Once you have installed the program on your computer and ‘run’ it for the first time, you are confronted with the ‘Business Details’ tab:

Type your Business Name and click ‘Close‘.

Press ‘New‘ on the Main [...]]]> You can have Easy Invoicing UK printing smart, elegantly styled invoices in just a few quick and easy steps…

Once you have installed the program on your computer and ‘run’ it for the first time, you are confronted with the ‘Business Details’ tab:

Business Name Field

Type your Business Name and click ‘Close‘.

Press ‘New‘ on the Main menu to create a new invoice:

Press 'New' on the Main Menu

Type the name of your customer in the ‘Name‘ field and press ‘Enter‘ on your keyboard to complete the address information.
If you add a street address and postcode the program asks you if you want to Add the Customer to the Address Book for future use ? – this is entirely your choice.

New Customer

Next, type a product name, press ‘Enter‘ on your keyboard then type a price for your product.

Add a New Product

Finally click ‘Print‘, then click ‘Invoice‘ and watch a smartly formatted invoice come out of your printer.

Print an Invoice

This was happening because by default Access also includes the time along with the date in a date field:

I had started by [...]]]> One issue I had quite a while back was Access Reports with records filtered between two specific dates (dd/mm/yyyy) but with extra entries appearing outside of the specified dates on the report.

This was happening because by default Access also includes the time along with the date in a date field:

Microsoft Access Table

I had started by using Now() in the Default Value of my field and this was my mistake because Access added the full date and time to the field which is not what I was really wanting.

Access Data Table Default Value

During my research to a quick solution I came across a multitude of possible ways to trim the time off the date using Left, Trim and other Built-In Functions and even some Class Modules to truncate the Date Fields but the actual solution was much simpler:

To achieve just the Date and nothing else I modified the Default Value to: Format(Now(), “d m yyyy”).

Access Data Table Default Value, Formatted

This immediately gave me the required result and when I used that field to filter dates on the report… only the records between the two specified dates showed.

Access Data Table Field Value, Formatted

Version 7 was functional but basic by any of today’s standards but even then it did a really good job.

I was astonished to hear from a customer as recently as 2009 who was still using a copy of Easy Invoicing UK version 7  after [...]]]> Easy Invoicing UK has had several make-overs in recent years.

Easy Invoicing UK 7 in 2003

Version 7 was functional but basic by any of today’s standards but even then it did a really good job.

I was astonished to hear from a customer as recently as 2009 who was still using a copy of Easy Invoicing UK version 7  after all these years without any problems… her reason for contacting us being to upgrade her computer.

Easy Invoicing UK version 8.2 in 2009

The first release of Easy Invoicing UK version 8 was more comprehensive than it’s predecessor.

Based on feedback from users of earlier versions in previous years, the program was re-written from scratch and had ‘evolved’ by offering a wider range of features and functions while still keeping to the simple layout and ease of use it always had.  As always, the most important of the features within the program being tucked away where you need them most.   The Window (or Form) sizes still had to take into account that the most predominant screen resolution at the time was SVGA (800 x 600 pixels).   This made for a very small Window by today’s larger viewing areas and wide screen monitors.

Easy Invoicing UK version 8.8 in 2011

Easy Invoicing UK 8.8 has a more modern appearance than it’s immediately previous version, capitalising on vastly increased capabilities of the more ‘modern’ computer / monitor combination and diversity of range of colours and screen sizes.

The program also underwent a major facelift and had some minor code changes or tweaks to increase compatibility and reliability between older and new versions of both Windows and Microsoft Access.

I am Garry and I was born in Bradford, in the County of West Yorkshire which is in the northern part of England. Bradford was originally a town based around the woollen industry.

While I have always had a fascination for computer hardware and software, my interest in database driven applications didn’t start until [...]]]> Hello,

I am Garry and I was born in Bradford, in the County of West Yorkshire which is in the northern part of England. Bradford was originally a town based around the woollen industry.

Garry

While I have always had a fascination for computer hardware and software, my interest in database driven applications didn’t start until the early 90′s (showing my age a bit now !).

My first commercial Access Application was created using Microsoft Access 95, it wasn’t as comprehensive as some of the application you see nowadays but it was concise, neat and very functional.

Ease of use has always been my main aim on any project I have been connected with. I have often spent far more hours than probably justifiable getting a program to work the way I want it to, rather than go for the compromise of accepting more conventional ways of doing things. For example, many invoicing programs require you to add a customer to an address book before you can use them.. well I wanted an invoice screen where you just typed a customers name and address in the boxes provided and the customer was there to use straight away (and again in future if needed).

This desire to produce greater simplicity in my products has often lead to hours of code research and development, often made even longer because once I would work out a method of achieving something in code.. I would then work on making the code, smaller, faster and more resource efficient.

I like to think this philosophy on application development has brought to the world simple, easy to use yet robust and reliable tools that people like and enjoy using, especially when it helps speed up and streamline aspects of running a small (or even medium sized) business.

Well, back in 1995 a friend of mine who had a small business needed a method of invoicing his customers that was simple and easy to use and was based around the UK market place and wasn’t too expensive yet was capable of holding hundreds, if not [...]]]> How did Easy Invoicing UK come about ?

Well, back in 1995 a friend of mine who had a small business needed a method of invoicing his customers that was simple and easy to use and was based around the UK market place and wasn’t too expensive yet was capable of holding hundreds, if not thousands, of invoices.

So, we set about writing one.

We decided to write an application based around Microsoft Access. The main reason for this was that Microsoft Access provided a fully programmable VBA interface directly linked to an indexed table structure.

The obvious advantage of using Microsoft Access was that we could write the interface and store the data (invoice records in this case) in a single ‘self contained’ environment that was easy to deploy but a very capable program with the capacity to store tens of thousands of records without any perceivable drop in performance thanks to the way that the records are indexed.

Since it’s release, Microsoft Access can be found on millions of computers around the world and since the release of Microsoft Access 2007 – the Runtime Edition (a restricted version that allows pre-written databases to run) has been available, courtesy of Microsoft, free of charge.