Rutba Data Files: twenty-five business templates, and the paperwork each one prints

Most small businesses keep their records in a spreadsheet until the copies start to disagree. A database fixes that, but an empty one asks you to design tables before you can type a single customer in. Rutba Data Files, the free database in Rutba Office for Windows, answers that with a working database for twenty-five kinds of small business, each one ready to use as it stands or to change.

Data Files itself does what Microsoft Access does for a small business. A database is one .rbase file on your computer, with SQLite inside and a published format, holding related tables, queries you design or write in SQL, forms, reports, and print templates that lay out one record as a business sends it. The Data Files post goes through all of that. This one is about the templates.

Play the film

The twenty-five sample businesses, one for each kind of small business.

What one template holds

Each business template is a whole database, not a starter table. It has between eleven and nineteen tables, a form for every table, the queries the owner of that kind of business asks every week, reports to print them, and print templates for what the business sends out. Across the twenty-five there are 392 tables, 404 queries, 237 reports and 122 print templates.

The first table in each is called Start Here. It holds the everyday tasks a step at a time, and every step says which table, form, query, report or print template to open. Its report prints the whole guide. When you know your way round, delete the table: nothing else uses it.

• With sample records, a template is a business already trading: a year or more of invented orders, sales and payments, made up a day at a time, from about 2,600 records at the letting business to over 88,000 at the corner shop. It is the quickest way to see what the queries and reports are for.
• Empty, it has the same tables, queries, forms, reports and print templates with nothing in them, waiting for your own records.

Everything in the sample records is invented: the business, its people and their addresses, email addresses on example domains that reach nobody, and phone numbers from the ranges kept for drama and fiction. Tax, company and bank numbers are zeros.

Starting with your own records

Every guide says where to begin when you start empty, and it is always the Business table: your name, address, phone and VAT number, and the words at the foot of a receipt. Every invoice, receipt and letter prints its heading from there. Then come the lists the rest point at, then the everyday records as they happen.

At the takeaway, for example, that means the delivery zones with their charges and the driver’s fee for a drop, then the sizes, menu items, ingredients and the recipe lines for each dish, then the staff. Customers are added as they first order. From then on each order is an Orders record with its lines, each night has a Nights sheet, and each week every driver has a pay sheet with their drops pointing at it.

The twenty-five businesses

They come in five groups. Each name below links to its page on office.rutba.io, which has its full guide, every table and field, a download, and a film of its own.

Shops and food

• Larkspur Corner Store, a neighbourhood shop: the till with VAT, stock, supplier orders and loyalty customers. Prints a sale receipt on an 80 mm till roll and a supplier order.
• Bramblegate Wine and Deli, a food and drink shop: stock kept by batch and date, a morning date check that marks down and writes off, and age checks at the till. Prints a reduced label on a 58 mm roll, a markdown label sheet and a refusals register.
• Little Fig Cafe: the menu with recipes and food costs, till orders, the rota, waste and the nightly cash-up. Prints receipts, purchase orders and payslips.
• Saffron Lane Pizza and Curry, a takeaway: phone, walk-in and online orders, delivery zones and drivers, meal deals and the night’s takings. Prints a customer receipt, a kitchen ticket, a delivery slip and a driver pay sheet.
• Hazel Row Flowers, a florist: stems and their waste, bouquet recipes, deliveries and weddings. Prints a gift card message, a delivery note, a wedding quote and a wedding invoice.
• Tansy Row Pharmacy, a pharmacy counter: stock by batch and expiry, pharmacist checks, prescription collections and home deliveries. Prints a delivery round sheet and an expiry return note.

Trade, making and building

• Northbank Trading, a wholesaler: customers, suppliers, orders, purchase orders, stock and invoices. Prints invoices, delivery notes and statements.
• Granite and Grain Woodworks, a furniture workshop: materials, bills of materials, work orders and makers’ hours. Prints a quote, a works order and a VAT invoice.
• Kilnside Builders, a small building firm: quotes, contracts, stage payments, variations, retentions and job costs. Prints a contract, a stage invoice and a variation order.
• Copperbeech Motors, a used car dealer: preparation costs, test drives, finance, warranties and part-exchanges. Prints a sales invoice, a part-exchange valuation, a warranty certificate and a window card.

Services

• Marigold Hair and Beauty, a salon: the appointment book, commission, retail stock and gift vouchers. Prints a gift voucher and a commission statement.
• Copper Pole Barbers: the queue board, takings by barber, loyalty cards and chair rent. Prints a chair rental agreement and its invoice.
• Ironbridge Repairs, for phones, laptops and small appliances: jobs, quotes, parts and warranties. Prints a booking-in receipt and a collection receipt.
• Quarrybank Motors, a garage and MOT centre: vehicles, job cards, MOT tests, services and reminders. Prints an estimate, a job card and a reminder letter.
• Fernhollow Cleaning, a cleaning company: sites, contracts, the rota and visits. Prints a cleaning contract, a site visit sheet and payslips.
• Bramble Studio, a consultancy or agency: projects, time sheets and expenses. Prints a proposal, a letter of engagement and a weekly time sheet.
• Tannery Yard Fitness, a gym: monthly plans, direct debits, class bookings and personal training packs. Prints a membership agreement and a membership card.

Health, learning and community

• Cedar Lane Clinic, a small private clinic: patients, appointments, visit notes and recalls. Prints an appointment letter, a recall letter and an insurer statement.
• Lantern Learning Centre, a tuition or training centre: students and families, registers, test results and termly fees. Prints a term report and a certificate of completion.
• Rowanmere Community Trust, a charity or club: members, supporters, gifts and the tax claimed on them, events, volunteers and grants. Prints a donation receipt, an event ticket and a tax claim schedule.

Property, premises and staff

• Hollybrook Lettings, a landlord with homes, shops and workshops: leases, rent invoices, deposits, repairs and safety checks. Prints a tenancy agreement, a rent arrears letter and a notice of inspection.
• Fernleigh Estates, an estate and letting agent: properties, applicants, viewings, offers, sales to completion and managed lets. Prints a memorandum of sale and a landlord statement.
• Gullhaven Guest House, a guest house or B and B: rooms, rates, bookings, deposits and booking-site commission. Prints a booking confirmation, a guest bill and a registration card.
• Copperfield House, an office building’s front desk: visitors, badges, contractor inductions, deliveries and fire roll calls. Prints a visitor pass on a 58 mm roll and a fire roll call.
• Wrenmoor Garden Centre, for any business with staff: contracts, holidays, absence, timesheets, pay runs and payslips. Prints a payslip, a leave request and an annual pay summary.

Paperwork that fits the job

Of the 122 print templates, ninety-one are on A4, twelve on A5, fourteen on an 80 mm till roll and five on a 58 mm roll, for labels, cards and passes. Each takes its letterhead from the Business table and its lines from the record, and prints from the form showing that record, or saves as a PDF.

They are made for the way each business works rather than one invoice dressed up twenty-five ways. The takeaway prints a kitchen ticket as the order is taken and a delivery slip to tape to the bag, for deliveries only. The deli prints a reduced label for each pack it marks down. The letting business sends a rent arrears letter, and the charity a schedule of the gifts it claims tax on.

Play the film

Saffron Lane Pizza and Curry: a night of orders, from the phone to the driver’s pay.

Made to be changed

No template will match your business exactly, so every guide ends with ways to bend it. Some examples, from the guides themselves:

• The takeaway charges by zone. To charge by distance, add a Miles field to Customers and a calculated delivery charge in a query, such as 1.50 plus 0.50 a mile.
• The deli sells by the item. To sell cheese and meat by weight, add a Weight field to Sale Lines and work out each line as Round([Weight] * [Unit Price], 2).
• The landlord owns its buildings. To manage them for owners, add an Owners table with each owner’s management fee, and a query that takes the fee off the rent to show what you pay them.
• The charity claims tax back on gifts. Where there is no such scheme, delete the Tax Claims table, the query that lists gifts to claim and the claim schedule report; where the scheme pays a different share, change the 0.25 in that query.

Play the film

Hollybrook Lettings: homes, shops and workshops, their leases, rent and repairs.

Five simpler ones

Beside the businesses sit five small databases of one to four tables, for when a whole business is more than you need: Contacts, with a phone list to print; Inventory, with every stock movement and what is running low; Membership, with the renewals coming due; Customers and sales, for the deals in hand and each call or meeting; and a Lending library for books and who has them.

Newer designs, and your changes kept

The templates arrive with Rutba Office’s own update check, signed by Rutba. A database made from one remembers where it came from, and when a newer design comes out it is offered, never forced. New tables and fields are added and nothing is taken away. A query, form or template you never touched is replaced, and one you changed keeps your version, with the newer one beside it.

To learn Data Files from the beginning, the Data Files course builds a shop’s database from an empty file in short films. Data Files is one of the apps you add from Choose apps in Rutba Office.