Invoice Form with Fixed or Static Product / Service Items

The invoice form created in this tutorial has some of the cells locked or fixed on the product/service item lines. The static cells won't be cleared when you click the Clear & New button.

If all or many invoices in your company always list the same products or services in the same order, you can use the technique detailed here to create an invoice form with static product/service items, so that you do not have to pick items from the product list again and again.

Tip: The sample invoice form can be downloaded from the bottom of this page.

1. First of all, make sure you have finished all the basic customization work, such as replacing the default LOGO image, entering your company information, etc. Please see Setting up Company Information, Tax and Database for information on how to do this.
2. Copy your invoice template file; name the new file "StaticInvoiceTemplate.xls".
3. Open StaticInvoiceTemplate.xls; fill in some product item lines.

   Please just fill in the product or service items that should be locked or fixed, and fill in the items in the order that you want them to appear on all the invoices.

4. Unprotect the Invoice worksheet if it is protected, by clicking Excel menu Tools -> Protection -> Unprotect Sheet in Excel 2003, or in Excel 2007 click the Unprotect Sheet button in the Changes group of the Review tab. Please see Customizing the Invoice Template for more information.
5. Push CTRL key on your keyboard, click those cells that have to be locked - i.e. the cells on the Product ID, Description and Unit Price columns with data filled.

   Note: The Taxable cells can also be locked. In the default/standard template, the values of the Taxable cells are linked to a group of check boxes, and the actual value cells are put into a hidden column C. So to lock all or some of the Taxable cells:

   1. Display gridlines and row/column headers. (How?)
   2. Drag your mouse from B to F on the column headers to select the columns.
   3. Right-click one of the selected columns, choose Unhide from the context menu. (To hide the column again later, choose Hide from the context menu.)
   4. Now you can see the Taxable cells. Push CTRL key and select those cells that need to be locked.

      Tip: You might want to lock some of the Cost cells too.

6. Right-click one of the selected cells, choose Format Cells from the context menu.
7. Click the Protection tab.
8. Check the Locked option.
9. Protect the Invoice worksheet by clicking Excel menu Tools -> Protection -> Protect Sheet. Or in Excel 2007, click the Unprotect Sheet button in the Changes group of the Review tab.
10. Save the template by clicking Excel menu File -> Save in Excel 2000/XP/2003, or Office button -> Save in Excel 2007.
11. Now if you click the "Clear & New" button, it won't clear those locked cells.

Tip: You can use several templates on the same computer, for example you can use two invoice forms or templates - one with locked cells and another without locked cells in case you need to adjust the product items.

Tip: With the Pro edition of Excel Invoice Manager, you can open up to 3 templates concurrently on the same computer. The Enterprise edition does not have this limitation. Please see Difference between Editions for more information.

Tip: You can also apply this technique to the free invoice form to have some cells locked or become static.

Please download the sample invoice form / template created in this tutorial:

• ZIP format: invoice_form_static_items.zip
• XLS format: invoice_form_static_items.xls