Designing an invoice template

Invoice templates are created and edited in a WYSIWYG interface that gives you a real-time preview of what the invoice will look like and allows you to navigate to the editor pages for each section. To open the page, use the path(s) in the Security and navigation section above.

NOTE  Best Practice: Unless you are an experienced HTML programmer, it is much easier to select the template that is closest to the invoice you would like to create and then edit it, than to start from scratch.

The preview page is divided into sections. When you hover over a section, it becomes shaded.

• Click Edit in the shaded section to open the section editor.
• Click OK in the section editor to return to the template preview page and view your changes to that section.

IMPORTANT  Changes made in the section editor will not be saved to the actual template until you save the Design Invoice Template page. To save your work as you go along, click Save in the Save & Close menu.

To add, copy, or edit an invoice template, complete the following steps:

1. Navigate to > Admin > Features & Settings > Finance, Accounting & Invoicing > Invoices > Invoice Templates.
2. To create a new template from scratch, click New. To copy a template, hover over its context menu and select Copy. The copy is automatically added to the table with Copy (#) preceding the name of the copied template.
3. The New Invoice Template page will open. Complete this page and click Save to open the Design Invoice Template page. For more information on completing the New Invoice Template page, refer to Editing invoice template properties.
4. To edit an existing template, hover over the context menu of an existing invoice template and select Design. The Design Invoice Template page will open.

Each invoice template consists of the following sections:

Section	Description
Header	The Header section appears at the top of every page except the Appendix. The maximum vertical height is 300 pixels. If you would like your logo and other information to appear on every page, place it into this section.
Top of Invoice	The Top of Invoice section appears once at the top of the first invoice page. Use invoice template variables in this section to display the billing address, invoice number, invoice date and date range, payment terms and any other invoice level information. NOTE  The variable data for your own organization comes from your local organization record in Autotask. Refer to Your local organization in Autotask. NOTE  To display your local organization's Tax ID, CAN, ABN, VAT or other tax related identifier on the invoice, use the variable Your Company: Tax ID, CAN, ABN, VAT, etc. The value for this variable does not come from your local organization record. It comes from a Contract System Setting. Refer to Tax ID, ACN, ABN, VAT etc. (to display on invoices and quotes). NOTE  Invoice numbers are automatically assigned if automatic numbering is enabled under Contracts and billing system settings. If invoices are not numbered automatically, numbers can be assigned when generating a single invoice, but not when using batch invoicing.
Invoice Body	This is where you set up the contents and layout of the main part of the invoice—the list of billing items. This section could span multiple pages depending on the number of billing items. For information on editing this page, refer to Configuring the invoice body.
Bottom of Invoice	This content will display once, at the bottom of the last page of the invoice, and is recommended for information such as subtotals, credits and adjustments, taxes, and the grand total. This page has additional settings that are described in Bottom of Invoice settings.
Footer	The Footer section appears at the bottom of every page except the Appendix.
Appendix	The Appendix will appear at the end of the invoice, starting on a new page. It will not contain the header or footer. On this page, you may want to display your Terms and Conditions. The Appendix does not appear as a section on the Design Invoice Template page. To access the appendix editor, click Edit Appendix at the top of the template page.

5. Hover over a section so it becomes shaded and click Edit. A section editor page will open.
6. Use the HTML Editor to place text, labels and variables onto the template. Refer to The HTML editor. For a complete list of available variables, refer to:

List of Autotask Variables

NOTE  When working with the HTML editor, you can apply a condition tag to most invoice template variables so their label displays only when they contain data. Refer to Setting conditional content display for invoice, purchase order, and quote template variables.

7. When editing the Top of Invoice or Bottom of Invoice, click Restore Default Content to restore that section of the invoice to the standard "Bill to on Left Side" default content.

For Top of Invoice only, you can click the Restore Default Content down arrow to select which standard template's default content you want to restore: Bill to on Left Side, Bill To on Right Side, or Double Window.

8. To return to the Design Invoice Template page, click OK. The template will show a preview of what the invoices will look like, with the variables displayed in brackets and text formatting applied.
9. To modify the template properties, click Edit Template Properties on the menu bar.
10. To edit the Appendix, click Edit Appendix on the menu bar.
11. To see how the invoice would render as a PDF document, click View PDF.
12. Click Save to save the template and remain on the Design page, Save & Close to save and close the page, or click Cancel.

IMPORTANT  Your changes are not saved until you click Save or Save & Close on the Design Invoice Template page.