Copy-and-Paste Options and Record Templates

During the normal course of business, you may need to enter recurring or similar records (documents, transactions, classes, or profiles)—some of which include many lines—repeatedly. To help you minimize input errors and save time, MYOB Advanced provides record templates and copy-and-paste options for data entry forms and maintenance forms. When you're creating a new record, you can use either functionality to ease this process.

Copying and Pasting

In MYOB Advanced, you can easily create a new record by copying and pasting the data of an existing record of the same type. This functionality can be used to create new records, such as leads, opportunities, contacts, and vendor or customer classes on data entry forms and maintenance forms. The copying and pasting options are offered on the Clipboard () menu on the form toolbar.

Suppose that you have entered a contact for the customer. The customer provides you with a new contact, and now you need to add it to the system. Because the information for these contacts is basically the same, you can create new contact faster by using the copy-and-paste functionality.

Using Templates

You can create an unlimited number of templates for various records—such as bills, invoices, sales orders, purchase orders, leads, contacts, customers, vendors, or business accounts—through the appropriate data entry forms. You can also use templates for most records created by maintenance forms. These records include customer and vendor classes, stock and non-stock items, warehouses, kit specifications, and mailing lists. You even can create a template of a chart of inter-branch account mapping.

You can create a template based on a record that has any status and any number of elements filled in. For any element, you can direct the system to use the default value rather than the value determined by the template. If needed, the template can include detail lines.

When you are creating a record based on the template, you can change the value of any element. New lines can be added to a template-based new record.

Once you open a record that you want to use as a template for similar records, create the template based on the record as follows:

1. On the Clipboard menu on the form toolbar, click Save as Template.

   The system navigates to the Document Templates (SM209020) form, where you can see the selected record with all its values.

2. Provide a brief description for the template. This description will also be used as the template's identifier.
3. In the table, make sure that no element holds the reference number of the record; a new reference number will be generated for any record based on this template.
4. For date- or period-related elements (such as the record's date, post period, due date, and cash discount date), clear the Active check boxes. For any new record, another date will be needed. The values of these date- and period-related elements will be calculated automatically, based on the date and other settings, such as the credit terms associated with the customer or vendor.
5. Clear the Active check box for the following elements:
   • The reference number or identifier provided for the record.
   • Elements that should have default values rather than values from the template.
6. Save the template.

You can use the saved template on the data entry form each time you want to create a record based on the template. If you have saved multiple templates for the data entry form, you can select which template you want to use while you are creating a new record on this form.

If the type of record you want to create by using a template requires you to enter its name or identifier manually, you need to first create a new record and type the name of the record. Then you click Paste from (Template Name) to insert data in the record from the selected template. After making any needed changes, you save the record.