Reporting tags and custom fields

Tag invoice, bill and journal lines by cost centre, branch or project to see your figures per tag, and keep extra details on your records with custom fields.

Reporting tags let you label the lines of your invoices, bills and journal entries with a cost centre, a branch, a project or anything else you want to report on. You can then filter the trial balance and the profit and loss by tag, or split the profit and loss into one column per tag. Custom fields keep extra details on your records, such as a trade licence number on a customer. Neither of them changes an amount or an account: tags only label journal lines, and custom fields are information only.

Set up a reporting tag#

Open Settings › Reporting tags. You find it in the Data group of the settings menu. Only the company owner adds or changes tags.

Click Add reporting tag.
Type the Name (English), for example Cost Centre, and if you like the Name (Arabic).
Choose the Kind: Reporting tag, Location, Branch, Cost centre, Project or Department. The kind only describes the tag; every kind works the same way.
Type the Values, one per line, for example Sales, Operations and Administration.
Leave Every line must have a value off unless every line must carry this tag (see Required tags).
Click Save.

Each tag then has its own card with its values.

The Reporting tags page: one card per tag, with its values

1 Add reporting tag adds another tag, for example Branch next to Cost Centre.
2 Edit changes the tag's name, kind and settings. Switch off Active to stop offering the tag on new lines.
3 The pencil next to a value renames it (in English and Arabic) or switches it off. Once a value is used, a number next to it shows how many lines carry it.
4 Type a New value and click Add to add a value.

A tag or a value that is already used on lines cannot be deleted: switch it off instead. An inactive value is no longer offered on new lines, and the lines that already carry it keep it.

Tag the lines of a document#

Once a company has an active tag, every line of these documents offers one choice per tag:

sales invoices (Invoices › Sales Invoices),
purchase invoices (Invoices › Purchase Invoices),
manual journal entries (Journal Entries, Create Journal Entry).

Choose a value for each tag, or leave it on No value. A line takes at most one value of each tag.

A new sales invoice: the tag choice under the line

1 The tag choice under the invoice line. With more tags, each one has its own choice.

On a draft invoice or bill you can still change the tags with Edit. The invoice and the bill show each line's tags under the line, and the journal entry shows them under each journal line.

What the tags do when a document is issued#

When you issue an invoice or a bill, Verasol copies each line's tags to the journal lines it posts for that line:

Document	Journal lines that carry the tags
Sales invoice	The revenue line, and for goods from stock the cost of goods sold and the inventory lines
Purchase invoice (bill)	The expense line, or the inventory line for goods you keep in stock
Manual journal entry	Each line, with the tags you chose for it

The receivable, payable and VAT account lines carry no tag. A credit note line takes the tags of the invoice line it credits, so the credit lands on the same cost centre or project as the sale.

Required tags#

Turn on Every line must have a value when every line must carry the tag. The tag then shows Required on lines on its card, and Verasol does not save a sales or purchase invoice from its screen while a line has no value for that tag: it tells you which line needs one. Manual journal entries are not checked.

Drafts that Vera prepares may come without the required tags, so that you can add them when you review the draft.

See your figures by tag#

Open Reports and choose Profit & Loss Report or Trial Balance Report. Both reports read only posted journal entries, in AED.

The profit and loss with the Tags filter open and the Split by tag choice

1 2 Tags filters the report. Tick the values you want: within one tag, a line with any of the ticked values counts; across two tags, a line must match both. Not tagged takes the lines without a value of that tag. The report heading shows Filtered by tag with your choice, and Clear tag filter removes it.
3 Split by tag (profit and loss only) shows one column per value, a Not tagged column and the Total. Every journal line is in exactly one column, and Verasol checks under the report that the columns add up to the total for every account. Lines without a value, such as the months before you started tagging, appear under Not tagged.

A trial balance filtered by tag includes only the journal lines with those tags, so its debits and credits need not balance. The Export menu keeps your tag filter in the PDF and Excel file.

Tags cannot change after posting#

Add a custom field#

Custom fields hold the extra details your company keeps on its records: a trade licence number on a customer, an LPO number on an invoice, a warranty on an item. Open Settings › Custom fields (also in the Data group), or click Custom fields on the Reporting tags page. Only the company owner adds or changes custom fields; everyone fills them in on the records they may change.

Click Add custom field.
Choose the Record type: customers, suppliers, items, invoices, credit notes, bills, supplier debit notes, payments, journal entries, employees or fixed assets.
Choose the Field type.
Type the Name (English) and, if you like, the Name (Arabic).
For a list, type the Choices, one per line. For Link to a record, choose what it links to in Look up: customers, suppliers, items, employees or accounts.
Switch on the options you need (below), then click Save.

The custom field window, here for a Warranty list on items: record type, field type, choices and the options

1 Record type, 2 Field type, 3 Choices for a list, 4 the options.

The field types are Text, Long text, Whole number, Decimal number, Amount, Percentage, Date, Yes / No, List (one choice), List (several choices), Email, Web address, Phone and Link to a record.

Option	What it does
Required	Verasol asks for a value before it saves an invoice, bill or journal entry on its form, and whenever someone saves the record's custom fields.
Show on PDF	Prints the field in a Details box on the PDF of invoices, credit notes, bills and supplier debit notes.
Show in lists	Shows the value under the name in the lists of customers, suppliers, items, sales invoices, purchase invoices (bills), journal entries and payments. The switch is offered only for those record types.
Use as a filter	Adds a filter for the field to the Customers list or the Sales Invoices list. The switch is offered only for customers and invoices.
Active	Switch it off to stop offering the field. Records that already hold a value still show it.

Fill in custom fields#

The fields appear in a Custom fields box:

on the invoice, bill and journal entry forms, where you fill them in with the rest of the document,
on the page of each record (a customer, a supplier, an item, an invoice, a credit note, a bill, a payment, an employee, a fixed asset, a journal entry). Click Edit in the box, change the values and click Save.

Custom fields are information only: they never change what is booked in the accounts. That is why you can still fill them in or correct them on an issued invoice or bill.

To see all the values of one record type, choose it in the record type filter at the top of Settings › Custom fields and click Export values (CSV). You get a CSV file with every record that holds a value.

Change or remove a field#

You can rename a field and change its switches at any time. The record type is fixed once the field is saved.
Once a field holds values, its field type can no longer change, and a choice that is used on records cannot be removed from the list.
A field that holds values cannot be deleted: switch off Active instead. Tick Show inactive fields to see those fields in the list again.