Custom invoice template not being applied when printing and preview and sending to customers

[HoneyLynn_G]

Thank you for reaching out and participating in this conversation, @DennisCH.

As much that I'd like to add you on our notification list, but I don't have your company credentials. While Community is a public forum, I won't be able to ask sensitive questions. 

I recommend contacting our agents that support one-on-one interaction with customers. After providing your company details, they should be able to pull up your account and add you to the Investigation 22830.

Follow the steps below for their directory:

1. Login to your QBO account. At the top right of your screen, click Help (Question Mark).
2. Click the Contact us button.
3. Enter contact number and click Continue.
4. Choose the option you prefer, either through messaging or callback.
   

Let me know how it went or if you have other QBO questions. I'm always here to offer assistance. 

[bazinm]

We have the same issue for several months.

I don't understand how this is not fixed by now.

Are you really working on that?

[AlcaeusF]

Hello bazinm,

I appreciate you for posting here in the Community. Allow me to assist you with your concern about the invoices created from estimates in QuickBooks Online.

Can you share with me if you're using progress invoicing or regular invoicing? The responses from the thread above include different invoice concerns.

If you're creating a regular invoice, the workaround that we have is changing the estimate first to Accepted from Pending. There are reported users not being able to locate the create option within the estimate.

For progress invoicing, the investigation number posted by my peer above is only happening to the Airy Classic Invoice template. Please also know that our engineers are working hard to fix the issue as much as possible for you to get back on track.

I highly recommend contacting our Support Specialists to receive any updates via Email.

Here's how you can reach them:

1. Log into your QuickBooks account.
2. Click the Help option in the upper-right corner.
3. Click the Contact us hyperlink.

Please be sure to let me know if there's anything else I can do to help you succeed with the invoices. Any additional information or screenshot would be greatly appreciated.

[KevinJHarris]

Same issue here!  No resolution and no response from QB Help.  

When will this be fixed?

[Angelyn_T]

Hello there, @KevinJHarris.

I'd be glad to join the thread and help provide additional information about the issue with invoice template.

If you're referring to the issue with progress invoicing, then as mentioned by my colleague AlcaeusF, our engineers are currently working for an immediate fix of the issue. If you're not added to the list of affected users, I recommend getting in touch with our Support Team. Once added, you'll automatically receive an email notification with the updates.

On the other hand, to stay updated with the QuickBooks latest news and updates, you may visit our QuickBooks Blog.

Please feel free to drop a comment below if you have any other QuickBooks or invoice concerns, I'm just a post away to help you. Have a great day ahead!

[LD7E]

Adding in my work around for this that I informed Customer Service of today...

If you create the invoice from the estimate and end up with the invoice using the non-custom format invoice, select the invoice and make a copy. The copy of the invoice will use the custom format style. Just remember to void/delete the invoice using the non-custom format style.

Hopefully this is resolved ASAP.

[erinatoak]

Thank you so much for the workaround!  Good for now until the issue is resolved by QB.

[cetanorak]

Same issue here. 

The "copy estimate" workaround does allow you to apply custom invoice template styles to the new, copied invoice however you lose the links to the original estimate?

Is there a way to link a copied invoice to a specific estimate?  If not, then this workaround is not suitable.

[cetanorak]

But the copied invoice is no longer "linked" to the original estimate.

[AlexV]

The estimate will only be linked to the original invoice you've created, cetanorak.

If the status of the estimate is Closed, it will change back to Accepted once you deleted the original invoice.

As my colleagues mentioned, this issue is only happening to the Airy Classic Invoice template. You'll want to use a different one until this is fully resolved.

Also, I'd encourage you to contact our Customer Support team so that you'll be added on the affected users list and receive updates from time to time. You can follow the steps they've posted above on how to contact them.

Reply to this thread anytime if you have other questions. 

[cetanorak]

---

@AlexV wrote:

Also, as my colleagues mentioned, this issue is only happening to the Airy Classic Invoice template. You'll want to use a different one until this is fully resolved. 

Reply to this thread anytime if you have other questions. 

---

The issue occurs for me when trying to convert an Estimate to a Custom invoice template.

Also, I went about the process of "linking" the copied invoice to the original estimate and am not, again, able to apply a custom invoice template.

[KhimG]

Hello there, @cetanorak.

Thanks for clarifying your situation and providing more information about the issue. 

Just this week we received a similar report from a user like you experiencing the same behavior. Our Product Team knows and is working on a permanent fix for this ongoing issue.

In the meantime, I recommend giving our Customer Care Team a call to add your account to the list of affected users. Please have our representative attach your case number to INV-28978.

An email will be sent to you with any new information to assure you’re up to date with the progress of the investigation. I will also keep you posted here in this thread for any updates available. 

Here's how to get in touch with phone support:

1. Sign in to your QBO account.
2. Go to Help at the top right.
3. Click Contact Us to connect with a live agent.

That should do it. Let me know how the call goes and if you need anything else. I’m more than happy to help. Have a good one!

[cetanorak]

---

@KhimG wrote:

Here's how to get in touch with phone support:

1. Sign in to your QBO account.
2. Go to Help at the top right.
3. Click Contact Us to connect with a live agent.

That should do it. Let me know how the call goes and if you need anything else. I’m more than happy to help. Have a good one!

---

Thanks, but I've also been having issues connecting with support agents. 

When I follow the steps you've listed, and choose to start Messaging an agent it tells me that I should be connected in 0 minutes, gives me a case number and no chat session ever initializes. 

If I choose the "Call me back in 10 minutes" option, I provide my contact information and never receive a phone call.

[Angelyn_T]

Hi there, @cetanorak.

I'd be glad to help guide you today so you'll be able to contact the Support Team successfully.

First, may I know what time of the day you've tried connecting with our Support Team? It's possible that you've reached them beyond their working hours. Our support's open hours, is at 5AM-5PM PST, from Monday to Friday.

At this time, I recommend connecting with them during their business hours.

On the other hand, as soon as we receive updates from our engineers, me or one of my colleagues will update this thread as well.

Keep posted if you have any other questions/concerns, I'll be always here to help you. Have a great day ahead!

[cetanorak]

Has anybody come up with a workaround that allows for the invoices and the original estimate to maintain their "link".  The only workaround, to get the custom invoice templates to be applied, requires that the invoice IS NOT "linked" to the original estimate...which is not ideal for tracking balance paid and balance owed on the original estimate's total.

[Rasa-LilaM]

Thanks for coming back to this thread, cetanorak.

I’ve checked with my resources and I found that we still have to follow the workaround steps for the information to show up on the custom template. Rest assured, our engineers are all hands on deck getting this feature working back to normal.

 I’ll keep you in the loop once there’s progress about the issue. Aside from updating this thread, you’ll receive email updates as well.

This should help you move forward. Reach out to me if you have any follow-up questions or concerns. I’ll pop right back in to help.

[merelyn sunday]

Any chance of resolving this invoice template issue?

At the moment, to be able to use my custom template for my progressive invoices, I have to unlink my invoice to the estimate and manually enter the figures. I save as PDF and send to customer. Afterwhich, I delete the unlinked invoice and create new invoice linked to the estimate. This way, my QB Online transactions "seem" linked to each other. But this is very inefficient.

Hope to hear from QB Team soon.

[Adrian_A]

Thanks for your idea, merelyn sunday.

While our engineers are still working to resolve this issue, you can continue manually unlink the invoice, since it works on your end. After that, delete the unlink invoice and then create a new one. That new invoice will be the one you're going to link to the estimate.

On the other hand, as my colleagues mentioned above, you will be receiving an update via email once this is resolved.

Keep in touch with me if you have any concerns with your QuickBooks account.

[duffett]

Just know that this completely makes it impossible to use estimates as designed.

I found another work around that may work better for some people.  It does have its own issues though.

Basically just create a copy of the invoice, change the invoice number on that new invoice to be the same as the old one.  Acknowledge that the invoice number is the same as the previous one.

Print using the custom template (which will now work again since it's unlinked from the estimate.

Obviously this causes issues when the next new invoice is created since the next invoice # counter is reset to whatever # has been copied.

[estherdean]

This issue is also killing us. There is a workaround which is to create a copy (More>Copy) of the invoice when then creates a duplicate, and inexplicably creates the correct template. But it is so very dangerous; duplicate invoices, invoices no longer tied to estimates, it breaks the ability to see the audit trail, etc etc.

Our custom template has all of our payment details on it so we have had nightmares with firms using that as an excuse to delay payment, etc etc. We are a software company too, so it all looks very embarrassing from our side.

We've had to spin up a trial of Xero with a view to shifting over if it isn't fixed soon. The account manager at Xero I spoke to said that he had dealt with at least 15 other administrators who had this issue. :mansad:

[estherdean]

I just issued the below (I've removed some stuff specific to us) to our accounts team and stuck it on all of their screens! Hope it helps someone until fixed:-

• Create the Invoice in the normal way (ie, go to the Estimate, and click "Create Invoice" and choose whether this is a staged payment invoice or a full amount invoice).
• Check that the INVOICE NUMBER is correct and add an "x" to the end of the number. Ie, instead of 3992, make it 3992x
• Do what else you need to do with the Invoice to prepare it
• Now - click SAVE to save the invoice (do not "save and send"), then click MORE and click COPY. An exact clone of the invoice will appear.
• The invoice number will have INCREMENTED by one (so it will be 3993x). Change it back to 3992, removing the "x" from the end.
• This can now be printed, saved, save and sent or whatever in order to issue the invoice.
• When done, go back to the invoice list and open the invoice with the "x" at the end of it. When open, click MORE and DELETE to delete this invoice

This way if you have a bunch of invoices to raise, you know that you just need to always never have any invoices with an "x" after their number in the list.

[user22]

It is absolutely ridiculous that this has not been fixed by quickbooks. It has been months. I would like to know if this issue is a priority?? So far, it does not seem to be. After several months, someone should have found a resolution by now. I have been on the list to receive updates and there has still not been any updates. I'd like to know when this will be solved, otherwise, we will need to switch our invoices to another company. 

[Catherine_B]

Hello user22, 

Our engineers are closely working on this issue and once fixed, we'll notify you. 

Also, I suggest contacting our phone support team so they can link your account to the notification list. 

Thanks for your patience. 

[Gatsoman]

Support, on March 11th you said “We've received reports regarding this and our engineers are already working for a fix.”.

It is now May 27th.

Given that invoicing is fairly obviously a key element of the service I think it is reasonable that you look at a partial subscription refund for your users. I would urge anyone with this ongoing problem to email the ‘voice of the user’ email found in a link on the page you get by googling “intuit executive leadership” and apply some pressure: quite frankly an accounting package as large as QuickBooks with an inability to invoice properly is laughable!!

Support, please stop with the ‘our engineers are looking into the problem’ nonsense and ‘we will notify you as soon as there is a fix’. As the owner of a software development company, had I have had an issue like this for so long, my development team would no longer be employed.

What exactly is going on - where are we at with this issue?

[Kristine Mae]

I know where you're coming from, Gatsoman.

If the same thing happens to me, I bet I'll feel the same way.

Though, I'd like to clarify what issue are you encountering? Since this thread is composed of different invoice concerns.

If you're referring to the Progress invoicing issue, this only happens when the Airy classic style is used. In the mean time, you can use a different template. If you don't want to use a different one and you're not using progress invoicing, you can turn it off, and create invoices from estimates normally. 

Here's how to turn it off:

1. Click the Gear icon, then choose Account and Settings.
2. Go to the Sales tab.
3. Click the Pencil icon in the Progress invoicing row.
4. Uncheck the Create multiple partial invoices from a single estimate box.
5. Click Save, then Done. 

If you're referring to the estimate not converting to an invoice correctly, we have a workaround. You'll have to create the invoice separately from the estimate.

Both of these issues are still under investigation. Although a fixed resolution date is unclear at this time, rest assured that our team is working diligently to get a permanent fix. 

You may want to contact our customer care support as well so you'll get added to the list of affected users. You can follow the steps my colleagues posted at the top to get in touch with us. 

Please don't hesitate to let us know if you have other concerns.