Method Community

I have a scanario where I need to enter an empty ItemLine to create some spacing on the Invoice/Sales Order.

This works well on an Estimate - I just insert an EstimateLine with an empty ("") Description (with no Quantity and Rate) and it works fine.

On a Sales Order / Invoice I have an issue - The Quantity populates automatically to "1" in Quickbooks which creates a "nasty" row with an empty description, quantity "1" and rate "0". Any idea why this is happening? This is also visible when printing the document. 

Is there any alternative solution to insert an empty line (or only a "text" line) to a Sales Order / Invoice without showing quantity "1". I tried manually setting the quantity to "0" but that didn't do the trick. The issue is QuickBooks itself does allow to insert an empty row or an only "description" row without utilizing the Rate and Quantity.

Any suggestions?

Nick

 Warren_nickus,

I moved this post to general Q & A to make sure your question is properly addressedd

Dave

@warren_nickus

We are currently examining this case will will post a reply shortly?

Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

I am also interested in controlling when the Rate and Qty are automatically filled in. I have learned that some of the actions that take place on these screens are not modifiable directly in the Method editing screens, but are behind-the-scenes actions. See Method's reponse to my question here.

While it was claimed that the Rate and Qty fields have no hidden actions affecting them, I have yet to find the action set that causes the Rate to be set to 0 and the Qty to 1 if they are left blank.

@warren_nickus

Currently in Method, the invoice screen requires each ItemLine to contain a value in quantity and rate fields. This is by design

Within QB, when an invoice line item contains no values (null), we convert the null quantities and rates to 1 and 0 respectively. We have determined it would be a big job on our side if we are to change this process.

As a workaround, if you are printing your invoices/sales order through Method then you can use conditional formatting on the template to hide certain field (like Quantity and Rate) when they are met. It would still show up with a QTY in QB but if printed from Method it will show up how you want it to.

smohyee:

While it was claimed that the Rate and Qty fields have no hidden actions affecting them, I have yet to find the action set that causes the Rate to be set to 0 and the Qty to 1 if they are left blank.

@smohyee

You will not find the action set for this process because it has been done on the platform level.

Ted, I just noticed your latest post, in particular this part:

" As a workaround, if you are printing your invoices/sales order through Method then you can use conditional formatting on the template to hide certain field (like Quantity and Rate) when they are met. It would still show up with a QTY in QB but if printed from Method it will show up how you want it to."

I'd like to do this, and get rid of the many Qty and Rates that print on lines that dont have items. I've found the Formatting Rule Sheet Editor in the template designer, but could you point me in the right direction for creating rules for line items? The only variables that seem to be listed in the Variable section are from the Sales Order table itself, not from the Sales Order Line table. 

I figure I'd make a rule along the lines of "If SalesOrderLine.Item = empty, then don't display SalesOrderLine.QTY and Rate". 

Edit: OK, I got it working! Here's my steps for future Methodists who find this post:

 The goal here is to hide Qty, Rate and Amount values for line items that don't actually need them - Our Sales Orders will have lines containing notes or shipment information in the Line Item Description field, and having the Qty set to 1 and the rate/amount set to $0.00 for those lines is distracting clutter. 

If you click on any object in your report designer and expand the options menu (the little white arrow in the corner of the object), you'll see a "Formatting Rules" field. Click the "..." button to open the Formatting Rules Sheet Editor.

1. For  Data Member in the Data section, I selected "SalesOrder.SalesOrderLine.SalesOrder". For Data Source I selected "dataSet1". These matched the selections for the DetailReport section that prints line items in the report, but I'm not sure if this step is necessary or correct. 

2. For the Format Rule's condition, I put " IsNullOrEmpty([Item]) == True " . In other words, if there is no value in a line's Item field...

3. Originally I had set "Visible" to No, but since I have my line item fields in table cells, it made the cell borders disappear as well. So my current version has "Visible" set as Yes, and the "Foreground Color" and "Background color" are both set to white, so the text is effectively hidden while the cell borders remain. 

4. To apply this rule, I went to each field I wanted to hide, went into its "Formatting Rules" screen, and moved the created formatting rule from "Rules available in report" section to the "Rules applied to a control" section.

@smohyee

** I guess you beat me to posting an answer, here is another solution to the case

If you found the Formatting Rule Editor then you are half way there

I would recommend that you create the desired conditional rule in the Condition and Visible to be NO.

Furthermore, do not forget to apply the Rule to the fields of Quantity and Rate.

Please let me know if you require additional assistance.