Language Customization

When visiting the Language Settings tab within the Settings section of the application, you can:

• Add a new Language
• Customize a Language (i.e. modify the existing translations)
• Configure a Language (i.e. change locale details)
• Set a Language as primary
• Delete a Language

Add A New Language

To add a new Language, click the “Add a Language” text in the Language Settings area. This will open a form for you to input a name for the custom Language in Advanced Billing, then select a language, such as Japanese, and a country/region, such as Japan.

Below is an overview of each of the fields available per Language:

• Language Name (Required): You are free to name the language whatever you like. This name is what will appear in your Languages list on the settings page. We suggest naming similar to the full locale such as “Spanish - Mexico” for “es-MX” or “Spanish - Base” (es) for languages without a country/region selected.
• Language (Required): You can select from a list of languages within the drop-down.
• Country/Region (Not-Required): You can select from a list of countries/regions from the drop-down.

Please note that you cannot create Languages with duplicate locales. For example, if you already have a Language with a locale set as “es-MX”, you cannot create a second “Spanish” with “Spanish/Castilian” and “Mexico” as the Country/Region.

You may, however, have multiple Languages configured for the same base language with different regions selected. For the above example, it is possible to select another “Spanish/Castilian” language and set “Spain” as the Country/Region for a locale of “es-ES”.

Similarly, you could also create a base Spanish translation by creating a “Spanish - Base” with a language of “Spanish/Castilian” but without any country/region set. For more information on why this is useful, please review the Language Application section below

Customize a Language

By customizing a Language, you are providing over-rides in the specific language that will appear in place of the default English labels on invoices and credit notes for your customers if at least one of these conditions are met:

• Their full locale matches the locale of this Language
• This language is set as primary for your site, and the customer does not have a locale set that matches another of your Languages

A full discussion on this topic is below in the Language Application section.

We recommend visiting the custom translation documentation for more information on which words on an invoice can be customized and where they appear.

Configure a Language

If you’d like to change details about an existing Language – particularly the name, language, or region for the existing Language Locale – you can select “Configure Language”.

Please be aware of the constraints noted above, mainly that you may not duplicate an existing Locale.

Set a Language as Primary

Your primary Language will be the set of customized translations that your invoices and credit notes will default to if there is no matching Language Locale with the customer’s locale (or if the customer has no locale set). In other words, when new customers sign up, if they aren’t specifically given a specific locale, they will inherit the invoice translations from the primary Language.

Delete a Language

You may delete a previously created Language. Please note that doing so is permanent and irreversible. If you attempt to delete a Language that is in use by active customers, the application will let you know how many customers you will be affecting prior to deletion. At this time we cannot provide a list of who would be affected, and may only return a count of them. Deleting a language that is in use by customers will result in a fallback to the next level of the hierarchy below. Please be cautious before you delete an in-use language.

When you go to delete a set of translations, you may see 3 different sets of dialog:

• If there are no customers currently using this set of translations you will see “You currently have no customers using” this translation and a note that it is safe to delete.

• If you are deleting a set of translations that you have marked as primary, you will be informed that “Deleting the primary custom translations will affect all customers”.

• Finally, if you are deleting a language that is in-use by customers you will be given a count of customers using that set of translations AND the fallback locale whose translations they will now see on their invoices.

None of these warnings will prevent you from deleting the language, so please be cautious when deleting.