Add & View Attachments

Attachments

Avanti gives you the facility to attach files and web links to any customer, supplier, product/stock item or transaction record. For example you can attach important documents to customer's record or a web link to a supplier's catalogue or terms and conditions. Perhaps you want to attach a scanned copy of a supplier's invoice to the relevant purchase transaction or attach an image file to an expense transaction for a picture taken of a receipt.

Adding attachments to a record is very straightforward and is available in various places in the software using the same procedure. In the Customer, Supplier, Stock, Sales & Purchasing sections you can right-click on the record you want to attach a file or web-link to and select Attachments on the pop-up menu. You can also add attachments in the same way to any transaction using the History options in the Customer, Supplier, Financial & Bank sections or from any of the available Daybook reports.

When the Attachments option is selected you will see the Attachments window as shown above. If there are any existing attachments for the selected record they will be listed on the left. To add a file attachment to the record, click on the Attach File button and you can use the browser to locate the file you want to attach. Once located in the browser window either double-click on the relevant file or highlight it and click Open.  The file is then attached to the record and will be displayed in the list on the left.

To open an attached file either click the paperclip icon to the left of the file name or double-click on the file name in the list.

The selected file is not physically “attached” to the record in terms of it being stored in your database. Instead a separate record is created and attached to the customer/supplier/stock/transaction record that stores all of the details of the file that is being attached including it's name and original file path so it can be retrieved whenever required.

The software also makes a copy of any file you attach to a record. It does this in case it cannot retrieve the original file at any point and in this case it will instead open the copy. This is useful in cases where the original file is deleted, moved or renamed or if, in the case of multi-user systems, the user attaching the file specifies a local path to the file that other users on their network cannot access.

Please note :  If you are using the multi-user edition of Avanti it is preferable to ensure all users specify the full network path for the files they attach rather than the local path of the file on the PC they are using. This ensures that all other users on your system will also be able to access the original file rather than relying on opening the copy.

The copies that the software makes of the files you are attaching are, by default, maintained in a folder called Attachments within the main Avanti folder.  This will be created for you automatically the first time you add an attachment.  If you prefer that the software stores copies of file attachments in another location you have the option to define the exact location through Company Preferences. Select File > Company Preferences from the main menu and select the Reports & Documents option on the left. See the Company Preferences > Reports & Documents page for more information.

In some cases you may want to attach a link to a web page or to a document on a web-site. An example may be attaching a link to a supplier's page for a specific product/stock item or a link to an online invoice for a purchase transaction etc. To add a web link, click on the Attach Web Link button. See the Web Link Attachment page for more information. When you have added a web-link it is displayed in the attachments list for the record and it's icon column displays a cloud to inform you that it is a web link rather than a file.

Opening Attachments

In the Attachments window if you want to open any attachment you can click the icon column on the left or double-click on the name of the attachment in the list.

Adding A Description For An Attachment

When you have added an attachment you will notice several pieces of information displayed on the right. These show the name of the attached file (or web address), the original location of the attached file, the location of the automated copy of the file, which user attached it and when. In addition you will see a Description box where you can add as much additional information about the attachment as you require. When you enter information into the description box, the notes are automatically saved against the attachment.

Removing Attachments

To remove an attachment select it in the list and click the Remove button. After confirming that you want to remove the attachment, the link between the selected record and the file/web-link will be deleted however the file (and it's copy) will not be deleted.

Identifying Records With Attachments

The software provides a way to display which records (whether customers, suppliers, stock items/products or transactions) have attachments. However this is not displayed by default and you need to tell the software that you want to show this information.

In the main Customer, Supplier, Stock/Products, Sales & Purchasing sections you can display a new column which shows a paperclip icon for any record in the relevant list which has attachments. To display this column you must open the Settings tab on the left of the relevant section (by hovering the mouse over the Settings tab or clicking it) and ticking the Attachments box in the Include Option Columns panel. You need only do this once for each section as the software will save your settings and retrieve it the next time you open the section. With the new Attachments column displayed, you can click it next to the relevant record and the Attachments window will open for you to add, view, open and remove attachments for the record. This applies whether or not the record already has attachments.

In the History option for the Customer, Supplier, Financial and Bank sections and the Daybook report in the Customer, Supplier and Financial sections you can also display a column which shows a paperclip icon for transactions which have attachments. However for these options you need to right-click and select Show Attachments from the pop-up menu (or from the Options button in each of the mentioned options). With the Attachments column displayed you can click it next to each transaction to display and add attachments for each transaction regardless of whether attachments have been added previously. As with the sections you only need to select to display the attachments column once per option as the software will remember for the next time you open that option.