Duplicating a document: what is copied and what is not
A customer orders the same thing as last time. There is no need to retype twenty rows — the list has a "Duplicate" button: it opens a new document already filled in after the selected one.
A copy is a draft. It is not yet in the accounts, it has no number and no "OK" mark. Save it and you get an ordinary new document that behaves like any other.
How to make a copy
- Open the document list and select the row you want to copy.
- Press "Duplicate" in the top right corner of the list.
- A new document card opens, filled in after the original. Change what you need.
- Press "Save" — the document gets its own number.
- Set "OK" when it is ready.
If nothing is selected in the list, the button takes the first row. On an empty list it does nothing.
What the copy inherits
The copy inherits the whole content of the document, including the table: items, quantities, prices, discounts, VAT rates per row. The table is usually the whole reason for copying.
Header fields come across as well: customer, location, currency, price list, payment terms, VAT code, analytical objects. This is deliberate — a copy has to repeat the original, not substitute what the system would offer a new document. Until September 2026 there were defects here: a copied invoice could switch its currency to the customer card currency while the amounts stayed the same, lose its VAT code, or turn stock movement back on where it had been deliberately turned off. All of that is fixed.
What the copy does not inherit
Some fields identify the document rather than describe it. The copy does not inherit those — otherwise the system would end up with two documents carrying the same number.
| Not inherited | Why |
|---|---|
| Document number | the number is issued on save, as for any new document |
| The "OK" mark | a copy is born a draft: it has done nothing in the accounts yet |
| Document comments | the discussion belonged to the original; the copy starts its own |
| Links to related documents | order, shipment, cost batch, official VAT invoice number — all of these are traces of the original's life |
| Dates and work statuses | in most documents the document date is set to today (exceptions below), progress statuses are reset |
Links are cleared inside the table rows too. In an invoice, for example, every row is linked to an order row, to a shipment and to a cost batch — in the copy those links are empty, and the system recalculates them when the document is approved.
Attachments do not come across: they are bound to a specific record, and a copy is a different record.
Who becomes the author of the copy
The customer's manager, or whoever copies it when there is none. In a sales order and an invoice the "Salesman" field in the copy is filled with the manager from the customer card (the "Manager" field). If the card has no manager, it gets your login, even if the original named somebody else. In contracts ("Salesman"), quotation price lists ("Manager") and time sheets ("Signature") the copy always gets your login.
This was decided on 10 September 2026; since 7 October sales orders and invoices take the manager from the customer card first — the same as a new document does.
!!! warning "This shows up in the money" The "Bonus Report" relies on this field, and "Sales Report" and "Sales Report Detail" filter by it. Copy a sales order of a customer whose card has no manager, and the order is credited to you. If the work really belongs to somebody else, correct "Salesman" by hand before saving.
The time sheet is a special case. Besides "Signature" it has a "User" field, which says not who wrote the document but whose time sheet it is. That one stays as in the original — otherwise a copy of somebody else's time sheet would silently become yours.
Where there is no "Duplicate" button
The button is switched off in 37 lists out of 215, and that is not an oversight. There is nothing to duplicate where records are not created by hand:
- state lists — stock balances, item movement history, open prepayments, fixed asset status: the system maintains these itself;
- histories and logs — the corrections log, employment contract changes: a copied history entry would mean an event that never happened;
- documents with an external number — Nova Poshta waybills and the like: the number is issued outside our system;
- documents created from a source document — shipments, returns from customer, worksheets, production operations, add costs, waybills: they are created from an order or another document, and a copy would be left without that link.
If the button is missing where you think it should be, that is a configuration question rather than a permissions one. The lists above hide it for everyone. Besides that, it can be switched off for a single user: the "Disabled 'Duplicate'" checkbox in List window settings for that list and that user.
Common situations
"I copied an invoice and the number stayed the same." The number is cleared when the copy opens and issued on save. If you see the old number in the card, you are looking at the original rather than the copy — check the window title.
"The salesman in the copy is wrong." In a sales order and an invoice it is the manager from the customer card, and whoever copies it when the card has none. Correct the field before saving, or assign a manager in the customer card.
"Shipments have no Duplicate button." That is by design: shipment rows are linked to the order rows, and the original has already shipped them. Create the next shipment for an order from the order itself (the order's "Create Shipment" menu item): its rows will be linked to the order.
"I copied last year's document and the date became today." The document date is not content but a place in the accounts, so on a copy of an invoice, order, goods receipt or payment it is today. Several documents keep the original's date: Forward Balances, Quotations, internal orders, contracts and planned payments (the start date), time sheets (the creation date) — check the date on their copy before saving. Set the date you need by hand while the period is open; for a closed period see How to reopen a document for editing.
"I need a copy with an empty table." There is no such mode. Duplicate the document and delete the rows — it is still a draft, so the table is unlocked.
"I want to copy an item card." Duplicate works in reference lists too: the record code is cleared and the rest comes across. On an item card the copy also clears "Name" (the card cannot be saved without it), the cost, price and currency of the last purchase, "Prom Code", "Alt. code", "Tech. map" and the set rows — fill them in again. Remember that the code is the key documents refer to, and it cannot be changed on a card that has already been used — see Why a record will not delete.