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Letterheads

A letterhead is what every printed and e-mailed document of a company carries: its registered name and address, company and VAT numbers, how to pay, its logo, and the e-mail account documents are sent from. Each company has one, and purchase orders, goods received notes, remittance advice, quotes, order acknowledgements, delivery notes, invoices, credit notes and statements all use it.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → ERP - Setup:

  • ERP Documents — the Output & letterhead tab, for holders of ERP: Administration

Architect Panel → ERP - Setup:

  • Documents — the same console, with the same Output & letterhead tab

Who can change it

The console opens for holders of the ERP: Administration role and for architects. You can read the letterhead of any company you can read, and change it only for companies you have write access to; otherwise the form says you can read it but not change it.

Setting up a letterhead

  1. Open the Output & letterhead tab and choose the Company. A company with no letterhead yet is marked (not set up), and a status label reads Not set up, Incomplete or Ready. It is Ready once the address line, postcode, company number and VAT number are filled in.
  2. Registered details: Registered name, Trading name (optional), Company number and VAT / tax number (printed on invoices, credit notes and orders).
  3. Registered office: Address line 1, Address line 2, Town / city, County / state, Postcode and Country.
  4. Contact: Phone, E-mail (printed on documents; invoices to you go here) and Website.
  5. How customers pay: Bank, Account name, Sort code / routing number, Account number, IBAN (checked before it is saved) and BIC / SWIFT. These are printed on invoices and statements.
  6. Sending: Send documents from (the e-mail account documents go out through), Replies go to (optional), and Footer line (optional).
  7. Logo: Upload a PNG or JPEG (up to 300 KB). It prints about 4 cm wide. Tick Remove the logo to take it off.
  8. Press Save letterhead. The form shows when it was last changed and by whom.

How the letterhead is used

  • Footer line: printed on invoices, credit notes and statements only, never on a purchase order or remittance. Use it for your payment terms.
  • Labels follow the country: a company whose country is the United States prints "Tax ID" and "Routing number"; a UK company prints "VAT no." and "Sort code"; Canada, Australia and New Zealand get their own labels.
  • VAT analysis: priced documents show tax by rate, worked out from the lines and reconciled to the totals the ledger posted, so the printed figures always agree with the books.
  • Send from: documents are e-mailed through the account named here. If the tenant has exactly one e-mail account it is used; with several and none chosen, sending is refused rather than guessing. Only an ERP administrator may pick a different account when sending.

E-mail accounts themselves are set up under E-mail Accounts.

Recently sent documents

Below the form, Recently sent documents lists what was e-mailed for the company: When, What, To, Result (Sent or Not sent with the error) and By. Documents are sent from their own screens (Purchasing, Sales, Receivables) with Send by e-mail.

What goes wrong

  • Sending is refused because no account is chosen: pick Send documents from.
  • "That image is over 300 KB": make the logo smaller; it only prints about 4 cm wide.
  • The IBAN is rejected: it failed the check. Copy it again from the bank's letter.
  • Invoices show no bank details: the payment section is empty for that company.

Worked example

A group has a UK parent and a US subsidiary. The ERP administrator fills in the UK letterhead with its VAT number, sort code and IBAN, the footer "Payment due within 30 days of invoice date", and the accounts mailbox as the sending account. For the US company they enter the EIN as its tax number, set the country to United States, and fill in the routing number. US invoices now print "Tax ID" and "Routing number", and both companies' statements show how to pay.

Recommendations

  • Set up every company's letterhead before the first document is sent.
  • Use a shared accounts mailbox as the sending account, not a person's.
  • Put payment terms in the footer line; it appears where customers need it.
  • Check the Ready label after any change of address or bank.