Making Calculations Easy
I’m really excited to tell you about the new calculation feature that was recently added. The idea is to allow you to do calculations from within the invoice page of Billing Manager, saving you the time of typing numbers into a calculator before putting them into your invoice. What’s especially cool about this new feature is its versatility; once you understand how it works you’ll probably come up with useful ways to use it that even we never thought of!
Here’s the gist: when you’re creating an invoice you can now enter formulas into the “Price” and “Quantity” fields. Similar to doing calculations within a spreadsheet application, just type the “=” symbol before typing your formula and Billing Manager will calculate the number after you move your cursor to the next field. Think of it as your built-in calculator.
Example 1: Percentage Increase
For our first example, let’s imagine that I am a landscaping specialist, and part of my fee structure is to markup the cost of any landscape materials by 25%. For today’s job, I spent $546 on materials at my local supplier. For this calculation, I would type “=546*1.25”
Example 2: Summation
Alternatively, let’s say I’m a contractor or consultant who bills for hours worked. I jotted down that I worked 6 hours on Tuesday, 8 and a half hours on Thursday, and 5 hours on Friday. Here’s what I type into the quantity field of my invoice: “=6+8.5+5”. As soon as I click my cursor into another field (or press the “Tab” key on my keyboard), Billing Manager will calculate the sum for me.
Example 3: Area and Volume
These calculations can also be great for individuals who sell products by area or volume. A stained glass supplier who sells bulk glass by its area can multiply the length by the width within the quantity field to determine the total price. An exotic lumberyard that sells stock by the “board feet,” a unit of volume, can also do this calculation within Billing Manager (length * width * depth). Here’s an example for our stained glass supplier:
Example 4: Negative Percentage
And here’s a more advanced scenario; if I offered loyal customers a “20% off 1 item” coupon, how could I quickly and easily record that information in an invoice? Here’s one way to do it:
- Create one line on the invoice for the product at its original price – let’s say a $249 cell phone.
- Then, create a second line for the discount, and in the price field type the formula as a negative percentage of the discounted item; for this case it would be “=249*(-.2)”.
Let’s see how our invoice looks in Billing Manager.
As you can see, you can do a lot of different things with the new calculator feature, and we’re only starting to scratch the surface. If you’ve come up with some neat ways that this can help you create your invoices, we’d love to hear from you – so let us know by commenting on this Blog article or clicking the “Feedback” link within Billing Manager.
Thanks for checking in with us. We’ll get back to you soon with more info about some of our other cool new changes.
Take care,
Colin
