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Company documents

The Company menu group has the pages for issuing business documents and looking after the information those documents refer to.

  • Customers & vendors — the register of business partners every document refers to
  • Issued documents — every document the company has issued
  • Document templates — the templates documents are issued from
  • Company profile — the details printed at the top of documents
  • Company certificates — documents that authorities have issued to the company
  • Accounting — the amounts on every document, for people allowed to see the accounts

Document types you can issue: quotation, purchase order, invoice, tax invoice, receipt, contract, SRS, SDS, delivery acceptance and more.

Issue a document

  1. Go to Company › Issued documents and click Issue a document.
  2. Choose a Template (only templates with a revision in force are shown).
  3. Choose the Customer or vendor from the register, or click New to add one.
  4. Fill in the Fields to fill in. For documents with line items, enter the Description, Qty, Unit, Unit price, and choose Withholding tax if it applies. Colab works out the Subtotal, VAT, Total and Net payable for you.
  5. Check Exactly what will be issued at the side.
  6. Click Issue and reserve the number.

If the document falls under an approval rule, you’ll see Sent for approval — it is issued once approved.

Document numbers

  • Numbers start with a prefix for the document type (such as QT, INV) and restart every year.
  • The Next number you see in the preview isn’t reserved yet. It is only reserved when you click issue.
  • A number that has been used is never reused, even if the document is cancelled.

Issued documents can’t be edited

An issued document can’t be edited or deleted. If it is wrong:

  1. Open the document, click Cancel this document, fill in Why it is being cancelled and click Cancel the document. The document is stamped as cancelled and kept.
  2. Click Issue a replacement. The new document gets a new number.

You can issue the next document straight from an existing one, for example Create an invoice from this quotation, Draw up a contract from this quotation, Invoice this contract or Issue a receipt for this invoice. The two documents are linked. Click Download PDF to get a file to send. The amounts on a document are only visible to the person who issued it, project members and accounting.

Document approval

On the Issued documents page, the Approvals tab has two parts:

  • When approval is needed — set rules by Type and From amount. The strictest rule that matches applies. An amount of 0 means that type always needs approval. With no rules, documents are issued straight away.
  • Items Waiting on a decision — people allowed to decide click Approve and issue or Reject. The person who asked can click Withdraw.

A document waiting for approval has no number yet; approving it issues the document and reserves the number in one step. These requests also appear on the Approvals page.

Document templates

Every document is issued from a template, and templates are written by the people whose job is writing documents.

  1. Go to Company › Document templates and click New template. Enter the Name, Short code and document type. Colab opens revision 1 as a draft for you.
  2. Write the content, then click Insert a field to add fields that are filled in when a document is issued — or click Draft with AI and describe the document you want.
  3. Fill in Why this revision exists and click Save draft.
  4. Click Submit for approval. The approver clicks Approve and put in force or Send back for changes.

Each revision’s status is one of: Draft, Awaiting approval, In force, Superseded, Withdrawn. A revision in force can’t be edited; to change it, Start revision a new one and get it approved again. The company’s House style is sent along every time AI drafts a template.

Customers and vendors

  1. Go to Company › Customers & vendors and click Add.
  2. Enter the Name in everyday use, Registered legal name, Type (customer / vendor / can be both), Tax ID, Branch code, Credit terms (days) and address.
  3. Click Save and add contacts to add contact people, such as purchasing or accounts.

Colab warns you if a company with a similar name or the same tax ID already exists. You can Archive a business partner you no longer use — documents already issued still refer to them — and Restore them later.

Company profile

The Company › Company profile page holds the details printed at the top of documents, such as the name, tax ID, address and the Bank account for customer payments. Only people who can issue documents can edit it.

If the company is VAT-registered, click Record VAT registration and enter the Registration date (from the P.P.20). Until it is registered, Colab won’t issue tax invoices or receipts, but you can still issue quotations, invoices and contracts.

Company certificates

The Company › Company certificates page stores documents such as the company affidavit, P.P.20, Bor.Or.Jor.5 and financial statements.

  • On file — click Add or Replace, fill in Issued on, and set May it be sent out? (freely / only with approval / never).
  • Send one out — choose the document, enter Their company name and a Reason, then click Send the request. What goes out is a link that expires, not the file itself.
  • If approval is needed, Colab sends a card to the approver’s private LINE chat, and the link appears under Requests once it is approved.

Accounting

The Company › Accounting page is only open to people allowed to see the accounts. Its views are:

  • To hand over — every document issued and cancelled. Click Download CSV, then Mark as handed over.
  • Owed to us — unpaid invoices. Click Record payment when the money arrives, then Issue a receipt (the company must be VAT-registered).
  • By project — amounts per project.

Ask Summy too

  • Issue a document from a template, such as a quotation or invoice (you confirm on a card), and send the PDF link to people in the chat
  • Show issued documents and available templates, and link related documents, such as a quotation and its invoice
  • Add or edit customers, vendors and contacts
  • Show a summary of what customers owe, and record payments (you confirm)
  • Show company certificates, and request to send one to a business partner
  • Draft or edit document templates