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Using the Layouts Catalog
Using the Layouts Catalog

This article reviews how your company will choose your layouts for documents sent to clients and internally!

Aspire Software avatar
Written by Aspire Software
Updated over a year ago

Table of Contents


Overview

Whether you are in the implementation process, or have already onboarded onto Aspire, layouts are a critical part of your success!

What is a Layout?


Layouts are the documents that Aspire creates to send out to customers, vendors, or internally. Commonly, these are your proposals and invoices, but they can also be things like Site Audits, Work Tickets, and Purchase Receipts! Layouts come in different types but also different styles. These different styles can also have different information on the layout based on invoice type or company preferences.

🧠 With over 300+ layout possibilities, we recommend deciding on the most common layout types first, Proposals and Invoices, if you are new to Aspire. These are marked with a star (🌟) in this article.

Understanding the Numbering System

Each Layout Type has it's own catalog that you will be able to use to find your company's favorite layout. Each specific layout within the catalog has an assigned name and number. The numbering system the Technical Services team uses ensures we can expand the catalog and keep track of needed changes.

See below for an example 👇:

Invoice 4.1B

Invoice

4

.1

B

Name of Layout Type

The Layout Style

(Typically 1-4)

The revision number (additional choices under that Layout Style)

The layout can include branch specific information (for multi-branch companies)


Choosing Your Layouts Style

While we have created over 300 layout templates, the best way to decide what layouts you would like to use is by first choosing a style that best matches your company's preference.

💡 To find your ideal layouts quicker in each catalog, choose a consistent style for all or most of your layout types from down below.

Style #1 (Standard)

Style 1 implements shaded headers to separate each section and features borders around customer and property address information.


Style #2

Style 2 is contemporary with a bold banner at the top and colored text to designate headers of each section. No borders or shaded headers are included in this style to maintain a streamlined appearance.

Style #3

Style 3 displays the detail section of each layout in a table format with gridlines. The report headers feature a minimalist look to balance out the bordered tables in the detail section.

Style #4

Style 4 features your company or branch logo as a watermark on the center of each page. The is free of borders, shading, or colored text to avoid competing with the logo watermark


Have you picked your preferred style? Great! Now it's time to go through each layout type and choose the layout that best matches what you want. Some layout differences are small and will be noted in the description. Use your style number to locate the area of the layout catalog that would best apply to your company.


📌 Note: If you would rather pick just a style instead of specific layout types in the catalogs, the layouts team can add the requested style for all default layouts in your Aspire system.


Catalog for Layout Types


Proposals 🌟

The proposal is often also referred to as an estimate, contract, agreement, or work order that you will be sending to your customer for the initial bid. The proposal provides pricing, scope of work/project details, and agreement verbiage to your clients and prospective clients.

💡 Tip: Specifically for Proposals, don't forget to choose both a Contract and Work Order layout. You also might want to choose additional layouts based on the different types of Contracts or Work Orders you bid and invoice! (such as Fixed Price on Payment Schedule, T&M Per Service, T&M on Completion, Fixed Price Open Billing)


Invoices 🌟

The invoice layout is the document used to bill your clients for the services that were provided by your crews. Typically, only one invoice layout will be needed since our samples are designed to be multi-functional.

📑 To understand invoice layout functionality, read this article.

However, there are some special use cases such as Group Billing and PayApp invoices, which are discussed in greater detail in the individual layout descriptions.


Work Tickets

The work ticket layout provides a snapshot of the work to be performed to service a job—including total time spent by the operational crew and estimated or actual materials. The work ticket can also be utilized for chemical application notices or chemical usage reports. The layout is also useful for certain companies that may not use Aspire's mobile app.


Purchase Receipts

The purchase receipt displays materials or services to be purchased from a vendor, like a purchase order. This layout can be used to provide your vendor with your order requirements. It also serves as documentation for the goods that were ordered and the corresponding prices. Alternatively, the purchase receipt layout can also be utilized as a request for quote from a vendor.


Statements

The statement provides a list of transactions that took place with a particular property for a given period of time. It lists invoices and receivables with an open balance or account activity (invoices and payments) for a given period. This layout type is useful for providing your clients with the balance due on their account or their account activity.


Site Audits

Site Audits document the conditions of a property and communicates that information to your clients in a detailed format that can include your evaluator’s photos, notes, and scores.


Other Layouts

  • Client Budget – The client budget displays a monthly budget of all proposed work for a property for the year selected.

  • Credit Memo – The credit memo is issued to your client if you are reducing the amount that client owes you. It is typically issued after the invoice is sent out.

  • Daily Timesheet – The daily timesheet provides a manual framework to record a crew’s time for a particular route. Visit hours are provided for each work ticket assigned to the route for the day. It is typically printed if you do not utilize Aspire's mobile app.

  • Deposit – The deposit layout is printed to provide your financial institution with details of the payments you are depositing into your account on a given day.

  • Employee Weekly Time Card – The employee weekly time card can be printed to record your employees’ time worked and includes signature lines to certify time.

  • Opportunity Estimate Sheet – The opportunity estimate sheet is intended for internal analysis purposes to review estimate details such as costs, prices and margins on all levels of the estimate – opportunity, group, service, and item. It provides a detailed snapshot of the opportunity at a glance.

  • Work Ticket Items Sourcing Report - The Work Ticket Item Sourcing Report displays the purchasing information of work ticket items. The purpose of this report is to increase a company's ability to track and organize sourced and purchased items that are needed before the start of a job. It serves as an interim step between winning the opportunity and creating the purchase receipt.


Additional Layout Adjustments Beyond The Catalog

Add Hard Coded Items

This will be placing the text directly into a Layout, so it always prints regardless of what you do in Aspire.

  1. Intro

    1. Static introductory text other than description of proposal.

  2. Terms and conditions

    1. We encourage you to use Proposal Description for this, if PD 1 and PD 2 are in use, we can then hardcode TOC

  3. Example Images

    1. If you would like to have images show on a particular layout of Headshots of your team, example work, or other images that would print every time this layout is used.

  4. License Number

    1. Some states require certain certification numbers to be listed on invoices or proposals. These can be hardcoded.

    2. If this changes per layout, it is recommended that this is placed in Proposal Description 1 or 2.

  5. Outro

    1. This is used near the bottom on the last page as a parting message

      1. Example: “Thank you for Choosing Aspire”

Add Watermark

  1. While certain styles, like Style 4, have this built in, a watermark can be added to exist on your layout.

  2. You will need to provide the Watermark to the Layout team in .png format (preferred) or .jpg format.

Change Background Colors (Header Bars)

  1. Please provide Hexadecimal color code (HEX) if possible. This can be matched to colors on a logo or other provided image/digital sample.

Change Fields in Customer Contact Info and/or Property Address Info

  1. This is if you would like to show more or less information in the Customer Contact info.

    1. Example: If you would like to not show the address and only show the customer's name and Phone number.

Change Fonts Style, Font Sizes, Font Color

  1. Acceptable fonts include: Arial, Calibri, Courier New, Georgia, Impact, Lucida Console, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Verdana

Change Location of Customer Address and/or Property Address

  1. This will allow you to move around the Info to better fit a logo or look you are going for in the top portion of the layout.

Change Logo Size and Location

  1. The logo size and location where it appears can be changed beyond the standard layout.

Change the Layout Name

  1. If you would like a different name for your layout different from its standard name

    1. Please note: Always use the exact spelling of a layout name when requesting help or changes on it.

    2. This will change the name for all versions including older ones and unpublished ones.

Changes to Header and Footer

  1. This is for adding items to your header and footer, from company emails to phone numbers.

Hide Items by Item's Type

  1. This is to prevent specific item types to show on your layout. For example, if would like to hide all labor items from a layout, these can be hidden based on its item type.

    1. This includes Equipment, Kits, Labor, Material, Sub, and Other

Hide Zero Quantity or Zero Dollar Lines

  1. If you have an item or cost that was not used, this option will hide all 0 items from the Layout.

Rearrange Columns

  1. This is in case you would like columns in a different order.

    1. Example: Instead of Unit first you would like Price first.

Remove Any Information From Layout

  1. If you would like to remove information from any layout, we can delete that so it does not show up.

    1. Example: You do not want to show Unit Price, you simply want to show the Total Price.


How Do I Submit a Layout Request Through AspireCare?

Giving the ticket the best possible data will provide a quicker turnaround time on deploying your layouts. This section will walk through how to submit a Layouts ticket, specifically.

📌 Note: You must have power user access and have logged into our ticketing system. For more information on how to do this, read Guidelines to Submitting an AspireCare Ticket.

  • To submit an issue, a power user will go into Aspire and select the Resource Center Icon (below) and navigate to the Support option. Only power users will see the Support option.

  • Go to the Support Portal and select Layout Request.

Once you have started the ticket, you will be presented with the following layout request form.

Attachments Section

Attachments will not be required for catalog requests unless you are asking for certain adjustments. Certain adjustments would require an attachment to show us what your company would like and where the adjustment will be.

Layout Catalog Request

When the Layout Request issue type is chosen, an additional set of questions will drop down asking if you will be requesting a Layout Adjustment / Layouts Catalog Request or a Custom Layout Request.

📌 Note: Choosing Custom Layout Request is for clients that use or are interested in Aspire Pro Services (APS).

Adding Multiple New Layouts from the Catalog

Adjusting a New or Existing Layout from the Catalog

  • This option will typically be used during implementation to add many invoicing layouts from the layout catalog at once.

  • You cannot make adjustments to multiple layouts on one Support ticket. You will need to make a ticket for each layout.

  • This option is for making adjustments to a single new layout or a single layout that has already been added.

  • When selecting this option, you will see checkboxes to select on possible adjustments (see below) 👇

Selecting Adjustments

When selecting certain Layout Adjustments, you will be given an agreement at the bottom, showing that you understand you are required to provide an attachment. Under each section, you will see a purple note stating that this particular section requires an attachment. The attachment field is found back at the top of the ticket you have created!

⚠️ Not including attachments for your selected adjustments will cause delays in your layout adjustments being deployed to your Aspire system.

  • Once you have made all your adjustment selections, click the Send button to finish submitting your request.

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