Method:Classic General Q&A

Re: How to's for Method Program

Method_Justin — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 23:04:34 GMT

Hi GetRXd,

1) If you've created an Email field in the Estimate table, it will only be available in screens based off of that table. You'll have to add an Email field to the Invoice table if you want one available there as well.

If you were to create an estimate in QB, then sync it over to Method and assign it to a lead, it would likely cause the lead to convert to a customer and sync over to QuickBooks. At the very least it would create a conflict, I wouldn't recommend trying to do this.

You can build the estimate in Method and as long as Wait for Sync Approval? is checked, it won't sync over to QuickBooks and everything will stay in Method.

2) Take a look at our Help Center article for Report Designer, it contains quite a few video tutorials.

3) Take a look at this forum post for a screenshot of how to use a Discount line item with a Subtotal item. You can find out how to set up Discount Items in QuickBooks here.

4) Try playing around with the size of the different bands on your report. Take a look at our report designer videos also, there might be something in there that provides some insight.

- Justin

Re: How to's for Method Program

GetRXd — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 02:53:57 GMT

1) We add an e-mail field to the estimate that is separate than customer account bc we have to do A LOT of estimates, and dont' find it necessary to build an account for every potential customer/estimate we do.

So we have a "quotes" account that is for all potential customers that have not purchased from us yet. Because there are multiple contacts/quotes for different customers in this 1 account, we use a different e-mail field in order to record their specific e-mail and don't use the e-mail on the account, as that can only be assigned to the account level, but the specific e-mail on the estimate can be assigned to specific estimates.

However, if we are building leads, activiities and opportunites in method and then we build an estimate in QB. We could just record the lead, activity, opportunity in method - sync the estimate into method - then assign that estimate to the particular lead/activitiy/opportunity right?

If we do build the estimate in method, we could just check "wait for sync approval" and that way the lead, activity, opportunity, and estimate all stay in method without goign to quickbooks right?

Basically, I want the leads, activities, and opporutnitues we make to NOT build an account in QB. From my understanding, quickbooks only builds a customer account for an oppurtunity if there's an estimate and we don't check "wait for sync approval" right?

2) OK i'll have to look into report designer later. Looks confusing.

3) How would you suggest using the discount item? Could you send me instructions? I'd like to be able to discount every item by a %. OR do a lump sum discount based on the subtotal.

4) customized estimate reports

5) Thanks! I got it!

Re: How to's for Method Program

Method_Justin — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 18:53:21 GMT

GetRXd,

1) Why would you add an email field to the Estimate Line grid? Are you referring to the Estimate screen itself, or the Estimate Line Grid? Either way, adding this to your Estimate table wouldn't make it available on your Invoice table, you'd have to add it there separately.

2) You could probably design a report in Report Designer to do this.

3) You should be able to use a discount item for this, it would work similarly as you described in QuickBooks.

4) Are these stock estimate reports, or have you customized them?

5) If you did this, the changes would not sync over to QuickBooks and you would get a conflict under QuickBooks > Resolve Conflicts in Method.

- Justin

Re: How to's for Method Program

GetRXd — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 13:29:54 GMT

Sorry again - jump to this message please:

Just read this last one, ignore previous messages. I forgot to ask 1 thing:

Besides:

1) One thing I noticed on the esimate grid is that we added in an "e-mail" field into it. However, can't find this field in the new invoice sreen I created. I can only find an "e-mail1" field. Any idea what I'm missing here?

2) Is there a way to print a packing slip from Method? I'd like to print out a packing slip for our warehouse. Packing slips should be similar to invoice but without pricing. Will only have SKU, item desc, quantity, weight, extended weight, total weight.

3) in quickbooks, we give volume discounts. So we have to do a "subtotal" item which basically totals up everything above it. Direclty beneath the subtotal, we enter in a discount amount (5%, 10%, etc). The discount only applies to the item total right above it, which is why we have to subtotal first, then do the dsicount immediately after the subtotal

Unfortunately, this is a bit hard to do in method. Do you know of a way to apply a 10% discount to each item better? Or a better way to do a lump sum discount in method?

4) I'm unsure how to attach estimates to this forum - can you help me? I can get them into picture format or the PDF they come in normally for you!

Here are the issues:

a. The first page of the estimate is blank. items/pricing don't start until 2nd page

b. see sales tax at bottom. Both estimates say 0.00%. However, 1 is adding sales tax and 1 isn't. Any idea how to make this simpler for our customer? I think it would be confusing for the reps as well as for the customer to see 0.00% and one have a sales tax charge amount and the other 0.00% doesn't show any sales tax

5) In quickbooks, we set a "closed" period where our sales reps cannot edit an invoice from a previous period (usually set as last month). The things we don't want them editing are items, prices, dates, totals, quantities. Since an invoice cannot be edited from last month inside of Quickbooks, what happens if I edit an invoice in method that is a "closed" invoice from last period and then sync it?

We do have some customer service reps that will enter notes into the previous period's invoice in QB. They have a specific password and are instructed to ONLY enter notes into the invoice on the item line if there's an issue with one of the items. But not to change anything else

What would be the best way to do this in Method?

Re: How to's for Method Program

GetRXd — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 05:27:26 GMT

Gotcha. I changed settings to remember all invoices. I'll check tomorrow after I sync ot make sure all invoices are in there now.

OK - I didn't know you needed to hit save first. Now I got it. Thanks!

One thing I noticed on the esimate grid is that we added in an "e-mail" field into it. However, I can't find this field in the new invoice sreen I created. I can only find an "e-mail1" field. Any idea what I'm missing here?

Re: How to's for Method Program

Method_Justin — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 20:28:46 GMT

Hi GetRXd,

Method only remembers transactions for a certain number of days (31 by default). You can change this value by navigating to QuickBooks > Synchronize in Method and setting the dropdown under "Transaction History". When you say not all the transactions for you customer are in their account, are you referring to QuickBooks or Method?

For your other issue, the Update link only updates the line item grid on the screen. On our stock screens, the Subtotal, Tax Item, Total, Payments Applied and Balance Due fields are all populated after clicking the Save button. Is this not the behaviour you're experiencing on your custom screen?

In terms of getting the same customization done to your Invoice screen as you have on your Estimate screen, I'd say take a look at how your Estimate screen is customized. Take a look at the custom fields / objects and how they're set up (looks like most of the things you mentioned would be columns on a line item grid). If you'd like, you could always hire a member of our Professional Services team to do the customization for you.

- Justin

Re: How to's for Method Program

GetRXd — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 05:50:10 GMT

1 more question:

Issue with my invoices: I can't get subtotal, tax rate, amount paid, balance due to populate when I enter items into the grid for line items.

I'm not sure if I messed something up with the invoices or not. I don't think I changed anything.

Some background info:

I had some customization done to my estimates in order for them to show:

quantity, SKU, description, weight, extended weight, sale price, extended sale price

near bottom of invoice screen, I have some fields that total: total weight

However, on the estimate and invoice, the subtotal, tax rate, amoutn paid, and balance due dont' populate as I enter in the items. Even when I click "update"

Any idea how to fix:

1) get the subtotal, tax rate, amount paid, and balance due working on both estimates and invoices?

2) get the weight, extended weight, and total weight to show on the invoices like it does on estimates?

Re: How to's for Method Program

GetRXd — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 05:14:57 GMT

AWESOME! Thanks so much, I was able to do #3 and it works really well.

I found a separate issue while testing it out though. It seems like not all of my invoices have been imported from QB into method. How do I make sure they all made it in there?

The reason I know is because I tried searching all invoices for a particular customer. There were no invoices for that particular customer. So I looked up his account in QB and the account doesn't have any of his transactions... only 1 sales order. He should have at least 5 other invoies/payments.

Also, I sorted all invoices by date and the dates don't start from our first invoices. The total of all invoices also is way lower. Any thoughts why the invoices didn't all download into method from QB?

Re: How to's for Method Program

Method_Justin — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 16:33:48 GMT

Hi GetRXd,

1) Go ahead and customize your New Opportunity screen. From the screen designer, click Edit on the "Save" button object in the Footer Buttons section at the bottom of the screen. Navigate to Step 2 of the wizard and you should see this:

Actions 1-4 in this list are examples of screen-level field validation. The Conditional Warning action tests a condition, and if the condition is true it displays a warning message to the user and stops processing more actions. Go ahead and click Edit... on one of them, I'll use the 2nd one as an example:

Here we can see that the Conditional Warning action is checking if the value in the Opportunity Name field is empty (equal to <blank>). If it is, the specified Warning Message will be displayed to the user and no more actions will get processed (the record will not be saved, since we want to force the user to enter something here).

You can set up a Conditional Warning action the same way to check if data has been entered for a field of your choosing. Conveniently, the other Save buttons on this screen (Save & New, etc) are set up to call this Save button's action set, so you'll only have to add your actions here to affect them all.

3) Go ahead and customize your Invoices screen. From the screen designer click Edit on the "InvoiceList" grid object in the Existing Invoices section at the top of the screen. Navigate to Step 2 of the wizard and you should see this:

From the dropdown near the top of this pop-up, select whichever field normally contains the name of your customer (regardless of whether it was a website or sales rep order). Click Insert Column and set the width as appropriate (may require some experimentation to get it to your liking), then use the arrow buttons to place it in the order you'd like.

That should be it so just click Finish, then Publish and Save & Close. The field should now be available in the Existing Invoices grid on your Invoices screen for searching, as you would with the any grid.

Hope this helps. :)

- Justin

Re: How to's for Method Program

GetRXd — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 01:24:09 GMT

Hello Justin,

I understand what you're saying, but don't know how to execute. Could you send me step by step instructions please?

For #3 - we dont use sales order. Only Invoices!

Re: How to's for Method Program

Method_Justin — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 22:26:07 GMT

GetRXd,

1) You'll want to put some validation on the Save function of your screen. Take a look at the Save button as it is, it contains validation for the Customer Name and Contact fields. You can add validation for other fields the same way.

3) The easiest way to do this would be to add the BillAddressAddr1 field (assuming it contains your customer's name in all cases) to the SalesOrderList grid on the SalesOrder screen (I'm assuming these come in as SalesOrders, if not then just replace whichever Transaction is appropriate). You would then be able to search that field for the customers name and have it display all orders.

Hope this helps.

- Justin

Re: How to's for Method Program

GetRXd — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 22:24:03 GMT

1) I'd be entering this information into the "new opportnities tab" from method.

2) Thanks!

3) So here's the situtation:

we have a customer who orders thorugh a sales rep, that sales rep will put the customer's invoice into the customer account

However, we also have the same customer order online. When orders get downloaded from our website and input into Quickbooks, the downloaded orders automatically are put inside an account called "general website".

Now if the customer calls us and gives us his name, I'd like to be ablet to find all his invoices done through a sales rep as well as from the website. What would be the best way to find all of his orders/invoices?

Re: How to's for Method Program

Method_Justin — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 22:07:04 GMT

Hi GetRXd,

1) Are you entering this information directly in the grid on the Opportunity List screen, or within the Edit Opportunity screen?

2) You'll first have to add the field to the table by navigating to Customize > Tables / Fields in Method, clicking Edit Fields... for the Opportunity table in the list and adding the field in the screen that pops up. You can then customize your New Opportunity and Edit Opportunity screens, drag and drop your new field onto them and save/publish. You can do the same for your Opportunity List screen, but in that case you'll want to edit the Opportunity grid to show your new field (Step 2 of 9 on the Grid Wizard) instead of placing the field directly on screen.

3) I'm not sure what you mean by searching customer information by invoice instead of account, could you elaborate?

- Justin

How to's for Method Program

GetRXd — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 21:13:26 GMT

1) How do you make the e-mail, phone, ship to zip required fields in the opportunities list?

2) How do you add custom fields to the opportunities list? I'd like to add: "budget"

3) Customers might order with their sales rep at which case their orders would be in their account OR they might order online which gets put into a "general website" account in quickbooks

Is there a way to search customer information (e-mail, phone, name) using invoices instead of account? That way no matter if they ordered on website or in their account, we'd be able to pull up all their invoices

Thanks in advance!!