Working with forms

Most of your time in NexWave is spent on forms: the page where you create or edit a single record like a Sales Invoice, an Employee, or an Asset. This page covers the form lifecycle (save, submit, amend, cancel) and the side panel features that often get overlooked.

The form lifecycle

NexWave records fall into two categories:

Non-submittable: you Save and you are done. Examples: Customer, Item, Project.
Submittable: you Save first, then Submit the record to lock it in and make it count for accounting or stock. Examples: Sales Invoice, Purchase Invoice, Stock Entry, Payment Entry, Journal Entry.

The states a submittable document can be in:

State	What it means	Can be edited?
Draft	Saved but not yet submitted. The numbers do not affect ledgers or stock.	Yes
Submitted	Locked in. Posts to the ledger / stock as appropriate.	No (must amend or cancel)
Cancelled	Reversed. The original posting is reversed; record kept for audit.	No

The status is shown as a coloured pill at the top of the form.

Creating a record

There are several routes to a new record:

From the awesome bar: type new <doctype> (e.g. new sales invoice).
From a list view: click + New in the top-right.
From a related record: action buttons such as Create > Sales Invoice appear on a submitted Sales Order.

Fill in the mandatory fields (marked with a red asterisk) and click Save (Ctrl+S / Cmd+S). NexWave assigns a name based on the doctype's Naming Series (e.g. SAL-INV-2026-00001).

Saving vs submitting

Save (Ctrl+S): persists the changes. The record is in Draft state for submittables.
Submit (Ctrl+B): for submittable doctypes only. Locks the record and triggers the side effects (ledger posting, stock movement, etc.). After submit, the toolbar buttons change.

If you try to navigate away with unsaved changes, NexWave prompts you to confirm.

Amending a submitted document

Submitted records cannot be edited directly. If you need to fix one:

Open the submitted record.
Click Cancel (in the dropdown next to the Submit / status). This reverses the postings.
Click Amend (also in the dropdown). NexWave creates a new draft with all the same fields, named with an -1 suffix (e.g. SAL-INV-2026-00001-1).
Edit the draft as needed and Submit. The amended record links back to the original via the Amended From field.

Amending preserves the audit trail: the cancelled original stays in the system, and the new record explicitly references it.

Sections, tabs, and child tables

Long forms are organised into:

Tabs across the top (e.g. Sales Invoice has Items, Payment, Address & Contact, Terms, More Information).
Sections within each tab. Click the section heading to collapse / expand.
Child tables for repeating data (e.g. invoice line items). Click + Add Row to add, the row number to open the row's detail popup, or the checkbox + Delete to remove rows.

Sales Invoice form showing the status pill, tabs across the top, collapsed sections, and the Items child table

The right sidebar

The narrow panel on the right of every form holds:

Tags: free-text labels for filtering and grouping. Type to add.
Assigned to: assign the record to one or more users with an optional due date and description.
Attachments: drag and drop files (PDFs, images, spreadsheets) directly onto the form.
Share: grant access to specific users or roles, beyond what their normal permissions allow.
Activity / Comments: every change is logged here, alongside any user comments. Use @username to mention someone (they get a notification).

Print, email, PDF

For most submittable doctypes, the Menu dropdown (three dots in the top-right) includes:

Print: opens the print preview using the doctype's default Print Format. Pick a different format from the dropdown.
Email: opens an email composer pre-filled with the contact and a PDF attachment of the print format.
Download PDF: saves the print format as a PDF.

Common pitfalls

Save vs Submit confusion: if your changes are not appearing in reports or ledgers, you probably saved a Draft but did not Submit.
Editing a submitted document by deleting it: do not delete submitted documents. Use Cancel and Amend so the audit trail is preserved.
Mandatory fields hidden in collapsed sections: if Save fails with a validation error you cannot see, expand all sections (look for the Expand All link).
Lost work on session timeout: NexWave keeps a draft in the browser briefly, but a long idle period followed by a Save can fail silently. Save often.

Keyboard shortcuts

Ctrl+S (Cmd+S): Save
Ctrl+B (Cmd+B): Submit
Esc: close any open dialog
Tab / Shift+Tab: move between fields