Form: add Multi record submission
Nate Montgomery @ SmartSuite
Merged in a post:
Allow Form to Submit Rows to Multiple Apps
Tidd.Co
Allow Form to Submit Rows to Multiple Apps in One - i.e. Invoice & Invoice Lines. Invoices must have their own app due to the need for unique numbering, and so do line items. Line items are a sub-item to Invoices - but it's cumbersome needing to enter in 2 locations, if SmartSuite is to be used before an accounting system - it needs to be as easy to enter an invoice as it is in those systems, and this would make it so.
Jon Darbyshire
Great to hear your perspective, Tidd.Co! I have a few more questions for you:
- Can you provide more details on how you envision the interaction between the Invoice and Invoice Lines apps?
- What specific features in the current accounting systems make invoice entry easy for you?
- Could you elaborate on the challenges you face when entering data in two locations?
Tidd.Co
Hi Jon Darbyshire I'm early in my SmartSuite journey so excuse any errors here, but for systems I'll be building SmartSuite would be the source of Invoice data which would then be pushed through to the accounting software (Xero for example), the reason for this would be that this data is just useful to have inside of smartsuite from the get go rather than needing to enter data in xero only to need to sync it over and various other reasons like SS could make it easier to automate certain info in the invoice too etc etc. to answer your questions:
- the Invoice app is one record per invoice, uniquely numbered, with fields like: who that invoice is to and the date and due date. the line items is one record per line item, so 2 records if the invoice contains 2 products - with fields such as product, quantity, account code. It would be GREAT if you could simply have the ability to create a set of sub-record fields (which link to their own app) from within the parent app. so from one page (the invoice page) i enter a new line for an invoice, then I can create the sub records for that invoice (the line items).
- in Xero as an example its super easy, the invoice is a set form - enter the invoice data at the top, then at the bottom enter the line items - all in one screen. This style of thing would - by the way - be incredibly useful in yet another scenario; manufacturing, whereby you could create a product (parent) and also assign the processes needed to make it (children).
- the challenge is simple, you need to navigate to two places to complete a task that is in effect - supposed to be unified. In Xero you can't save an invoice unless it has line items in it - obviously, in SS this is not there atm. In my hypothetical form it would look something similar to the attached. And as these are ubiquitous with all accounting systems too (Xero, Quickbooks, Sage, FreeAgent) its like an address - its standardised, so it should have built in easy syncing to Xero and systems like that, where the APIs know what to expect.
Keen to elaborate more, as I'm sure I've missed some things out or miscommunicated. Thankfully also, in the meantime - I am still able to build my systems in SmartSuite. but this would be super handy when trying to sell solutions on to clients, so it would help SmartSuite too.