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Turn an invoice into an estimate?

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
December 11, 2018
5 replies
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everyone wants to turn an estimate into invoice. Most of the time, I don't bother with an estimate and write the invoice. But for this particular job, I need to do that.

QuickBooks Desktop

Best answer by

create a new invoice template and call it Estimate. open your invoice and change the template to the Estimate. Print or e-mail it. mark it Pending. if you need to turn it back to an invoice, mark it Final and change the template back to the Invoice template.

A

Anonymous

Answer

create a new invoice template and call it Estimate. open your invoice and change the template to the Estimate. Print or e-mail it. mark it Pending. if you need to turn it back to an invoice, mark it Final and change the template back to the Invoice template.

Rustler

This works but is awkward in my opinion.

an invoice saved posts to the accounting, if after saving you change it to pending, it does un-post from the accounting.

So if you did change the way the invoice template looks and what it says it is, the customer would think it was an estimate (while you have a pending invoice), then change the template back to an invoice, remove the pending tag, and save and then it will post to the accounting again.

qbteachmt

"everyone wants to turn an estimate into invoice."

Because Estimates = quote or proposal, or Scope of work for price, as a step Prior to the actual charges.

You don't go from Invoice (actual Charges) to Estimate. You can create an estimate and use it for good comparison reporting, but is is a bit late to try to Progress Invoice; you already invoiced the customer.

"open your invoice and change the template to the Estimate."

You cannot do this; the templates are matched to their Transaction Type.

"Print or e-mail it. mark it Pending."

Pending invoices are replaced by Estimates about 20 years ago. And if this person issued their invoice, that customer has been charged and that is a sale. Making it Pending after the fact changes all the financial reporting.

"But for this particular job, I need to do that."

Did you want to offer more details?

A

Anonymous

"You cannot do this; the templates are matched to their Transaction Type."

I'm pretty sure that you can. Let's say that a customer walks in the door, selects a few items and asks you to ring it up. You create an invoice and print it. He looks at it and says, "wait a second. I'm not sure about this. I need to ask my wife." You certainly can mark the invoice as pending (at least you can on my version) and you can title an invoice anything you want. You can call it Bill of Sale, Receipt, or Vanilla Malted.

If the OP wants to hand a piece of paper with the word Estimate at the top, he can do that, and marking it Pending reverses the sale. He can mark it Final to recreate the sale.

qbteachmt

I think we simply need to understand the Impact, not the tasks available.

Turning an existing Invoice into Anything is impossible; there is no Next Stage.

You can Mark It Pending, which changes your financial reporting. You impacted sales and sales taxes, if you have them. We don't :)

It isn't turned into an estimate, because it is the Sale. Estimates come before the sale, or are created to offer comparison reporting.

There is no Going Backwards, from the sale, unless you want to Void or delete or undo the sale from the Financial reporting perspective, which only the user can determine is the proper thing to do.

You can create an estimate and ReDo the invoice, to get the same sales info, and avoid affecting financial reporting, as well. This is more of a Recreation using a different method.

It helps when people give us better details.

A

Anonymous

"There is no Going Backwards, from the sale, unless you want to Void or delete or undo the sale from the Financial reporting perspective, which only the user can determine is the proper thing to do."

It seems to me that this is EXACTLY what the OP was trying to do.

qbteachmt

Then you delete the invoice and redo all the work with the method you wish you had used, first. But since the invoice exists already, you need to recreate it so that it doesn't change the financial reporting; you recreate it to be the same as what it was. And, since there was no estimate before, there is no need to create an estimate to invoice from, now. All of this is just busy work, really. The existing invoice wasn't created from an Estimate and doesn't have to be created from the estimate, to give good reporting. If you were not going to create from the estimate, anyway, then it doesn't matter which sequence they get created in, now.

In other words, without knowing more details for what needs to change, just making an estimate now is no different than having it there previously.

We really are answering everything about how all of this works, and not any specific reason to do anything specific at all.

H

homeboy4

From time to time I need to create an estimate from an invoice and such a function in QB would be useful. Here's why.

Our process starts with estimates from which we create invoices. Much of the time the estimates and invoices are similar, but occasionally, much has happened after the estimate stage and the invoice is very different. This is never a problem.

When there are new jobs similar to old ones, we go to the old estimate, copy it and customize it as necessary for the new job. But occasionally -- rarely, but occasionally -- there isn't an old estimate similar to the new job, but there is an old invoice similar to the new job (because the old estimate associated with the old invoice were so different from each other). In this singular instance it would be useful to be able to make a new estimate from an old invoice.

And if you think including such a feature would lead people to use QB in crazy, unintended ways, make it a hidden feature that must be turned on.

For the last several years, QB updates have been mostly cosmetic. An update that included this functionally would be welcome.

D

DAH

@homeboy4 This is exactly what I'm looking to do as well. I'm all about saving time and for a new customer who needs an estimate with a similar job request as a different customer that we went direct to an invoice (and therefore didn't have an estimate), I would prefer to "make a copy", but as an estimate (vs. invoice) for the new customer. Or in another instance, for the same customer in a prior year we went direct to invoice, but this year new management wants to see an estimate first...I hate the idea of re-typing the entire thing when a simple "create estimate from prior invoice" would be a great option!

QB - please add!

R

Rasa-LilaM

Thanks for joining this thread, @DAH.

The ability to create an estimate from the prior invoice is unavailable at this time. I can see how having this feature available in QuickBooks would save your business' time.

Our goal is to make QuickBooks Desktop the go-to software for small business owners, so we're always looking for ways to improve it. Any changes about this, I’ll be sure to post the details here in the Community.

To keep up with updates and new product features, you can visit the Firm of the Future site.

This should point you in the right direction.

Reach out to me if you have any questions about QuickBooks. Please know I’m always here to answer them. Have a good one.

Y

yamahatci

Yes, Quickbooks Online can be handy out on the field. But I regularly have two-three page invoices that probably should of started as an invoice. But we have "add-ons" that happen at the moment and often. Plus our part numbers we deal with are ten to fifteen digits. My minor dyslexia can cause havoc of course.

We are wrapping up a job and someone wants an estimate for almost exactly the same thing. I groan under my breath because I know I can't give it it to him spur of the moment and in real life I have to make the estimate at home because its not a one minute effort as I have to print out the invoice or for me copy and paste part numbers into a new estimate. So between being exhausted at the end of the day, not wanting to pound on keys that night or have other things to do, like live a life, that potential customer may not see an estimate for 24 to 48 hours or more. And, I have entirely dropped the ball and forgot all about it until I find my note I made to myself days later. And don't say I'm a poor businessman, I'm mid 60s, worked hard all my life and have a thriving business. So yes, occasionally being to copy an invoice to an estimate for a new customer would be a serious time saver and a better customer relations tool.

MaryLandT

I understand that you want to do your invoices and estimates as easily as you need, yamahatci.

Copying the information from the invoice can cause so much time. However, it's part of the limitations that QuickBooks is unable to turn an invoice into an estimate.

You need to follow the progress invoicing workflow in QuickBooks Online. I suggest sending feedback about the feature that you want.

Here's how:

Select the Gear icon at the top, then Feedback.
Enter your comments or product suggestions.
Click Next to submit feedback.

Your valuable feedback goes to our Product Development team to help improve your experience in QuickBooks. You can track feature requests through the QuickBooks Online Feature Requests website.

There's so much thing you can do while working on your invoices and estimates. I'm adding this article as your guide: Learn how to send invoices over time as you work off an estimate in QuickBooks.

Don't hesitate to post again if you have other QuickBooks concerns. I'm always around here in the Community forum to answer questions.

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