Bilingual product description. How can we have a French and English product description? Client will receive an invoice with the description in their preferred language.

Hello userrinoruzich,

I love that you're looking to work with your clients and make sure they receive their invoices in their preferred language. I know how much of a difference this can make when it comes to effective communication and how it can help with your relationship with them. It sounds like you're working with the feature in QuickBooks Online to send invoices in different languages, and I can go over just how this works so you know how to handle your items and descriptions.

The way this feature works is it translates the structure of the invoice, but doesn't translate manually input data, such as item names and descriptions. So while this can send an invoice to your French customer with headings like Facture, Taux, and Montant, there are certain details that remain in English.

The best way to handle making your products, services and descriptions bilingual is to manually input the details in both languages in the item or service setup. For example, I can set up a product in my Product and Services area so that it reads something like Computer / Ordinateur for the name and then for the description, I could mirror that sort of format so that it's clear which language follows which.

Another portion of the invoice that won't be translated is any sales tax codes. Whatever language that QuickBooks Online was configured for during the setup of the sales tax codes is the language the codes will appear in. If you're concerned about that, you could consider setting up custom sales tax codes to match other languages using the steps here: How to set up a new sales tax code. Before doing that, I recommend consulting an accountant to see if that'll be okay for your books.

To work with an accountant, use the My Accountant tab. There, you can invite your accountant as a user to your books or use the Find a pro to help button to find a pro near you.

Our product development team welcomes feedback about this bilingual invoicing feature so that they can learn the ways users would like to see it changed. Use the steps in the article How do I submit feedback? to share your thoughts and have them forwarded to that team for consideration.

I hope this helps clarify the options. If there's anything else I can go over for you on this subject, let me know. I've got your back. :)