Set each branch's layout, test it, and change it safely — transcript

Presentation 2 of 2 in Choose the layout every document prints on · about 9 minutes · for the whole-system operator — you run the books.

Play this as a presentation — one slide per step, with the same narration. Every word of every step is on this page.

This presentation is for you if you are about to set GadgetSphere’s layouts branch by branch, or you have inherited a set that nobody can explain. In about nine minutes you will give each branch its default, keep it to one, test it the way a customer will meet it, find the three quiet failures, and change a layout without surprising anybody.

Step 1 — Give each branch its default layout

After this step pressing Print at GS-KV-01 opens with the right layout already chosen. In the Sales Invoice applet’s Settings, open Branch Settings, choose the branch, and open its Printable Format tab. Pick the format, SI-A4-KV for the Klang Valley branch, and save. The row belongs to one branch and one document type, and the applet decides the document type, so the tab in each applet sets a default for that applet’s documents only. Do the same for GS-PEN-01 with the receipt layout, and work down your plan. From then on that row pre-selects the print dropdown, and it supplies the attachment when a message template’s e-mail names no layout. It does not reach the e-invoice PDF. One caution: printing several invoices at once from the listing uses the first invoice’s branch layout for all of them, so print one branch at a time.

Reference: Printable Formats and Per-Branch Defaults — Step 2: Set the branch’s default

Step 2 — Add the branch’s header and footer text

After this step the branch’s own lines can appear on its documents. The same branch default carries Header and Footer text, such as the branch’s address, or the bank details a corporate customer should pay into. BigLedger hands both to the template as two named parameters, and two conditions decide whether they print. First, the template has to ask for them, which is a question for whoever wrote it. Second, the copy has to come from a print that passes them on. Printing a sales invoice from its screen does, and so do the prints for the cash bill, the receipt and payment vouchers and the purchase order. The e-mail sent through a message template does not, and neither does the batch print of several layouts. So when a header is missing from a screen print, ask the template’s author before anybody retypes the text.

Reference: Printable Formats and Per-Branch Defaults — Four rules for choosing a layout

Step 3 — Keep one default per branch and document type

After this step every path that reads a branch default will find the same layout. Nothing on the server stops a second default for the same branch and document type. The Sales Invoice applet’s branch settings update a row only when one with the same format and the same device exists, so with no device chosen every save adds a row, and a direct integration can add more. Each path then chooses between the rows its own way, as a table on the printable formats page sets out: the message-template e-mail and the header and footer take whichever row the database returns first. So printed and e-mailed copies can differ. With one row per branch and document type, every path prints the same layout, so after any change, list the branch’s defaults and keep one. If you inherit several, ask BigLedger support why, and until then do not count on which one the e-mail uses.

Reference: Printable Formats and Per-Branch Defaults — Step 2: Set the branch’s default

Step 4 — Print one of each and look

After this step you will know the layouts work before a customer tells you they do not. At GS-KV-01, print a sales invoice from the screen: the dropdown should open with SI-A4-KV already selected, and the PDF should carry the branch’s header. Then check the two e-mails separately. The automatic e-mail sent through a message template should attach the same layout, unless the template names its own, but without the branch’s header and footer, which that copy never receives. The applet’s Send Email button ignores the branch default: it attaches its e-mail template’s layout, else the applet fallback, with header and footer. Open the e-invoice PDF: it should be the company layout, the same choice at every branch. If every copy matches your plan, that branch is done. Repeat at one branch of each style.

Reference: Printable Formats and Per-Branch Defaults — Step 4: Print one of each and look

Step 5 — Find the first place to look for three quiet failures

After this step each common layout failure has a first place to look. An empty print dropdown means no format in the account carries this applet’s document type, or the branch has no default and the applet has no fallback: upload from the right applet, or set the default. An e-mail that arrives with no PDF means the message template’s link names no layout and the branch has no default for that document type. The job sends the e-mail anyway and raises nothing, so set the default. An e-invoice PDF that ignores the branch layout is the design: it reads only the company’s e-invoice layout, or else the built-in one. None of the three shows an error on your screen, which is why the check in the last step is worth its five minutes.

Reference: Printable Formats and Per-Branch Defaults — Common mistakes

Step 6 — Change a layout without surprising anybody

After this step a layout change will be a decision, not an accident. BigLedger lets anyone holding the branch-default permissions point a branch at a different format; deciding who holds them is your job. Give one person the job of approving each new template, and let it be someone other than its author. Avoid replacing the file on a format every branch uses: that deletes the old file, and every print from then on, reprints included, uses the new one. Upload the new template as a format with its own code, point only one branch’s default at it, and check its print and message-template e-mail there. That trial covers the paths that read a branch default. An e-invoice layout is chosen per company, so its change reaches every branch at once. The change is finished when every branch in your table points where the table says.

Reference: Printable Formats and Per-Branch Defaults — Before you start

Check yourself

Three to five questions on what you just heard. Every correct answer links to the page that makes it correct, so you can check the source, not just the mark.

1. One branch's customers receive document e-mails with no PDF attached, and nobody has seen an error. Where do you look first? The mail server's size limit for attachments
Whether the branch has a default layout for that document type, since the message template's link names none
Whether the Inland Revenue Board, LHDN, has validated the documents

2. You typed a header for GS-KV-01 and it never appears on a sales invoice printed from its screen. Who do you ask first? BigLedger support, to restart the print service
The template's author, because the Sales Invoice screen print passes the header on, so the template has to ask for it
Nobody: retype the header and save it again

3. A branch has two defaults for sales invoices. What can happen? Nothing: the second one is ignored everywhere
Each path chooses between the rows its own way, and the e-mail takes whichever comes first, so the printed and e-mailed copies can differ
The server refuses to print until one is deleted

4. How do you try a new sales-invoice template without changing all twenty-two branches at once? Replace the template everyone uses and watch for complaints
Upload it as a new format with its own code and point one branch's default at it to test it
Ask the Inland Revenue Board to approve the layout first

Answer key

Whether the branch has a default layout for that document type, since the message template's link names none — Printable Formats and Per-Branch Defaults — Common mistakes
The template's author, because the Sales Invoice screen print passes the header on, so the template has to ask for it — Printable Formats and Per-Branch Defaults — Four rules for choosing a layout
Each path chooses between the rows its own way, and the e-mail takes whichever comes first, so the printed and e-mailed copies can differ — Printable Formats and Per-Branch Defaults — Step 2: Set the branch's default
Upload it as a new format with its own code and point one branch's default at it to test it — Printable Formats and Per-Branch Defaults — Step 1: Upload the format from the document applet

This is a self-check. Your answers are marked in your browser and stay there — nothing is sent anywhere, nothing is recorded, and the marking is readable in the page source, so it is not a credential. Open the answer key at any time.

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Last updated on September 27, 2026

Set each branch's layout, test it, and change it safely