculous, and again more evidence of the severe lack of key and basic functions and features in Actinic

Surely being able to customise your paperwork with things like your logo, or changing the layout should be a standard feature of an ecommerce package??!!!

I really am running out of patience with Actinic...

Sorry to rant, and thanks for your help anyway.....

[Mike Hughes]

Crystal reports 8.5 is not cheap and many users get a customised report made for them by someone like Jan at Mole End.

Not sure if you missed this. Jan is very experienced at this and should be able to help you.

The Crystal Reports thing is a problem and I've had a rant or two in the past as well. Just so you know you aren't alone on this.

Mike

[russell king]

Duncan, Mike

Thanks for your help

I really am shocked at the lack of this feature, and the potential cost of a solution.

I already have a long, long list of other frustrating issues with Actinic (do a search for my previous postings) some of them which should also be easy to solve.

I really am at the end of my patience with Actinic now and will be looking to migrate to a product like or similar in the near future.

My hats of to you guys who have the patience and loyalty to stick with Actinic, which is very clearly seriously flawed, outdated, overpriced and very very over rated....

regards

Russell

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Russell,

Just quickly on the specific problem with Invoices. Access isn't needed as crsytal reports queries the database directly.

In terms of your other problems, it looks like there are three problems all of which Actinic are aware of and plan to correct. One, is VAT being shown separately in the cart which I agree is a problem and a pain in the proverbial. The second is gift vouchers which actinic deliberately avoided (wrongly in most of our opinions) and the third is the need for Crystal reports to change teh printed reports.

As far as this goes

My hats of to you guys who have the patience and loyalty to stick with Actinic, which is very clearly seriously flawed, outdated, overpriced and very very over rated....

I think you'll find that we don't use actinic out a misplaced sense of loyalty, but actually because it is really rather good at what it does. Many people here are running successful websites becuse of how good actinic is and that's enough for us to live with it's imperfections.

Mike

[cbarling]

Hi Russell,

Thanks for your posting even though some of it makes uncomfortable reading for us.

I won't try and defend ourselves against your points because frankly at least a couple of them are entirely justified. However, I will try and explain why we are in the position that we find ourselves, and what we are doing to move forward.

We have a development department of over 20 people, which represents a massive investment for us. In the last couple of years we have totally re-written "design" for Actinic v8. It's now totally consistent, flexible and extensible. The code base (i.e. size of program) has doubled in the process, which means that as much code has been written in moving from v7 to v8 as in versions 1 through 7.

We did this because we are working our way through the product completely sorting out one part at a time. Unfortunately, because of the effort involved, we haven't been able to fix other things that we would have liked to.

At the end of the day, a substantial part of the UK ecommerce industry got started with Actinic. We have thousands of customers, and there are even cases of companies turning over more thasn £20m per annum with Actinic. We're far from perfect, but we have put a lot of effort into the issues that have the biggest commercial impact, like search engine optimisation features. We're also investing more than anyone else in taking forward a product designed for small companies.

I'm sorry about the frustrations, but once v8 is out we will have a lot more resource for cleaning up other issues.

Chris

[russell king]

Chris

Thanks for such a frank and honest reply. As someone who has spent the last 15 years as a software developer I do appreciate the problems you are facing. However...

If you were on Actinic v2 or v3, then some of the problems could be justified. But I am using version 7, surely after 7 iterations of a major piece of software many of the fundamental issues like mine and the many others I see on this forum should of been addressed?

Version 8 sounds great, and im sure it will be. But would I pay to upgrade (on top of the £500+ already paid for v7 business only months ago)? at this stage I would say no. Especially given that v8 does sound like such a major change, as I know from experience that major software upgrades always come with an initial smattering of migration issues, bugs and holes in the documentation.

I know Actinic has many fans on this forum (especially those who earn their living consulting, supporting, and developing with it) but Im sure many would also echo my sentiments, and if given a cheap, quick and easy way to migrate away from the current version of Actinic would do so.

Now if Actinic version 8 is that quick, cheap(?) and easy option then maybe you can retain some of us disgruntled customers....

regards

Russell

[wjcampbe]

Russel,

Have you looked at the BETA? I was blown away.... When asked what I liked about the new v8 I had to be honest and say "Everything".

If you talk to sales at Actinic, they will tell you what your individual upgrade path choices and costs would be - you may be pleasantly surprised.

[russell king]

Bill

Where is the BETA??
And roughly what will an upgrade cost?

regards

[cdicken]

Hi Russell.

Links to download the beta can be found in http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=22453.

With regards to upgrades, it really depends on what products you already have. The best thing to do would be to call one of our sales consultants on 0845 129 4848 to find out what options are available.