Designing your documents

Every quote, job card and completed compliance form Systemise makes, whether it is downloaded, printed or emailed, comes from one of your company's templates. You design them yourself in the template editor.

Opening the templates needs Quotes: View. Changing them needs Templates: Edit. Without it you see Only company admins can change templates. and can preview them but not change them.

Find your templates#

Go to Settings → Document Designs. Templates are grouped into Quotes, Job cards and Compliance forms. Each shows a drawing of its first page, whether it is published, and when it was last changed.

The template marked Default is used unless someone picks another: you can choose a different template on a quote, and when printing a job card. Compliance form PDFs always use the default compliance form template.

From the ⋯ menu on a template you can Duplicate, Rename, Set as default or Delete it. The default can't be deleted: set another one as the default first. Quotes already sent with a deleted template keep their PDF.

Start a new template#

1. Open the new template window

   Select New template, or + New quote template, + New job card template or + New compliance form template in a section.

2. Pick a design

   Choose Quotes, Job cards or Compliance forms, then pick a design to start from. Each design is shown with your own logo and company details.

3. Name it

   Check the Template name and select Create and edit.

The editor#

The editor has three parts:

• Left: Add blocks, the blocks you can add, and Outline, a list of everything on the page. Only the blocks that suit the kind of document are offered.
• Middle: the page. Page breaks are marked ≈ Page 2 and so on. They are estimates: download the preview PDF to see the exact pages.
• Right: the settings for whatever you have selected. Click empty paper to get the Page and Theme settings. Click the header or footer to set its height and layout.

Blocks#

Adding and arranging blocks#

• Drag a block from the left onto the page. A blue line shows where it will go. You can also click a block to add it after the one you have selected, or press / and type its name.
• Drag blocks on the page or in the outline to move them, including into and out of columns.
• Select a columns block and drag the blue handle between two columns to resize them.
• With a block selected, its settings have Move up, Move down, Duplicate and Delete.

Fields#

A field is a value that comes from the quote, job or form, such as the quote number, the client's name or the site address. In a heading or text, type { to insert one. In the header or footer you can also insert the page number and page count.

The line items table#

Select the table to choose its columns. Use Add a column, drag the handle to reorder them, rename a heading (for example “Excl. GST”) and set what each column Shows, its Width and Align. Under Table, choose Grid or Stacked (long descriptions full-width under each row), and whether to show product rows, item notes and a totals row.

Show only when#

Any block, and any table column, can be set to show only when something is true, such as “Has a site address” or “Is an estimate” on a quote, “Is scheduled” on a job card, or “Is a daily form” on a compliance form. Use Show only when in the block's Visibility settings. The outline marks these blocks if.

Page and theme#

With nothing selected, the right-hand side shows:

• Page: paper size, orientation, margins, the header and footer, a different header on the first page (a letterhead), and page numbers.
• Theme: fonts, accent colour (the first swatches are taken from your logo), text size, table style, headings, column headings, spacing, and more colours. Changes apply to the whole document at once.

The Logo block always shows the logo from Company settings: change it there and every template updates. To add another picture, such as an accreditation badge, use the Image block.

Design with AI#

Select Design with AI and describe the design or change you want, for example “Use our logo's blue, put the totals in a box, and add page numbers”. The proposal is shown on the page. Accept it to keep it, or discard it. Nothing is published until you publish.

Check it with a real record#

Use Preview with… at the top to switch between sample data and a real quote, job or submitted compliance form. Try your longest quote to check how it breaks across pages. Download preview PDF makes the real PDF, exactly as a customer would receive it.

Saving and publishing#

Your changes save automatically as a draft. The indicator at the top shows Saving…, Saved, or Needs fixing when something must be fixed first. Customers don't see a draft.

When you're happy, select Publish. You'll see what changed since the last version and anything worth checking first, such as a logo block when no logo is set, or text that is hard to read on the header colour. See the exact pages (PDF) shows the real result. Add a note if you like and select Publish.

Documents already made keep the version they were made with: quotes already sent, and compliance form PDFs already stored. History lists every published version, and any of them can be restored as your draft with Restore as draft.

Keyboard shortcuts#

Troubleshooting#

“Only company admins can change templates”#

Your role doesn't include Templates: Edit. Ask an administrator.

The page breaks on screen don't match the PDF#

Page breaks in the editor are estimates. Use Download preview PDF to see the exact pages.

A compliance form preview finds nothing#

Only a form submitted on a job can be previewed. Submit one on a job's Compliance tab first.