My supplier doesn't have acc software - can they use Microsoft to create bills?
Technically, yes. They can use Microsoft Word or Excel to produce a bill, and then simply print a PDF from there. but free designs are not the most reliable.
We recommend a free invoice generator such as Bookipi to ensure the best quality data to arrive in Lightyear.
Click below to find out more and sign up to generate bills in an accepted format for free!
Microsoft templates they can use
The reason that we do not recommend it is that Word and Excel were not designed for this purpose. If they really REALLY must use them, we recommend that you use one of these Microsoft templates, click here. (for Word & Excel templates). It's very important to use a set template where everything will be guaranteed to be in the same position on future invoices, (for example column widths do not change), because when we create the map for it, we tell the system exactly where it needs to look for each piece of data and if any small changes are made, then the map will not work.
Things to avoid
Tabs/Spacing
Firstly, if you are keying in data please use the TAB key and not lots of space keys. You will not see what happens when it's used, but it does effect the metadata inside
Date
Do NOT use a date format with a "th", "st", or "rd" after the day. We suggest you use 20-JAN-2013 or similar. In Word, if you type for eg '12th Sept 07' you will see that the "th" becomes smaller in font. The result is that the date will now be split over 3 nodes, and not one. So please use either of the following formats for date;
- 20-JAN-2013
- 20-JAN-13
- 20/1/13
- 20/01/13
Also include the date label, IE don't type the date over the top of the word 'DATE', instead put it next to it. For e.g 'DATE: 2/10/17'
Lightyear will be able to recognise the US format of MM/DD/YYYY
Currency dividers
The supplier needs to make sure that they use correct and proper decimal points. $250.21 needs to be just that. Not $2501/21 or $250-21 or $250 and 21c
Don't over-type on previously saved invoices as this will effect the metadata inside.
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