The Sage 50 Forms Designer
The Sage 50 Forms Designer is a tool you can use to customize your Sage 50 Accounting forms, such as payroll cheques, payment cheques, and direct deposit stubs. You can change the appearance of text, change the columns that appear on the forms, or add form elements to new or existing forms.
Form Elements
Using the Sage 50 Forms Designer, you can add, remove or change these basic form elements:
Text boxes
A text box contains text that stays the same every time you use the form. Use if for text such as your business number or company address.
You can change the following text box properties:
- font type
- font size
- font colour
- text alignment and whether the text appears at the top, middle, or bottom of the text box.
- bold, italicize, or underline the text
- the background colour of the text box
- text box borders
- placement of the text box on multi-page and multi-stub forms
- placement of the text box on the form
Data boxes
A data box contains information that comes from your Sage 50 Accounting records, such as a customer payment. When you create a new data box, you are able to select from a list of data boxes available for the form type. The information in this box will vary every time you use the form.
You can change the following data box properties:
- font type
- font size
- font colour
- text alignment and whether the text appears at the top, middle, or bottom of the data box
- bold, italicize, or underline the text
- the background colour of the data box
- borders around the data box
- placement of the data box on multi-page and multi-stub forms
- placement of the data box on the form
Images
You can insert a bitmap image (.BMP, .JPG, or .GIF files) that will appear every time you use the form.
You can change the following image properties:
- scale
- size
- placement of the image on multi-page and multi-stub forms
- placement of the image on the form
Columns
Each Sage 50 Form contains specialized data boxes presented in tables. Data tables consist of rows and columns containing data from your company data file.
You can modify many column properties, such as:
- The number of data columns that appear on the form
- The kind of data that is displayed
- Format of the text that is displayed in each column
When you open a new or existing template, several elements (such as a text box containing your company name and address) are already shown on the form. All of the form elements can be moved or resized.
Envelope Windows
Use the Envelope Options toolbar button to show where envelope windows may appear in relation to the size of your form. You can choose to view and save layout options for the following types of envelopes:
- ENV002 Double Window Statements and Invoice Envelope
- ENV006 Double Window Cheque Envelope
- ENV005 Single Window Cheque Envelope
- ENV001 No Window Statements and Invoice Envelope
When designing forms, it is important to ensure the sender and receiver's address is visible on any form that is sent to a vendor, employee, or customer.
The Grid
The grid is a set of non-printing grey dots in the Sage 50 Forms Designer that are set at 1/16th of an inch. You can use the grid to line up all your form elements. When you drag an element on the form, its edges will automatically align to the nearest grid dots.
Stub Options
Sage 50 Accounting payment cheque and receipt forms can contain one or two stubs. Using the Sage 50 Forms Designer, you can convert these forms from two stubs to one, and vice versa. You can also choose the order in which the stubs appear on the form.
Restore Default Template
To reset the form to the original template provided in Sage 50 Accounting, on the Edit menu choose Revert To Template. You can also undo changes by clicking the Undo button on the toolbar, or choosing Undo Changes from the Edit menu.