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Where do I find the template designer for creating custom invoices?
Where do I find the template designer for creating custom invoices?
Hello, Andreas,
Interesting, you downvoted articles and asked this question. This means documentation is needed to be improved. Sure. But can you check this:
And here is a screenshot visually representing what is written there:
So, is it indeed something wrong with UI and app logic?
Eugene.
Hallo Eugene,
Thank you for your reply. However, to be honest, the wiki documentation appears to be quite as chaotic as the program itself. It might seem a bit old-school, but a concise handbook would be very helpful. The accounting and billing software recently used by our small translation agency (5 people) is no longer supported, so we were looking for a new one and came to the conclusion that TBM, developed especially for translation agencies, and with its GroupShare integration, might be well suited for us.
I hoped we could go productive after a half-year configuration and test phase, but we found using TBM extremely difficult, time consuming and not very logic. There are way too many navigation options and open tabs, you never know where you are on the UI. For example, it took quite a while to reproduce your screenshot: I eventually found this particular view under "Reports" > "Reports" - but why? An invoice is not a report?! Now we will be trying to prepare a customised invoice template.
Anyway, I suppose we will have to contact support whenever new questions arise.
Kind regards,
Andreas
Hello, Andreas,
Thank you very much for detailed answer. Of course, it's not pleasant to hear that, but that's healthy critics, and actually other TBM users say that from time to time. Being a developer of this tool for a few years, maybe I'm too much caught up by own vision. Crowded UI, from one side, and flexibility from other.
However, you say that it wasn't easy to find where templates are. Ok. But, if to check this article, which is one of the first in the manual:
Doesn't it answer the question? Also, templates are stored not in Reports > Reports, but in Reports > Reports and templates.
To create invoice templates, the same engine is used as to create custom reports. So it was decided to combine these things into one view, because the process of working with the is absolutely the same.
Underlining, may I ask to extract few main points which you find extremely difficult in this application?
The thing is that absolutely new TBM is in development now. While main parts and logic will remain the same, it will be absolutely new application, with many different and changed things (for example, file management will be completely new). One of main parts is to make the whole UI more clear and simple to understand without reading documentation. Of course, up to some extent, as the application is pretty complex (thus it can't be simple everywhere).
Hello, Andreas,
Thank you very much for detailed answer. Of course, it's not pleasant to hear that, but that's healthy critics, and actually other TBM users say that from time to time. Being a developer of this tool for a few years, maybe I'm too much caught up by own vision. Crowded UI, from one side, and flexibility from other.
However, you say that it wasn't easy to find where templates are. Ok. But, if to check this article, which is one of the first in the manual:
Doesn't it answer the question? Also, templates are stored not in Reports > Reports, but in Reports > Reports and templates.
To create invoice templates, the same engine is used as to create custom reports. So it was decided to combine these things into one view, because the process of working with the is absolutely the same.
Underlining, may I ask to extract few main points which you find extremely difficult in this application?
The thing is that absolutely new TBM is in development now. While main parts and logic will remain the same, it will be absolutely new application, with many different and changed things (for example, file management will be completely new). One of main parts is to make the whole UI more clear and simple to understand without reading documentation. Of course, up to some extent, as the application is pretty complex (thus it can't be simple everywhere).