Monday 8 October 2012

Time Billing: FileMaker Pro 12 Starter Solution



The Time Billing Starter Solution lets you account for your time spent, and generates billing statements for service-related businesses. It's one of the 16 pre-made templates that's available for you to start using for your database requirements. It's fully unlocked so you can view and modify the database tables, relationships, layouts, and scripts.

When you start out FileMaker Pro 12, just click File > New From Starter Solution… and select Time Billing. Type the name you want for the database (in case you'll have multiple of the same database), specify where you want to save it, and click Choose.

This solution is composed of two sections: Customers and Time Billings.

Customers
You'll see the Customer Details layout first when you start with this solution. This is where you can start typing in the details for your Customer. You'll get some quick access buttons beside the Website, Email, and Address 1 fields. Clicking the button beside the Website or Address 1 field opens up your browser and displays the URL you've typed in the field, or the Google Maps location. The Button beside the Email field takes you to your default email client where you can start typing a new email message.

The right part of the layout shows all Time Billings you have issued to this customer. The top group shows Pending and Active Time Billings, and the bottom group shows Completed Time Billings. Separate totals for Pending and Active Time Billings are shown at the bottom of the two groups. You can create as many Time Billing records for a customer as you want by clicking the "New Time Billing" button on the upper right part of the layout.

On the upper left part of the layout, you can click the button to go to the list of Customers you have. The top part of the Customer List layout shows the Navigation menu, which you can click to go to the Time Billing section of the solution, a sort menu, and Import/Export buttons. The sort menu drops down to show how you can sort the records in the customer list: by Company, Customer Name, City, or State. The Import and Export buttons gets data from another source file, or saves data into any of the file formats supported by FileMaker Pro.

Time Billings



You can go to the Time Billings layout several ways:
  • By clicking the "New Time Billing" button in the Customer Details screen;
  • By clicking on any listed Time Billing under the Pending or Completed Time Billing; and 
  • By selecting "Time Billings" in the navigation menu of the Customer list layout.

When you do either of the first 2 methods above, you'll be taken directly to the Time Billing Details layout. This is where you can type the line item information such as Date, Start and End times, and hourly Rate. The line totals, sub totals, and grand totals are automatically computed. You can type in the Tax Rate as well to have it automatically added to the invoice.

You have options for sending the Time Billing details through email, or having it printed out. If you're using FileMaker Pro for Mac or Windows, you'll be able to customise the look and feel of the layout to your liking. From the Time Billing Details screen, you can return directly to the Customer Details screen by clicking the customer name with the dotted outline.

Clicking the Time Billing List button shows you a list of all records you've created, with an option to sort it by Company, Status, Time Billing ID, Date, and Project. You can filter the display to show only Pending, Active, Completed, or Cancelled Time Billings. Records can be imported or exported to any of the file formats supported by FileMaker Pro, similar to the Customer List layout.

Aside from the professionally designed templates that look great on the desktop version of FileMaker Pro 12 (for Macintosh or Windows), additional layouts for FileMaker Go 12 for iOS and built-in scripts in the Starter Solution automatically show the best layout based on your mobile device (either iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch). Here's what the iPad layout looks like:




You can work with this starter solution in your iOS device in several ways:
  • You can sync it with your iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch using iTunes.
  • You can email the file to your iOS device and open it with FileMaker Go 12.
  • You can enable FileMaker Network Sharing in FileMaker Pro 12, and open the file remotely using FileMaker Go 12.
Enjoy!


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