I often create reports (estimates) with a custom set of work items on each. I'd like to be able to create an invoice from that with the same individual work items selected. Also, automatically change the work item status from Estimated to Billable when converting the report to an invoice.
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4 comments
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Allcomputersystems I guess my underlying idea here is to improve the workflow within Studiometry. It seems that Estimate->Purchase Order->Invoice is the way this is done, but there is not a really good automated way to move from the Estimate stage to the Purchase Order stage without lots of manual selecting and clicking which is inefficient and can lead to errors, especially on complex multi-part projects with multiple different estimates (good, better, best, etc). Turning an Estimate into an Invoice (selecting the appropriate work items, changing the mode to billable, creating an Invoice with those items selected) is the simplest place to start. The most useful for me would be automating the creation of Purchase Orders. Here's how it works in my mind's eye:
Take a report, like an estimate, right-click, choose "Generate Purchase Orders". For each Vendor, if there is one or more work items assigned to that vendor, create a Purchase Order report, select all work items assigned to that vendor, change those work items' mode to Purchase Order. Repeat for the next Vendor and so on. So, if I had a project containing a bunch of work items assigned to say, 4 different vendors, and I have a few estimates containing different combinations of work items, I can right-click on one of the estimates to generate purchase order and come out with 4 purchase orders, one for each of the assigned vendors, and the respective work items will have their mode changed to Purchase Order. Then I just print and call my suppliers. -
robert luxford Yes please. Half of the hard work is done at the quoting stage. Need to be able to quickly convert that into orders and invoices.
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Rob Sherrard - Imageer While not automated as that envisioned by Allcomputersystems you can at least avoid re-entering item Description: and Extra Info: with tools currently in Studiometry.
Assume a project you've quoted with 5 work items in Estimated status. You can select all 5 (Shift Click) and then right click on the selection and choose Duplicate. You will now have the original 5 plus 5 duplicates in the same sequence. Each of the duplicates can now be edited into Billable status, and with Date changes as needed, become useable for inclusion in Purchase Orders and Invoices.
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robert luxford This is an area where the philosophy behind studiometry is not clear. I would not have thought to duplicate those entries. It seemed logical to convert them. Studiometry makes converting them very easy using status. However by doing that you lose the record of the estimate unless you have saved a PDF of the report that was sent to the client. I've been doing it that way and it makes studiometry feel second rate.
This is fundamental stuff. Everyone using Studiometry will have to deal with this. I have not seen this documented in the tutorials. It should be.
What I would like to see is a section on your site for "tips and tricks" or how to get the most out of Studiometry. This could be run like a user forum kicked off by a tutorial for discussion.
It would be a great selling tool for Oranged Software and be valued highly by us. Please make this happen.
Allcomputersytems has a point. Traffic Office Manager from 1996 had that workflow sorted. Request for quotes converted to purchase orders easily so you could select the combination of supplier and project scope from up to 4 totalled client options. Meaning that two weeks later when you get the call saying they want option three, there was no need to re do, it was Issue orders and get going.
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