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O365: Bulk Invoicing from Office 365

O365: Bulk Invoicing from Office 365

See also - Blogs on Library, List, Linking, Teams, Invoicing and Workflow

Note - requires compatible client versions of Word and Excel

Earlier posts have covered List and Library creation and producing high quality single invoices from Office 365 and SharePoint.

In this post I'll demonstrate how to push bulk invoicing from the Office 365 platform.



Create the List

First you will need to create the SharePoint List.


Be sure to include fields for Invoice number, date, each address field, quantities and price. Remember that most countries have minimum legal requirements regarding what needs to be shown on an invoice.

Build the Content

Add content to the list as required. This can be done as orders are fulfilled or work completed and may be part of a broader process that includes works order processing and stock control.

Once there is data in the list you can export it. Select 'Export to Excel' in the top menu of the list

This will create a query on the local computer which may be opened with Excel. Save the Excel spreadsheet to a convenient place on the local machine, or in a cloud location. Remember to give the file a name that you can use each time to perform the download. The content of the SharePoint list will change with each financial period and the new Excel download will reflect those changes, so you will need to overwrite the previous period result.

Create the Invoice Template

Note -  You only have to do this bit once

Create this using the client based version of Word to include any company branding, logos, contact detail and company registration numbers
 
Once you have the format of the invoice completed click 'Mailings' in the top menu and then click the drop menu under 'Start mail Merge'. Select 'Step By Step mail Merge Wizard'.

From the wizard panel on the right select to create letters
Select to use the current document and on the next page select to use an existing list. Locate the Excel download you created in the previous step.

Insert an address block under the 'To' heading in the template and select to map fields. Add other fields such as Invoice Number, Invoice Date, etc to the template.

The next step allows you to review the work so far by clicking through the records you will see each record detail allocated to the template.

Don't forget to save your work.

The invoices can be printed individually or streamed to the printer in bulk. You can also print to PDF if you use a mailing agency or wish to sent invoices as PDF attachments to emails.

Use it again and again

Your SharePoint list is now configured and the export to excel will always produce a query in the same format. Save this to the same name as the previous export, overwriting the last period and the Word Invoice template will always find the fields in the same place.



We can show you how, or we can do it for you.





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