GrandTotal Help

Starting with Version 6, GrandTotal uses a new file format. Users of older versions of will be asked to migrate existing data upon launch.

Migration of older data can be started from the GrandTotal menu manually as well. There you also can delete older, not longer needed data.

The shared syncing folder used by older versions of GrandTotal has to be deleted manually: It’s located in GrandTotal/com.mediaatelier.grandtotal.sync in the root of your Dropbox or iCloud Drive. Make sure you don’t have saved own files in that directory, before deleting it.

Can I work on the same file at the same time?

Yes, if it is on a cloud drive or in a shared folder on the device.

Is it possible to manage different companies or mandates?

Yes. You can create a new company using the File menu.

Can backup copies still be made?

Yes. To do this, save the corresponding GrandTotal file in the Finder or use the menu File/Save copy.

Can I save data for older versions of GrandTotal?

Yes. Backup copies can be made for GrandTotal 3-5. However, you can only restore data that is supported by the corresponding version. Menu File/Save copy with ⌥ key pressed.

Can GrandTotal be synchronized with older versions?

No. This only works within the same version.

The dashboard gives you a quick overview of open invoices. You also can compare revenues to last year's period.

All values are converted to your default currency using the exchange rate entered in Preferences/Payments.

This is the list of the internal annotations that are marked as todo use the check mark to remove them.

In the Charts section you can compare and visualize values. The scale can be picked on the top right.
In the bottom part you select the values to be in the chart. The color of the bars can be changed. Drag the items to change the order. Drag it out of the window to delete them.

Right clicking on a bar gives you option to spilt the values by various criteria.
Clicking on a bar shows a list of the corresponding documents. Double clicking a document will show it. The list can be exported as well.

All the values are shown in your primary currency. The exchange rate can be set in Preferences/Payments

Previous year's values are only displayed in scales that are comparable.

If comparing items, it is most likely that you will get rounding differences compared to the invoices. (This is because taxed are calculated on the total on invoices and not on the individual item)

Charts will become available as soon you have sent documents.

Here you will find all the documents that have not yet been sent.

The forecast shows the expected turnover from recurring and permanent invoices.

This section is populated with direct debit items to be processed.
From here you can export an XML file that can be uploaded to your bank or send it directly to MoneyMoney.
Settings for direct debits are located in Preferences/Identification and the Clients.

Here you can see your Document-Templates (if you have created any) and edit them. Templates are created by right clicking an existing invoice.

Use the "Edit/Delete" Menu to remove unused Templates.

GrandTotal supports various time tracking applications. Their recordings appear in the corresponding section. Already invoiced items are listed in the "Invoiced" section.

Item with no cost are not listed by default. This can be changed in Preferences/Time tracking

"Invoice selection" is looking for the client for the items. In case there is already an invoice draft the entries will be added. Otherwise a new draft is created with the selected item.

You also can add times to a specific document by copying the items, move to the invoice select the list and paste them.

If the option "Auto-group" is turned on, items with the same title are grouped. Titles are setup in Preferences/Work time.

Use the Edit/Archive menu to remove unwanted entries.

All sent documents are listed here. They are grouped by year and month.

There are several tools to analyze invoices and payments.

GrandTotal can be extended by plugins. Load plugins to import time here.

Using smart lists you can group invoices, estimates and payments according to different criteria.

An invoice always consists of at least one item. Additional items can be added when needed.

An invoice draft can be converted into a final invoice containing multiple partial invoices by clicking on the gear button. You can choose between 1 ⅓ installment or 2, 3 and 4 equal installments.

Manually you can specify any amount in the settings. These can be entered as a percentage amount (20) or as a fraction (1/3).

A final invoice can only be sent, when at least one of the partial invoices has been sent. If there are any partial payments, they are deducted automatically.

Permanent invoices are suitable for rents and other regularly recurring receivables for which you do not have to send a new invoice every time. To do this, select a permanent invoice on the plus button and then specify the interval in the invoice info. An end date can also be set as an option. You then create the invoice as usual and send it.
GrandTotal automatically creates a document for each repetition at the given time. This can be marked as paid after payment has been made.

An invoice automatically turns into a credit note as soon the total is less than zero. Keep in mind that you need to mark credit notes as paid as well.

Estimates work like Invoices. An estimate can be converted to an invoice using the action button. The resulting invoice is a copy an can be modified.

Each invoice can hold as many partial payments as needed. If the sum of the payments reach the total of the invoice it becomes paid.

If you add a payment before sending the invoice it is considered as a progress payment (Date of the payment is earlier than the date of the invoice)

For payments with a slightly smaller amount than the invoice total, the deducted cash discount value is displayed. Click on the check mark to mark the invoice as completed.

If you get a Deposit from a client you add this to the top hierarchy of the documents. If you drag this payment on an unpaid invoice later it will be assigned to the invoice.

Use projects to organize your documents. The name of the project will be shown in the documents when you add the <document.project/> placeholder.

PDF documents can be attached to invoices, projects or customers. To do this, you create a document and assign a PDF file to it.

If the option „Mail with parent document“ is turned on, the document is added to the invoice or estimate when you are sending it.

Use document groups to merge multiple PDF Documents into one single document.

The document list of the client can be changed to history mode using the clock symbol. There all invoices and payments are listed in chronological order.

Using multiple selection you can select which items should appear on the account statement.

In account statements the layout placeholder <quantity/> is replaced with the date of the invoice/payment

Hitting the return key after entering a net price will calculate the gross price and vice versa. If you want to enter the other price manually, just hit the tab key.

Purchase price to which the ancillary costs of procurement, such as freight, insurance, etc., are added. This value is used to calculate the margin.

The article group is used for categorization, it also decides how the article is taxed. See taxes

Labels can be created to mark items. Each item can be given different labels to make it easier to find. See above.

A layout consists of at least 2 pages. The "First page" is used in every document. In case there is insufficient space for the items on page one, the "Following page" will be used subsequently until all items are listed.

Additional pages can be used to append extra pages. E.g. terms of service.

The table consists of different sections that are used for different types of items.

Clicking on the table once in page view will show you the global options for the table. Such as background color and if the sums should be aligned at the bottom of the table. A double click will take you to the editing section of the table.

Enter your own contact data here.

Enter the ids provided by the government of banks here.

Setup your team members here. Watch this movie to learn more.

Decide if newly created clients have net or gross prices calculated. This setting can be applied to all clients using right click.

This setting also affect what prices are show in the catalog lists.

The format of the client number and the current counter can be changed here. (Counter shows the number the next client will get)

Here you also can change the settings of Account statements

Define what label you want to use for your invoices and credit notes. Invoices with a grand total below zero are treated as credit notes

The payment terms are copied to newly created clients and may me changed in the client’s settings individually. In addition you can set custom terms while sending an invoice.

Invoices not being paid within this terms are marked as due. When the date passes the value in the second field they become overdue.

The settings for estimates are similar to the one for invoices. Instead of payment terms you can specify a validity here.

The conditions are shared for all estimates

You may attach follow up documents to invoices or estimates using the action button. E.g. confirmations, reminders or delivery slips. These documents will show the same items as their parent document.

Here you can setup your additional document types and their conditions.
Optionally you can ungroup items for a detailed work report.

You can setup rules to exclude specific items. E.g for removing shipping cost from delivery notes.

To show the dates of the parent document, use the <original.sent/> and the <original.due/> placeholders in your layout.

Turn the autocompletion off if you don’t want to get suggestions while typing a title.
Suggestions are based on the catalog documents you have created in the past.

The character that is used for lists when you start a list entry with - or * can be set here. By default, a • is used.

The character that is used for lists when you start a list entry with - or * can be set here. By default, a • is used.

The separator for grouped entries defines how the descriptions of the items are separated.

In case you are using stationery paper for printed invoices you may add backdrop for mailed or saved documents here. (Don't use backgrounds in your layout then).

If the backdrop hat multiple pages, the first page is used for page 1. Page 2 is used for all subsequent pages.

In this section you define the contents of an E-Mail for the various document types. Besides the blue placeholders you can also use layout placeholders including the ones for the languages.

The subject title also reflects the name of the attached PDF

Optionally enter BCC mail addresses to send a copy of a document to your bookkeeping

Optionally you can chose to add the stationery defined in here to your mailed PDFs

At the time you send a document a PDF is can be created. Here you define where you what to save them.

Base: The directory where all the documents are saved in.

Folder: The sub directory in which the documents are saved. (use "/" between the elements to create further sub directories)

File name: The name of the document.

The documents can be reissued from the database at any time by recreating the folder content.

Here you setup how taxes are calculated.
In the vertical axis of the matrix the client groups are listed. Horizontally you can add tax groups.

The tax groups are assigned to the item groups.

⚠Once used in a sent document taxes can't be changed anymore.

* Ask your  tax adviser in case of questions

GrandTotal supports multiple currencies.

You may add an exchange rate relative to the default currency. This will be used to covert rates when changing the currency of a document and to calculate the values in the dashboard to your native currency.

Define the conditions for the different payment types in Preferences/Invoices

You can setup up to 3 cash discounts that can be used using the options menu of the “Amount” tag in Preferences/Invoices/Conditions

Define here how items of supported time trackers are imported.

When adding placeholders in the the title or subtotal sections, titles or subtitles are inserted correspondingly. Use at least one common placeholder for titles and subtitles. Subtotal are only added if more than one subtotal is required

Auto-Grouping creates groups for items that share the same name.

Timed entries are imported with the unit "h" by default. You can change the unit here.

The default rate is used when importing timed entries from applications or services that do not support rates

Using rules you can declare what item groups should be used for the items. If there are no rules the default value of your item groups is applied.

All this settings apply during import and won't affect already imported items.

When adding an online timer service it will be added to the Overview screen.

GrandTotal can use the Notification Center to inform you when invoices are due, overdue or recurring.

Notification can repeat themselves if you wish so.

Estimates expire when the validity date is reached and it has not been marked either accepted or declined.

Following Applications support GrandTotal via the Clipboard:

Export layouts using the File/Export menu. (On the other mac double click that file to import it)

GrandTotal can send it’s data to compatible bookkeeping applications. Use the „File/Send To“ menu for this. Plugins for accounting services like Xero, MonKey Office & shakehands Kontor can be loaded in Overview/Get Plugins

The invoiced items can be exported as XML for DATEV via the File/Send to menu.

Files can be sent to DEVONthink 4 for archiving via the File/Send to menu.

The installed licenses can also be exported, if GrandTotal has to be activated on a new computer. To do this, open the GrandTotal/Licenses window, select the desired license and export it with ⌘E.
This file can be installed on the other computer with a double click.

Entries from the e-banking software MoneyMoney are sent from the "Accounts" menu from within MoneyMoney to GrandTotal.

Payments from the iFinance 5 e-banking software can be displayed via the File/Import menu. They can then be assigned to the corresponding invoices or customers.

External invoices can be copied from Receipts using ⌘C and be pasted by hitting ⌘V in a GrandTotal document.

If a name of the document’s category in Receipts is the same as the one of an item group in GrandTotal, that item group is assigned in GrandTotal.

Calendar entries can be imported directly into an invoice. The duration of the entry is taken and multiplied by the hourly rate.

By default, the calendar with the name that most closely matches the customer name is selected.

DATANORM 4&5 files can be imported into the catalog via the Menu File/Import.

Following statement formats from your bank will be automatically read and assigned to open invoices. Alternatively you can drop those file on GrandTotal’s application icon.

Documents can be printed using the regular Print menu using ⌘P. Optionally you can add a watermark like Canceled, Paid or similar to the document.

For drafts you will see a warning in the print dialog. Drafts are not intended to be sent to the client. Use the "Send" button for this.

Lists in the overview can be printed using "Print List“ in the File Menu. Clients and catalog items also can be printed as list.

Columns can be rearranged and removed after clicking their title.

If not all data for a complete display of the content is available yet, an orange indicator is displayed in the upper right corner of the main window. Clicking on it opens the File Information.

The file information can be displayed in the File menu. The checksum indicates whether the data on different devices have the same status. If this is not the case, the data has not yet been completely synchronized by the cloud service, or it is different file.

The end-to-end encryption of the data makes it impossible for third parties (including the cloud provider) to read the data. The data is only decrypted during it's use within GrandTotal.

To set a new password use the menu File/Save copy and assign the new password to the new file.

After dragging items from the catalog to a document, you can type the quantity on the numeric keys of your keyboard without the need of opening the item. This also works when selecting more than one item.

Number input fields can calculate formulas. E.g. 100 / 4 becomes 25 when entered in a field.

A lot of records can’t be deleted unless all dependencies have been removed. See Archiving

Records that are no longer needed like older layouts or outdated item groups can’t be deleted once they have been used. This is because they are still required by older document.
Clients, layouts, item groups and catalog items can be archived using a right click in their list. Archived items are hidden and can be shown if needed using a right click in the same list.

Items can be copied and pasted to other documents.

This works with documents as well. After copied you can paste them in the list of another client.

Duplicate items and documents using ⌘-D.

As long as a document is in the draft state, it can be dragged to another customer in the customers view. Invoice draft items can also be dragged to another draft.

You can drag a document preview to the Finder to save a PDF.

Net: The prices of the items don't include taxes. Tax will be added at the end of the document.

Gross: Tax is already included in the items. Taxes are declared a the end of the document

Additional fields can be added for three different record types. They always consist of a name that is shared for all records and a value that can be assigned individually for each record.

All fields can be added to layouts as well. Fields used in sent documents can’t be deleted.

In addition to the totals, placeholders can also be used for the sums of individual article groups. For example, to list wage separately. The placeholders for this can be found in the Document category under Sum.

Mails are controlled by AppleScript. Scripts can be modified by clicking here. To restore the original functionality, delete the file from ~/Library/Application Support/com.mediaatelier.GrandTotal3/Mail Scripts/.

Work time importers are Javascript based plugins. Working samples are available from Overview/Get Plugins.

GrandTotal has a plugin interface based on HTML and Javascript. Open API Reference (Programming knowledge required)