Within each job or project in Abtrac, you can create additional fields known as User Defined Fields to enhance your tracking capabilities. These fields, also referred to as custom job records, allow you to capture and monitor specific data points relevant to your work, such as resource consent dates, consent numbers, anniversary months, or whether required documents have been received.
These custom job records can be added to the main Clients and Jobs Search page, making it easy to filter and locate key information. Additionally, you can align these fields with invoice data, enabling them to appear as supplementary text in the Invoice Management screen, as detailed below.
Creating Job User Defined Fields
From Administration >> Maintenance >> Job User Defined, you can create a list of your own fields.
Click the ‘+’ button and enter the user defined field names. You can specify what sort of data you want people to enter, such as a date, yes/no, or plain text.
Make sure you tick the fields as ‘Include in Search’ if you want these custom job fields to be included in the Search Clients and Jobs screen.
You can also match the fields with invoice data if needed, so that it appears within the Invoice Management screen as an additional text.
For example, you can create fields named resource consent number, resource consent date, LIM received and the anniversary month if you wanted to view them all on a batch each month.
Adding User Defined Groups
You can also name user defined groups if desired.
From the ‘User Defined Field Names’ screen, click on the ‘User Defined Groups’ button on the top right to go into the ‘User Defined Groups’ screen.
Use the ‘+’ button to add the user defined groups and save. In the above example, Council Records and Deadlines were added as the User Defined Groups.
You can then click on the ‘Back’ button to go back to the ‘User Defined Field Names’ screen. Here you can assign the appropriate group names to the already saved user defined field names and save.
Adding User Defined Field Values in the Job Details screen
From Clients, Contacts & Jobs >> Search Clients and Jobs >> click on a Job Code to go into the Job Details screen for that job. Click on the ‘User Defined’ tab on the left, then add the values for the user defined fields and save.
Including User Defined Fields in Search
Go to the menu Administration >> Settings >> System Settings. Right down the bottom of the Clients and Jobs tab is a tick box ‘Include User Defined Field in Search’. Put a tick in there and save the settings.
The next time you open the Clients and Jobs Search page, the user defined fields will be there.
You can sort and filter on them to keep on top of your job deadlines and to quickly find specific pieces of information.
Linking User Defined Fields with your Invoice (as Additional Text in the Invoice Management screen)
You can also optionally choose to link a user defined field with one of three additional text fields within your invoice header details, by entering either “Addnl Text 1, Addnl Text 2, or Addnl Text 3” in the ‘Match with Invoice Data’ column pictured above.
When linked to your invoice this data can display a different name from the user defined field name. You can configure the names used for your invoice additional text from Administration > Settings > System Settings> Display on Forms and Reports.
Read more about configuring additional text names here
The three selected user defined field options will appear in the Invoice Management screen for that job in the Invoice Details section as shown below.
These additional text fields can then be added to your invoice template, and used to display additional information on your invoice pdf.
Abtrac KB # 2022