Expense Report: FileMaker Pro 12 Starter Solution

If you're looking for a way to organize your expenses, whether business or personal, the Expense Report template is a quick and easy way to store all related information in one database, and keep track of expenses for different activities of different people, if you're working in a large organization.

Expense Report is one of the built-in FileMaker Pro 12 Starter Solutions. It's one of the 16 pre-made templates that's available for you to start using for your database requirements. It's fully unlocked so you can view and modify the database tables, relationships, layouts, and scripts.

Once you've created the starter solution, you'll be shown the Report Details screen (shown above), where you can start entering the expense details. This includes information such as Location, Purpose, Employee, and Approvals. Each record's status can be tagged as either Pending, Submitted, Rejected, or Approved. You have a list of expenses and mileage details you can encode based on date and category. When you encode the Cash Advance received in the bottom of the screen, the total reimbursable amount will be automatically calculated.

You can attach a scanned receipt for each expense or mileage entry you make. These can be printed as well.

The buttons on the top right corner of the database area lets you print out a report of all the information for the Report. The Expense Report button sends it to your printer. The Send by Email creates an Email message with a PDF file of the expense report attached to it.

The Expense Report button lets you print a summary of all the report entries. You can also save this to a PDF for future reference with FileMaker Pro's built-in PDF output capabilities.

Clicking the Expense List button shows you a list of all expense reports you've created, with an option to sort it by Month, Summary, Employee Name, Location, or Approval. You can also import and export event records to any of the file formats supported by FileMaker Pro, and print out all the records you're viewing.

The Expense List screen.

Aside from the professionally designed templates that look great on the desktop version of FileMaker Pro 12 (for Macintosh or Windows), additional layouts for FileMaker Go 12 for iOS and built-in scripts in the Starter Solution automatically show the best layout based on your mobile device (either iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch). Here's what the iPad layout looks like:

Report List

Report Details

Expense List

Mileage List

Mileage Detail

You can work with this starter solution in your iOS device in several ways:

• You can sync it with your iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch using iTunes.
• You can email the file to your iOS device and open it with FileMaker Go 12.
• You can enable FileMaker Network Sharing in FileMaker Pro 12, and open the file remotely using FileMaker Go 12.

To access this Starter Solution, open FileMaker Pro 12 and click File > New From Starter Solution. This works even with the trial version of FileMaker Pro 12. Enjoy!

Event Management: FileMaker Pro 12 Starter Solution

Event Management is one of the built-in FileMaker Pro 12 Starter Solutions. It's one of the 16 pre-made templates that's available for you to start using for your database requirements. It's fully unlocked so you can view and modify the database tables, relationships, layouts, and scripts.

This database comprises 2 main sections: Events and Contacts.

Events

The Event Details screen is where you'll be brought to when you first create the database.  Your event can be anything: a meeting, a party, a wedding, or an anniversary; this makes it useful for business as well as personal events. You can start typing information, venue, dates, and addresses about a particular event. A small map of the venue is automatically shown once you enter an address (if Google Maps can find it), provided that your PC or device has an Internet connection.

The upper right part of the screen shows tabbed controls where you can view and enter the Tasks to be done for the event, the Guests attending the event, the Agenda for the event, and detailed Notes for the event. There are buttons in the Tasks, Guests, and Agenda tabs to print out the specified list to your selected printer for reference.

Tasks Tab

Guests Tab

Agenda Tab

Notes Tab

Guest Badges can be printed out straight from the Guests Tab, a cool feature. 

The lower right part of the screen shows a list of contributors playing a role in the event. The people listed here are the ones you can assign tasks to in the Tasks tab control. You can also print out this list with a click.

The buttons on the top right corner of the database area lets you print out a multi-page report of all the information for your event. The Event Report button sends it to your printer. The PDF button creates a PDF file and opens it in your PC or iOS device, and the button with the Mail/Envelope icon creates an Email message with the PDF attached to it.

Clicking the Event List button shows you a list of all events you've created, with an option to sort it by Time Frame, Event, Type, Venue, City or State. You can also import and export event records to any of the file formats supported by FileMaker Pro, and print out all the records you're viewing.

In the upper left corner of the database window, you'll see a Navigation Menu (something that we've seen in the Invoices and Estimates Starter Solutions before). Clicking that lets you switch between the Events and Contacts section of the database.

Contacts

Selecting the Contacts option from the Navigation Menu shows you a list of Contacts that you can use for events. These contacts can either be contributors or attendees for any event that you create. This section is similar to the Contacts Starter Solution with the addition of showing a list of events the Contact is associated with. 

Aside from the professionally designed templates that look great on the desktop version of FileMaker Pro 12 (for Macintosh or Windows), additional layouts for FileMaker Go 12 for iOS and built-in scripts in the Starter Solution automatically show the best layout based on your mobile device (either iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch).


For the Event Management Starter Solution, there are actually more layouts in the iPad version than that of the desktop version. Here's some of the layouts:

 

You can work with this starter solution in your iOS device in several ways:

• You can sync it with your iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch using iTunes.
• You can email the file to your iOS device and open it with FileMaker Go 12.
• You can enable FileMaker Network Sharing in FileMaker Pro 12, and open the file remotely using FileMaker Go 12.

To access this Starter Solution, open FileMaker Pro 12 and click File > New From Starter Solution. This works even with the trial version of FileMaker Pro 12. Enjoy!

Estimates and Invoices: FileMaker Pro 12 Starter Solution

Estimates and Invoices are two of the built-in FileMaker Pro 12 Starter Solutions that's available for you to start using for your database requirements. It's fully unlocked so you can view and modify the database tables, relationships, layouts, and scripts.

The 2 databases are basically similar in layout and functionality with each other. While most of this post looks at the Invoices database in detail, everything is applicable to the Estimates database as well.

Invoices is one of the more comprehensive Starter Solutions available in FileMaker Pro 12.  It combines three databases into one fully relational solution that you can start using for creating billing statements for your business in no time at all.

Customers

Creating a new database will take you directly to the Customer Details layout/screen where you can enter information about your customer in the left part, and view paid and unpaid invoices in the right part. You get shortcut buttons on the Customer Website, Email, and Address fields to open up your browser to display the site, open up your email client to send email to the address, and open up google maps in your browser, respectively.

In the Invoices section to the right, the top part shows details of unpaid invoices, and the bottom shows details of the paid invoices. Clicking any of the items there takes you directly to the specific invoice.

Clicking the Customer List button on this screen shows you a list of all customers, sortable by Company, Customer Name, City, and State. You'll get buttons to Import and Export your customer list (to and from Excel, for example).

You'll notice a navigation menu on the upper left corner that drops down to reveal three options: Customers, Products, and Invoices. Selecting any of these options takes you to the aforementioned screens, a neat implementation for navigating different sections of the database.

Products

Selecting Products from the navigation menu shows you a list of all Products you sell to customers. You can sort this by Item, Manufacturer, or Category, and you can import or export your product list to and from the different formats supported by FileMaker Pro 12. Clicking any of the products shows the Product Details layout.

The Product Details layout contains information about the item such as Category, Weight, Dimensions, Cost and Price, Stock on hand and Reorder levels. A big area on the right lets you put either a photo of the item or a PDF brochure for reference.

Invoices

Selecting Invoices from the navigation menu shows you the list of all Invoices created for all customers. You can sort this by Company, Invoice ID, Payment Status, and Date. You also have an option of showing only either Paid or Unpaid invoices. As with the Customer and Product list views, you can import or export records to and from FileMaker Pro.

The Invoice Details layout shows the items ordered in the Invoice. You can add as many items as you wish and specify the quantity, discount, and tax information. If the item is already encoded in the Items layout, the Unit Price will automatically be looked up, and the Amount will be computed less discount. For the discount field, you specify 0.1 for 10% (and so on) and the number will automatically be formatted in percentage format.

The right section of the Invoice Details layout shows the customer details for reference at the top. Clicking the customer name at the very top will take you back to the Customer Details layout, and clicking the button beside the Company field shows a box where you can change the customer assigned for that invoice. The lower right part of the Invoice Details layout enables you to view and update the Payment Status, Terms, Payment Method, Date, and Comments for the Invoice.

The Send by Email button at the top part of the screen shows the scripting capabilities of FileMaker Pro 12. Clicking this button creates a PDF of the current invoice, saves it to your hard disk, opens your email client and creates a new message with the customer's email address and attaches the PDF file to the message. Just type in your personalized message and hit Send!

If you prefer the traditional way of printing the invoice to printer, the Print Invoice button does just that. Clicking the button pops up a new window and shows a preview of the Invoice when printed. Toolbar buttons above let you save the invoice manually as Excel or PDF, or you can print it directly from the screen.

Company Info

There's also an extra layout for storing the information used in the Invoice printout called Company Info. You can access this from the layout drop down menu, or from View > Go To Layout > Company Info.

Aside from the professionally designed templates that look great on the desktop version of FileMaker Pro 12 (for Macintosh or Windows), additional layouts for FileMaker Go 12 for iOS and built-in scripts in the Starter Solution automatically show the best layout based on your mobile device (either iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch). Here's what the iPad layouts looks like:

You can work with this starter solution in your iOS device in several ways:

• You can sync it with your iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch using iTunes.
• You can email the file to your iOS device and open it with FileMaker Go 12.
• You can enable FileMaker Network Sharing in FileMaker Pro 12, and open the file remotely using FileMaker Go 12.

To access this Starter Solution, open FileMaker Pro 12 and click File > New From Starter Solution. This works even with the trial version of FileMaker Pro 12. Enjoy!

New Container Features in FileMaker Go 12

FileMaker Go 12 for iOS offers a couple of neat features to make managing container fields in your database easier. Each field in FileMaker can be set to hold a certain type of data: Text, Numbers, Dates, Times and Calculations are the most commonly used. Another field type is called "Container," which lets you store any kind of file: pictures, sound, video, PDF files... even Microsoft Office files. Because of this, you can use FileMaker databases to handle Digital Asset Management features, hold your photo or music library, or track versions of documents you're working on.

FileMaker Go extends these even further by giving you some more options. When you click a container field in FileMaker Go, you'll get the following pop-up box:

You can now either View the picture or PDF file in full screen in iOS, Replace it with another file or graphic, Export the file, or Delete it.

When you tap Replace, you're given a list of items you can put in the field. 

• Camera brings up the camera and lets you shoot a photo or video clip from the back or front camera of your iOS device (if available).
• Audio brings up a box where you can record audio clips, useful for interviews or lectures.
• Signature brings up a "sign-here" box where you can capture someone's signature. You'll use your finger or a stylus to sign off on a project, or to acknowledge delivery, for example.
• Photos shows you the existing photos and videos from your camera roll and lets you import put them in the container field.
• Music shows your music library, and lets you add existing songs or voice recordings from your device.
• Files will let you add any file that's accessible by FileMaker Go in your iOS device.

The audio recording box.

The signature box.

The Export box. You can specify the name of the file, the compression, and if you want to email it directly from FileMaker Go straight to the built-in Email App of the iOS Device.

FileMaker Go 12 is available for FREE from the App Store. Make sure you download version 12, as FileMaker Go 11 is still available as a paid download for iPhone/iPod Touch (US$19.99) or iPad (US$39.99). Note that FileMaker Go 12 can only open databases created by FileMaker Pro 12. If you have existing databases that were created by FileMaker Pro 11 or below, you'll either need to convert them to FileMaker Pro 12 format (requires FileMaker Pro 12 for Mac or Windows) or use FileMaker Go 11.

FileMaker Go 12 requires and iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch running iOS 4.3 or later.

Content Management: FileMaker Pro 12 Starter Solution

Content Management is one of the built-in FileMaker Pro 12 Starter Solutions. It's one of the 16 pre-made templates that's available for you to start using for your database requirements. It's fully unlocked so you can view and modify the database tables, relationships, layouts, and scripts.

This database can act as a repository for all your digital content--a Digital Asset Management system. You'll have fields to enter the content title, type, status, notes, and revision history. You can store practically any type of file in the content field: pictures, sound, video, PDF, and Microsoft Office files up to 4GB large. With the new storage management features of FileMaker Pro 12, the contents can be stored separate from the database file to make it as compact as possible.

New also with FileMaker Server 12 is the ability to stream large video streams to FileMaker Pro client, so you don't have to wait for the whole video to load before being able to watch it.

Clicking the Content Browser button in the upper right part of the database window pops-up a small window to quickly search thumbnails and jump to a specific record without leaving the current screen.

The list view contains a couple of more options:

• a drop down list to sort the assets by Title, Type, Status, Time Frame, and Version.
• buttons to Import and Export records to and from Excel, a text file, or other formats supported by FileMaker Pro 12.
• a Printable View report showing the current records found in a printer-friendly view.

Aside from the professionally designed templates that look great on the desktop version of FileMaker Pro 12 (for Macintosh or Windows), additional layouts for FileMaker Go 12 for iOS and built-in scripts in the Starter Solution automatically show the best layout based on your mobile device (either iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch). Here's what the iPad layout looks like:

You can work with this starter solution in your iOS device in several ways:

• You can sync it with your iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch using iTunes.
• You can email the file to your iOS device and open it with FileMaker Go 12.
• You can enable FileMaker Network Sharing in FileMaker Pro 12, and open the file remotely using FileMaker Go 12.

To access this Starter Solution, open FileMaker Pro 12 and click File > New From Starter Solution. This works even with the trial version of FileMaker Pro 12. Enjoy!