Company details in expense invoices and movement documents: template settings and empty fields

Modern retail requires accurate documentation for every transaction, whether it is the shipment of goods to a customer or an internal transfer between stores. The accompanying document printing mode is required to record the transfer of ownership or responsibility for the goods, as well as to comply with tax and accounting requirements. Which records are used to pull data into invoices, how to configure the automatic insertion of the parties’ details into forms, and why certain lines in a printed document may remain blank.

Basic concepts

• Delivery note — a primary document that records the release (shipment) of goods to a customer from the relevant warehouse or store.

• Internal transfer document — a delivery note that accompanies the movement of inventory items between different accounting centers (stores or warehouses) within one retail network.

• Print template — a configurable document layout in the built-in FastReport editor that determines the appearance of the printed form.

• Template variable — a special tag in the layout that the program automatically replaces with actual data from the database (for example, the company name, address, or EDRPOU code).

Sources of company details: where the program gets data for delivery notes

One of the most common questions from retailers is where exactly the sender and recipient data in a delivery note or tax invoice template comes from.

For delivery notes (in the "Sales" and "Sales with invoice" modes), there is a clear hierarchy for collecting sender data. The program first checks the Company record specified in the document. This is where variables such as "Payer EDRPOU", "Legal address", "Actual address", and "Company owner" are taken from.

If no Company is selected for the document, or the corresponding fields are not filled in there, the system moves one level lower and pulls this data from the settings of the Accounting center from which the sale is made. The recipient’s (customer’s) details are taken from the customer card. In particular, the identification code or EDRPOU is taken from the "Other" tab, while the address and phone number are taken from the "General" tab.

For internal transfer documents, the logic is somewhat different because the parties are the company’s own stores. Two target groups of variables have been added to internal transfer print templates: Supplier (sender) and Recipient. Each group contains a complete list of variables: Address, Tax ID, Phone, Actual address, Email address, EDRPOU, Entrepreneur. All of this data is generated automatically from the edit form of the corresponding Accounting center.

Configuring the print template

To display the required details in the document, you need to configure its appearance:

1. Go to the menu Settings — Print template settings.

2. Select the required document (for example, "Retail delivery note") and click the "Settings" button.

3. On the right side of the FastReport window, in the "DB fields" tab, find the required variables.

4. Drag them with the left mouse button to the appropriate areas of the layout (usually the upper part of the document for company details).

5. Save the template.

Reasons for blank fields in documents

Situations where blank lines are printed instead of company details can occur for several system-related or user-related reasons:

• Basic reference data is not filled in. This is the most common situation. For example, if a template variable is configured to display the company’s legal address, but this field is left blank in the settings of the Company itself or the Accounting center, the program simply has nothing to print.

• Specifics of document creation modules. Business owners may encounter a situation where delivery notes automatically generated through the "Repair" module are created with an empty Company field. Even if a company is selected in the invoice, updating the repair status may clear this field, leaving the document unlinked and preventing the details from being printed (the company must then be assigned manually in the generated delivery note).

• Loss of the link between the invoice and delivery note when changing the company. If an invoice and delivery note are created in the "Sales with invoice" mode and then the Company is changed in the invoice, this change is not automatically transferred to the delivery note. As a result, the delivery note remains linked to the previous company (or to no company), and the details may be incorrect or missing.

• Language mismatches and system variable names. When the interface language is changed or old templates are used, variables may not be recognized. A classic example is using the Russian-language variable [счет] instead of the Ukrainian [рахунок] in templates, which causes an identifier error and prevents the details block from being generated. In some cases, due to translation specifics, variables may also appear visually duplicated in the editor list, but this does not affect their operation if the correct item is selected.

• Missing data in linked entities. For example, the payer’s bank account variables may remain blank if the account was added incorrectly when creating the counterparty or was not linked to the correct bank.