Customising statements for your stationery

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Last updated: Dec 14, 2022 by Daniel Boo (Deactivated)Version comment
3 min read

You can customise your Crystal Reports by:

  • merging the Crystal Report with a PDF underlay file
  • customising the report style.

Adding an underlay file
A PDF underlay file is a prepared PDF file that is printed 'underneath' the Crystal Report. For example, a watermark of your organisation's logo or additional terms and conditions. All Crystal Reports from the same sub ledger use the specified underlay file.

Note: Ensure the main/normal underlay file must not be longer than one page. If the underlay file is more than one page, the pages are overlaid on top of each other, and push the actual report information to the next page. If you have more than one page of information to display, we recommend you provide a web link within the underlay file to the additional files so they can be downloaded by the recipient. You may add > 1 page for the footer or header underlays.

To add a PDF underlay file to a Crystal Report:

  1. Create the PDF of the underlay file.
    Note: The Crystal Report is laid directly on top of the underlay file. If you want to display text in your underlay file, such as additional terms and conditions, make sure they are displayed on an area that the report does not print to. The pdf file set in the 'normal' field should be a blank pdf. If the pdf has any logos or words it will merge it with the main statement/invoice template like a background/watermark. 
  2. Select Module > System > Finance Configuration Maintenance.
    The General tab of Synergetic Financial Configuration is displayed.
  3. Navigate to the Debtors tab Sub Ledgers sub-tab. See Synergetic Financial Configuration - Debtors tab - Sub Ledgers sub-tab in the Finance manual.
  4. Select the sub ledger you want the underlay file to be used with.
  5. Click the Underlay sub-sub-tab.
    The Underlay sub-sub-tab is displayed for the selected sub ledger.

    Note: All reports for this sub ledger use the specified underlay file.
  6. For either statements or invoices type in the full location of the underlay file in the Normal field, or click  to locate the file on your computer or the network. For example, Q:\Reports\DebtorUnderlay.pdf.
    Note: You can also apply underlays which are headers or footers as well as the Normal underlay file. The header page occurs before the main document and the footer file occurs after the main document. The Normal underlay file is merged with the statement(Use a blank pdf if you do not want to have a watermark or additional logos added to the statement).
    Tip: Header and footer PDFs must be saved in the same directory as the Normal underlay PDF, with _Header or _Footer appended to the filename. For example, the if the normal file is \\Server\Synergetic\Reports\Site\Letterhead.pdf, the header file is \\Server\Synergetic\Reports\Site\Letterhead_Header.pdf.
  7. You can add your header underlay PDF in the reminder 1 field and the footer underlay PDF in Reminder 2 field. This will add an additional page for each new underlay PDF used. E.g. you will see 1 page before the statement (header) and 1 page after the statement (footer) Giving you at least 3 statement pages in total. 
  8. Choose whether the different underlays should be applied for statements or invoices that are:
    • Both Electronic and Printed
    • Electronic Only
    • Printed Only.
    Tip: If you do not want to apply an underlay, select Do Not Apply.
  9. Click .
    The underlay file is added for the selected statements or invoices. 

Customising the report style
The Crystal Report stationery code is displayed at the top of each statement window. It tells you which report Synergetic is using for printing statements.

You can customise the standard statement report style to suit your stationery, using Crystal Reports. This is saved in the site directory within the Synergetic reports folder on your server.

Note: The default statement is DebSt but there are several other variations in the reports directory that you can base your customised version on.

To specify the new report name to use for printing statements:

  1. Select Module > System > Finance Configuration Maintenance from the main menu.
  2. Click the Debtors tab.
  3. Click the Page 3 tab.
    The Debtors (Page 3) tab of the Synergetic Financial Configuration window is displayed.
  4. Type the report suffix in the Statement Report Suffix field.
    Note: In the example, the suffix PP is used to represent report DebStPP (where DebSt is the standard report).
  5. Click to save the configuration changes.