Qoblex lets you change how your printed documents look: invoices and sale orders, purchase orders, packing slips, refunds and product labels. You can do it in two ways. The built-in designers need no tools. A Microsoft Word template gives you full control of the layout.
This article compares the two so you can pick one, and lists every article in this section in reading order.
What you can customize
Everything lives on one page. Open Account Settings, choose Documents, and find the Document Customization section on the Branding and Customization page. You need the View Account Settings permission to open it.
On that page, Add Template opens a list of the built-in designers, and Add .docx Template uploads a Word file. The designer names in the first column below are the items in the Add Template list.
| Document | Built-in designer | Word (.docx) template |
|---|---|---|
| Invoice and sale order | Invoice Template | Sales |
| Purchase order | Purchase Order Template | Purchases |
| Packing slip | Packing Slip Template | Packing Slip |
| Refund | Refund Template | Refunds |
| Product labels | Product Labels | Not available |
One Invoice design (or one Sales Word template) serves both the sale order and the invoice, because both print from the same list.
Designer or Word template
Most customers are well served by the designers. Choose a Word template only when a designer cannot give you the layout you need.
| Built-in designer | Word (.docx) template | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | Most customers | Customers who want full control of the look and feel |
| Effort | Tick options and see a live preview; no other software | Build the layout in Word and insert Qoblex merge fields |
| What you control | In the document designers (invoice, purchase order, packing slip, refund): logo, title, paper size, orientation, colours, which header fields and columns show, column order, header and footer text. Font size is a setting in the Invoice and Packing Slip designers. The Product Labels designer sets label size and content instead | Everything Word can lay out: fonts, positions, tables, images, wording and extra text |
| What stays fixed | The overall layout, column names and the typeface | Nothing in the layout; you can only use the fields Qoblex provides |
| Documents | Invoice, purchase order, packing slip, refund and product labels | Sales, purchases, packing slips and refunds |
| What you get | A PDF for invoices, sale orders, purchase orders and product labels; a page in your browser for packing slips and refunds | A PDF, whichever document it is |
When a Word template is worth it
Start with a designer, and look at a printed sample before deciding you need more. A Word template is worth the extra effort when you need something a designer cannot do:
- A layout that matches existing company stationery or a required government or customer form.
- Fields in places the designer does not offer, or your own wording around them.
- Custom fonts, spacing and positioning that you control exactly.
A Word template takes more care. A misspelt field name prints blank with no error, so test every change with a real order before relying on it. The articles on Word templates walk you through this step by step.
What happens once you add a template
Designs and Word templates for the same document type share one list. When you print a document, or email a sale order, invoice or purchase order, Qoblex asks you to pick from that list. The exception is the Print Packing Slip item on an individual shipment, described below.
- With no templates for a document type, Qoblex offers a single Default Template, its built-in layout.
- With one or more templates, the dialog lists only your templates and selects the first one. Default Template is no longer offered.
Three cases behave differently.
- Purchase orders. Product label designs also appear in the purchase order print list; choosing one prints product labels for the order’s items. With a single label design and no purchase order templates, Default Template is still offered next to it. With two or more label designs, Default Template is not offered, even if you have no purchase order templates.
- Email. Only sale orders, invoices and purchase orders have a template picker when you email them. It lists templates for that document type only. With none, it shows Default Branding Theme instead of Default Template. There is no email option with a template picker for refunds or packing slips.
- Packing slips. There are three places to print them, and they offer different pickers.
| Where you print | What the picker offers |
|---|---|
| Packing Slips bulk action on the Sales list | The Packing Slips dialog: your packing slip templates, Word included. No Default Template entry, and no picker at all when you have no templates |
| Print Packing Slip in the sale order’s action menu | The same Packing Slips dialog |
| Print Packing Slip on an individual shipment | The standard print dialog, with Default Template when you have none |
To print a Word packing slip, use the Packing Slips dialog from the Sales list or the sale order.
Product labels printed from a goods receipt need a product label design, and the picker there is not limited to your designs: with exactly one label design it also shows Default Template. Without any design, Qoblex shows “Create a product label template under Account Settings / Branding and Customization first then try again”.
Your reading order
Read the articles in this section in this order. Skip the Word articles if a designer is enough.
- Choose How to Customize Your Documents (this article).
- Design documents with the built-in designer: every option in the five designers.
- How Word templates work: the ideas behind merge fields and repeating rows.
- Build a Word template: create and format a template in Word.
- Fields for sales documents: the field list for sale orders and invoices.
- Fields for purchase orders: the field list for purchase orders.
- Fields for packing slips: the field list for packing slips.
- Fields for refunds: the field list for refunds.
- Upload and test a Word template: add the file in Qoblex and print a sample.
- Troubleshoot Word templates: fix errors and missing data.