V7 Invoices - Crystal Reports

[Mike Hughes]

This question comes in 2 parts:

1. Does V7 come with an optional invoice report that suppresses the customers email address and telephone number from the delivery address box?

(and if not, isn't it about time Actinic did this as standard?)

2. If we have to do it ourselves, what version of Crystal reports is needed for V7.

Mike

[Eileen]

I asked a very similar question to the Actinic folks just the other day....
answer: Crystal Reports v8.5

(I installed my copy just yesterday!)

[Mike Hughes]

Could someone at Actinic create an alternative invoice.rpt without the purchasers address and telephone number in the delivery address box that we can download?

It seems a bit potty that for something as simple and common as this we all have to try and buy a piece of software that isn't even available anymore.

Mike

[Ben]

This would indeed be a good idea. Zoltan posted a wishlist request to generally update the reports, from another thread this week. I'll add this one to his and include your comments.

Ben

[Darren B]

I am a bit confused, as version 10 of crystal reports is avaliable?

Cheers
Darren

[Mike Hughes]

Yes, version 10 of crystal reports is available but the actinic reports need version 8.5 which isn't available. Apparently V9/10 etc aren't backwards compatible with earlier versions and results in an actinic error if you try to create a report with them

Mike

[Darren B]

Ah

i see you point, not much help then. I did look at V9 last year and it confused the hell out of me but never looked at its backward compatibility

Cheers
Darren

[Mike Hughes]

Ben,

can you make sure that the reports wishlist includes the option to sort all sales reports by date. Currently this can only be done by 'Top n', 'Bottom n', 'All Ascending' or 'All Descending' values.

Mike

[cdicken]

1. Does V7 come with an optional invoice report that suppresses the customers email address and telephone number from the delivery address box?

(and if not, isn't it about time Actinic did this as standard?)

The standard v7 reports now prevent the email address and phone number from appearing in the delivery details.

[Mike Hughes]

Thanks Chris. As usual it's nice to see that Actinic keep their eye on the ball.

Now, would that invoice report be usable with V6 ?

Mike

[Jan]

We added a report to our free plugin library that includes an extra delivery address, you can use this to get a report that is easy to fold up to use as an address label - it is the integrated label report. You can use this with V5, V6 and V7.

Personally I think that it is a mistake to remove the delivery telephone number (and possibly the email address for the same reasons). Actinic forces printing of the invoice to get an order to completed so a lot of people print this report rather than the packing list. A lot of people also work from the printed forms rather than the program. The delivery address telephone number is an important piece of information, so to not have it on this report is not necessarily good.

BTW: Did you remove it from the invoice or from the packing list and data entry reports as well?

Regards,

[Eileen]

Regarding Crystal Reports V8.5....
it IS still available to buy.

You can buy the Professional or Developer edition.... you will recieve it within a week. I found the folks on the other end of the phone very helpful.

V8.5 is still available, though they are not fixing any bugs which may be found... as it has been in use for a long time, I consider it to be quite stable and the chance of actually finding a bug slim.

The reason you can still buy V8.5 is that a lot of companies have built their reports on that version.... and the reports are not upwardly compatible with V10. Making the switch will be very tedious for a very lot of companies.

[Mike Hughes]

Jan,

I think users really should print out the packing list as it's the only place they'll see the answers to the checkout questions and special delivery instructions.

In terms of leaving the email address and telephone number in the delivery box, I have had several complaints from customers about this and seeing as probably less than one in 10 people will actually complain about something there's a pretty compelling business reason to avoid doing it. At least for me.

Ideally actinic should produce include both variants of the report and let people choose. For B2B it kind of makes sense to include the contact info, for B2C it's less relevant.

Mike

[Jan]

I agree that it is unprofessional to show the purchasers email and telephone in the address window - I have spoken to a several people that fold the invoice to use as an address label, most fold it to remove the personal details, a few don't but they have said that they have had very few complaints (which suprised me).

I think that the user should be able to choose to include these details or not. It would be nice to have a show button for the information on the reports so that people could choose to remove lots of bits and pieces. This will not work as nicely as the website show option because the reports have a more set format but would still be an improvement.

Having said that I have a theory that 5 out of 10 people don't even use the Actinic reports - or use them internally only, it could quite possibly be more than that.

Regards,

Regards,

[fleetwood]

A sepearte label report (using larger font, and the choice of what fields are included, and the option to include a formatted return address, and additional delivery instruction) is whats needed. I know Jan offers one, but I can't see why it isn't a standard Actinic report as we all need some way of labelling the parcels.
Our work around is copy and paste customer details into a pre-prepared Word template, laid out as a label, complete with all details above. To lift the name and address neatly, we go to Mail tab, create an mail (but do not send), and lift the name and address block from there. An extra work load on us, and one would have though, a relatively easy thing to be incorporated in Act reports.

Martin