Document & receipt templates
Design document and receipt templates per document type, create layouts in the visual or HTML/CSS editor and assign them to document types.
→ Open templates in SimpliServ
Document templates determine how your PDFs look – from the invoice through the proposal to the register receipt. You design a separate layout per document type and then set which template is used for which document type.
How it works
A template has two sides: the layout (designed in the editor) and the assignment (which template applies to which document type). You can create any number of templates and assign them specifically – e.g. two invoice layouts and assign only one of them.
There are three editor types, chosen on creation as needed:
Invoice editor
A visual editor for multi-line business documents: invoice, proposal, estimate, delivery note, reminder.
Order-tag editor
A dedicated editor for order tags.
HTML/CSS editor
Freely codable templates with placeholders – for vouchers, receipts, cash reports and more.
Create a template
Open templates
Navigate to Administration → Templates. Under My templates you see all existing templates with Name, Type and the Used for column (the assigned document types).
Create a new template
Click New template, assign a template name (e.g. "Standard invoice") and choose the type (invoice, order-tag or HTML/CSS editor).
The editor opens
After creating, you land straight in the matching editor. You can reopen a template at any time via the row menu (Edit) or by clicking the row.
If you open a document type that has no template assigned yet (e.g. via Administration → Modules → Invoices → Layout templates), SimpliServ automatically creates an appropriately named template, assigns it and opens the editor.
Design the layout in the visual editor
The invoice editor (for invoice, proposal, estimate, delivery note, reminder) works with a live preview and two editing tabs:
- Design – the look of the document. Via collapsible sections you control Layout (presets), Intro, Logo, Accent colour, Typography, Spacing, Line-item table, Meta and Footer.
- Layout – the structure of the page. You show/hide areas like the header, address, items, totals, note, payment and footer, rearrange them via drag and drop, set the width and alignment and choose the columns of the line-item table (image, name, description, quantity, unit, price, tax, total) including their order.
Further helpers in the editor:
- Undo / redo (also via Ctrl/Cmd+Z and Ctrl/Cmd+Y) for all changes.
- Copy style from…, to copy the look of another existing template (the title, intro text and footer are preserved).
- Load preview generates a PDF with sample data.
- Reset restores the default design.
For delivery note and estimate, the price, tax and total columns are hidden by default, since these documents usually work without amounts.
Paper format, printer & preview
Above the editor you set document-wide properties – they apply to all editor types:
- Paper format – A3, A4, A5, A6, Letter, Legal, Receipt58, Receipt80 or Custom (freely chosen width/height in mm).
- Orientation – portrait or landscape.
- Printer and copies – links the template to a stored printer for direct printing (see Printers).
- PDF preview – opens the rendered document for review.
HTML/CSS templates & placeholders
You design HTML/CSS templates (voucher, receipt, register receipt, online-payment receipt, cash reports, etc.) freely with HTML and CSS. You insert dynamic data via placeholders:
- Via the placeholder picker (
< >button) you choose tokens from the catalog – each with a description and example value. On click, the token is inserted at the cursor position. - Tokens have the form
{{TOKEN}}and are replaced by the real document data on PDF export (e.g.{{CUSTOMER_NAME}}). - The uploaded logo is available as
{{tenant_logo}}(data URI). - With loops you repeat blocks per line item or tax group, e.g.
{{#items}} … {{/items}}and{{#tax_groups}} … {{/tax_groups}}. - Within the item loop,
name,description,quantity,unit,unit_price,line_total,line_total_net,line_total_gross,tax_rateandtax_amount, among others, are available.
PDFs are rendered in an isolated browser. Embed images as a data URI (like {{tenant_logo}}) – external image URLs don't appear in the generated PDF.
Assign a template to a document type
Under Assignments you set which template applies to which document type:
Choose the document type
Every document type (including invoice, proposal, estimate, delivery note, reminder, order tag, voucher, receipt, register receipt, day-end, cash report) has a selector.
Select the template
Choose the template you want. If the field stays empty ((no template — use default)), SimpliServ uses the default layout.
Import & export templates
Via Export (in the row menu) you download a template as a JSON file; with Import in the toolbar you load it back in. That way you transfer layouts between tenants or back them up externally.
Permissions
The Templates area requires the documents.view permission. Saving the designs from the visual editor additionally requires the settings permission (admin.settings.update). More on roles under Users & roles.
Related topics
Create an invoice
Generate documents that use these layouts
Email templates
Adjust the sending texts for your documents
Text templates
Reusable text blocks for header and footer texts
Printers & label printing
Link templates to printers
Dunning
Dunning levels whose reminder layout you design here
Set up the register
The receipt layout for the register
How is this guide?
Number ranges
How to configure the number ranges (number formats) for documents and register receipts in SimpliServ: the format with variables, digit count and next number per series.
Text templates
Reusable rich-text blocks for the header and footer texts of proposals, estimates and invoices – optionally as a default that's applied automatically on creation.