Just how to Create an Invoice from an Estimate in QuickBooks

Alright we’re working our way down through module 4 where we’re speaing frankly about working together with customers and jobs. We must talk about estimates now. So we’re in section 2 and this is part 1 of section 2.

I observe that all of you will not make use of the Estimate feature but a good illustration of an estimate is in construction. If i do want to have my kitchen remodeled I’m planning to ask for a quote or an estimate on the job. And QuickBooks is able to handle those estimates and then turn them into invoices when you’re prepared to actually invoice your customer so you can get paid. So let me explain to you how estimates really work.

If you’re on your Home screen you’ll observe that if you’re looking in your Customer group here that Estimates is the very first icon. Now in the event that you don’t have the Estimates icon that’s because you told it when you look at the EasyStep Interview that you do not create estimates. You can always turn it on or off into the Preferences, like we talked about. Regardless if it is here and you don’t desire to use it realize that you can just start with the second item on the list that is Create Invoices. You don’t always want to estimate a job and then transform it into an invoice.

You’ll notice that Estimates and get Orders listed below are on a single line and that’s because they’re considered non-posting. In the event that you create an estimate while the customer never asks you to definitely perform some work it does not affect your books. You will have to run specific estimate reports to see any estimate information that you’d like to find a way to work alongside.

We’re going to go on and create an estimate.

Now a few things I want you to note. To begin with the very first thing it asks for is your customer and a job. Let’s say that I would like to pull during my customer. I will start typing the previous couple of characters of these last name or I am able to pick from the dropdown and pick my customer and my job.

Now a little tidbit of information. If you’re going to use the job feature make use of it consistently throughout QuickBooks. In the event that you don’t utilize it what’ll happen is you’ll run reports and quite often on those reports you’ll see a category called Other and you’ll go what exactly is that? So put it to use consistently.

So if I’m wanting to create an estimate for Tom Allen’s kitchen remodel I’m likely to go through the Kitchen Remodel.
So what now if you want to create an estimate for an individual or a job that is not into the list yet? Let me take off this Kitchen Remodel right here. Let’s say that my customer has now asked me for an estimate for a sunroom.

I could add it from the comfort of here. I don’t have to go back to Home and back to Customers and install it. All i need to do has reached the termination of my customer name I’m going to put a colon after which I’m going to place the name associated with the job. In this instance it is Sunroom. What’s going to happen occurs when I strike the Tab key or the Enter key to go out of the field it’s going to say Sunroom just isn't into the list. Do you want you to install it? I would Quick Add a Job.

If it is a person I would personally proceed through and set up that customer just how we did. So let me Quick Add this. And now you’ll note that I have two jobs for Tom Allen. His sunroom and his kitchen remodel. If it’s a whole new customer just type their name in, last name, comma, first name as you see here after which Tab or Enter and then you can truly add the newest customer this way. You can not add a person and a job as well. You add the consumer first then keep coming back and add the work.

The second field over is the Class field therefore we talked about classes enable you to break your business on to smaller sections if you need to. So if you had two locations this list might indicate the locations and also you select the one you want. When you yourself have departments this might be the departments. But if you’re likely to use classes put it to use consistently, again so reports should be accurate.

Here’s the list of templates you can make use of for estimates. You can now customize those who are here or create new ones which we’re planning to do in a later module. But from here you can easily just find the particular one you wish to use about this particular estimate.

The next phase is the date. It’s going to pull in today’s date. It is possible to change that in the event that you want to to any date you love. As well as the estimate number the following. There’s a lot of things in QuickBooks that are numbered, like checks, invoices, estimates, and they’re all likely to focus on number one.

You don’t want to send it out with a number 1 since they would know they’re the very first customer. So that you can type in whatever number you prefer here. Should your estimates occur to include letters then you can definitely put that in as well and it'll name the next one sequentially until such time you occur to change it out.

This is the name and address associated with the customer that you put up. In the event that you occur to consider it and you also say, “You understand that address is wrong” or “I misspelled Tom’s name” go ahead and change it out here. What's going to happen is when you’re finished and also you attempt to save this it will pop up and say do you want to change this permanently in Tom Allen’s record? And you may say Yes and that way you don’t have to get back to the shoppers and alter it.
Now let’s look down only at the base where it says Item. You must actually click there to have this dropdown arrow to seem.

We all sell something. Whether or not it’s a service we provide, a physical item but this is where we’re going to have the line things that we would like on our estimate. Now we have some items already put up that we’re going to play with for the present time and later we’ll go and actually create our own items. So let’s go right ahead and pick Framing. I really want you to see so it brought when you look at the description Framing labor and you can type over that all day long or add to that particular.

This can word wrap if you need it to word wrap. But let’s say this can be probably an hourly thing is my guess. I’ll go ahead and put ten among these in here. Volume of ten. And it assumes the cost centered on if the item was put up. Now we can change that. What if this 1 time only we say the fee will likely be $50. We just type right over that plus it remembers the $55 for the following time we utilize it.

Now just something I skipped over. That’s a unit of measurement here. Unit of Measurement means do you really sell this by the foot, by the case, by the yard? If that’s the case you could have put up what they call a Unit of Measurement. For more information about Create An Invoice From An Estimate In QuickBooks, please get in touch with us.

Now let’s talk about this Markup column for a second. You can easily mark an item up a buck amount or a portion, each one. Bear in mind your customer is not going to see this. I’ll show you that when we’re done. But let’s mark this one up 30%. You need to type the percent sign or it won’t know it’s a percent. And notice if I tab through it so it does the calculations for me personally.

Now this last column where it says Tax this really is for sales tax purposes. This particular item is not taxable even although you may charge sales tax for this particular estimate or even for this customer.

Now I’m going going to the Tab key and come right down to the second line. I’m going to place yet another in here simply to show you how this works. I’m going to type W-O for Wood Door because i understand that is something they have in here. And I’ll pull in an Exterior Wood Door. And we’ll say there’s two of those.

Now i really want you to note that this time this has a markup already in there. That’s since when you create an item you’ll observe that you are able to mark it up a buck amount or a share. That’s since when you create an item you’re going to see there’s a spot where you could tell QuickBooks on average I buy it for a quantity as well as on average I sell it for a quantity. If you add both of those numbers with it assumes a markup.

But we’re planning to delete that anyway and mark this up a dollar amount. So let’s say I mark this up 1,000 and there you are going. It did the calculations for all of us. To help you see a product can be marked up a share or a dollar amount.

Now when you’re filling this out you are able to type forever. It is not the underside. It’ll just go on and on and on forever. So just know it is possible to put just as much in there since you need to.

A couple of things down at the end. You’ll see there’s a Customer Message. These are things such as All work is complete, maybe many thanks for your needs. You can click Add New if you desired to add your personal. One which’s added frequently is the fact that the estimate will work for 60 days. So you can add your very own customer messages to this. I’ll just choose one. There’s also a location for a memo at the very bottom where you are able to type anything you love there. And this Customer Tax Code, which means for sales tax purposes is this customer taxable or perhaps not?

Over on the right you’ll notice it pulled when you look at the subtotal, the sum total of the markup and then if there was sales tax what that is, and then you’ll look at total at the end. So that’s pretty much the put up for the estimate itself.

Now what I would like to do is i do want to just give you a preview of what it appears to be like at this time. I’m going to go back up here where it says Print and I’m going to preview this. It’s this that your estimate will probably appear to be currently. You’ll notice it’s really plain. It’s got your online business name and address towards the top.

It’s got the word Estimate. And in case you need to zoom in on any one of this you can easily click but realize that your customer will not see the item plus they don’t look at markup. So we’ll talk later, like I said, about customizing your estimates or your forms. So I’m going to shut that.

Now let’s go ahead and do that. I would like to go on and stop the video here. There clearly was a part 2. so just why don’t you go ahead and meet me to some extent 2 and we will continue speaking about all those options up here in your estimate.