Placeholders are fabulous. Really! Though they may initially seem like nerdy stuff for programmers and hard-core computer freaks, you will soon come to understand and appreciate how they work. It makes sense to use placeholders in all those places where segments of text deviate from the standard text. As an example, let’s say that you write the same invoices every month. But in the introductory paragraph the text reads “…for the month of May…” As an experienced Billomat user, you have stored this as a free text, or maybe you’re even using recurring invoices. But now there is still this mention of the month that has to be adjusted every time. The hour of the placeholder has come! Simply replace the word May with [Date.month_name]. And Billomat will make sure that the current month designation is automatically replaced here later.
Are you up for another example? How about this one: “Please pay the balance of [Invoice.total_gross] within [Invoice.due_days] by [Invoice.due_date]” or “In reference to our estimate [Offer.offer_number] dated [Offer.date]…”
Placeholders are always enclosed in brackets. More information and an extensive list of placeholders may be found in the support section of our website.
Just a few more remarks on placeholders. Date placeholders always deal with the current date. But what if you want to use a different date as a baseline (for example, the next month or two weeks from yesterday or today)? In such a case, you may add on as many calculation parameters as you’d like. Such parameters begin with a plus (+) or a minus (-). A plus sign stands for future values and a minus sign for the past. This is followed by a number and an abbreviated unit. Possible units are: D for days, W for weeks, M for months, and Y for years. So the placeholder [Date.weekday-1D] corresponds to the previous weekday (minus 1 day). A date three months from today would be [Date.dates+3M]. And to have the name of the next month inserted, you would write [Date.month_name+1M]. These calculations can also be sequenced together: [Date.dates-1D+2M-3Y]
You will soon notice how much time is saved by using placeholders. And then you can adopt the texts as they are, leaving the fine-tuning up to Billomat. Go ahead and try it out!
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