Create an Invoice Summary Report

If you produce invoices in LIMS 4.0 with an Excel template and you enable the template’s option to save the invoice number and date to the LIMS, you can create a simple invoice summary user-defined report (UDR) to track invoiced samples.

Beginning with LIMS version 4.0 all samples have optional invoice number and invoice date fields. If you created your Excel invoice template from one of the example invoice templates, enable the “Save Invoice# in LIMS” option on the Settings worksheet and the invoice number and date are automatically saved to each LIMS sample when you use the [Print and Update Last Invoice#] button on the Invoice worksheet.

For example, perhaps you need a list of all samples for a specific customer invoiced this month, or samples for a specific sample type or project, or samples including a specific analyte. Once the UDR is created you can generate it at any time using any query criteria to find the samples of interest.

Below, we will create a simple invoice summary UDR so you can generate a list of invoiced samples matching your query criteria. To create the UDR, begin by selecting the Define Report option on the Samples menu. Enter a Report Name, select a Sort By option such as Sample ID, then select the “Sample ID, Customer (portrait)” template, which will list the sample ID and customer name in the report’s fixed columns.

Next, add three user-defined columns on the Columns tab as follows:

For columns A and B you can pick the Expression from the pick list. To ensure correct syntax, copy column C’s expression above then paste into the Expression field.

Use the Generate Report option on the Samples menu to test your report. Enter any query criteria to find the samples you want to list on the report and enable the Invoiced option on the Additional tab of the query controls to limit the query to samples that have been invoiced. Since this UDR does not include any analytical results, enabled the All Samples Queried option to list each sample queried on the report. Below is an example report.

To find all samples invoiced within a date range, enter the following expression on the SQL tab of the query controls:

InvoiceDate Between #7/1/2013# AND #7/31/2013#

If you invoice by sample batch, note that this UDR will list each sample’s total rather than an invoice or batch total.