How can I create a new receipt template without affecting the content on all existing form templates? Content was changed on all existing receipt and invoices.

Hi bcschoolsports,

It's great to see you reaching out to Community.  As you've mentioned, changes to your current receipt template have impacted all forms.  In QuickBooks Online you can add, edit and customize your invoices, estimates and sales receipts seamlessly.  Keep in mind that any changes made to the default form will cause the noted behavior you've described.  I'd be happy to assist you with creating a new template for your receipts.

Here's how to start a new template:

1. Go to the Gear ⚙ in the top right and then select Custom Form Styles

2. Choose New Style

3. Select a sales form type

4. Open the Design tab

5. Enter your template a name

6. Select Dive in with a template to choose a layout
7. Click on Make logo edits to upload your logo

8. Choose your color scheme and fonts

9. Select When in doubt, print it out to adjust the margins

10. Review the form and hit Done when ready.

In addition, when you make a new transaction, QuickBooks uses your default template.  Although you can select a specific template directly from the form by following these steps:

1. Create or open an existing invoice, sales receipt, or estimate

2. Hit Customize in the footer

3. Choose your template from the list

You're all set!

Here's a helpful article to help you customize forms in QuickBooks Online.

Please don't hesitate to reach back out if you have any other questions.  We're here to help!

I have a further question on this.  Can I not take my custom template, rename it, save it, and then make changes to it without it affecting other templates?  This way I do not have to start from scratch as we spent quite a bit of time creating our template.

Thank you

Hey bcschoolsports,

I can understand your thinking.  However, in QuickBooks Online, when you make changes to the template, it will affect all forms.  The best course of action would be to create a new one, set it as your default if you like, to prevent it from being applied to previous transactions.   

Here's how to set your new form as the default:

1. From the Gear in the top right, select Custom Form Styles

2. Click on the drop-down arrow in the Action column

3. Select Make Default

You may wish to provide a suggestion to our Development Team.  We look forward to customer recommendations to provide insight for product updates and new features to improve overall customer experience with QuickBooks Online.  To share your thoughts, click on the Gear and then hit Feedback.

I hope you find this to be helpful.  Enjoy the rest of your day!

Hi again, Trish

My new Template would just be for occasional use, so do not wish to make it the default template.  I just want to be sure, then, if I create a new template from scratch, it will not affect my other templates as long as it is not the default template.  Correct?

Thank you for your assistance.

Hi bcschoolsports,

I can understand your concern with the templates and you can rest assured that a new template in QuickBooks Online will be it's own. Making it the default is purely optional.  I hope this helps.

Let me know if you have any other concerns.  I'll be close by!

Okay.  So I chose New Style and chose Sales Receipt.  In the Window, it automatically opens my default sales receipt.  In the name box, I renamed it.  Then I chose a different Template Style and clicked on Change Content.  I clicked on the top portion to edit.  In that box, I changed the Form Name.  I then clicked on the bottom box as I need to change the Message to Customer and Payment Details.  The Drop Down box under Message to Customer has only one option.  Sales Receipts.  I do not want the message to change on all sales receipts.  I am afraid to save this as others in the office are using Invoices which changed the last time I tried to create this new receipt form.  When I chose New Style, Sales Receipt, can it not open a blank screen rather than open my default sales receipt?

Please see my reply from last Wednesday.  When I click on New Style, Quickbooks online automatically opens my default Template for me to edit.  No matter if I open default, My sales receipt, custom invoice, or donation receipt which is the one I am trying to create, any changes I have made will show up on all of them.  How can I click on New Style and not have any of my templates show up?   This has apparently been happening since the beginning as someone else created our custom invoice and receipt and they both have the custom invoice messages inserted on them.  I need a blank canvas to open when I click on New Style.  I am stuck.

Hello bcschoolsports. Glad to hear back from you. I'd like to make sure we're both on the same page. Does the same thing happen when you click on New Style while using a private/incognito browser window?

Good morning

I am not sure what you mean by private, incognito browser window.....

I just figured out what Incognito is.  I turned it on, signed in to Quickbooks online, went to settings/CustomForms/New Style.  I chose receipt as the type of form I want to create and the default still populated the screen.

I see what you're saying. The program is designed to bring up the default template when you click on New Style. I can see the benefit of being able to view just a blank template vs the default template. I can see how much impact this feature would make on your work flow and I encourage you to send feedback about this to our product developers. To do this, click on the Gear icon and look for Feedback. Let me know if you have questions, I'll be one message away in case you have other questions. 

So, in other words, each time we use a sales receipt, of any kind or an invoice that is different from the default, we have to change all of the wording in the content areas, and then change it back to the default after using it.  This is really unacceptable.  If we change our receipt, our invoice is changed as well. There has to be a work around for this.  You must be able to at least have a default sales receipt and a default invoice that are separate from one another.

The good thing about QuickBooks is that you can save your favourite invoice/sales receipt templates. This makes it easy for when you want to use those templates in the future. For example, if you have a custom template, you can access and edit it by clicking the Gear icon > Custom Form Styles > before clicking New style, you can check to see the templates you already have on the Custom Form Styles screen. Otherwise, you can simply click on New style to create and save another template. 

You can then utilize these templates when creating a sales form in QuickBooks. For example, when creating an invoice, click on New (+) > click on Invoice > once the invoice screen comes up, click on Customize at the bottom of the invoice screen > here you'll see all the templates available to you. Once you click on the template, the customization options on template will automatically apply to your invoice and other sales forms you may create when you manually select the template of choice. Here's a helpful article with more info about: Customize invoices, estimates, and sales receipts in QuickBooks Online.

Let me know if this info helps clarify things for you. I'm here in case you have any other questions. 

Hi, James

I understand all of that and have followed all of those steps.  My problem is that any time I try to create a new style, it will put one of my templates on the screen and make me start from there.  Any time I try to create a new template, it makes the changes on all invoices and sales receipts.  Quickbooks will not let me start with a clean slate and will always affect my templates that are already there.  This is very frustrating.

Hi, again.  I finally decided to use Chat to try to resolve my problem.  The person on the Chat told me that to create a receipt or invoice that does not affect all others, I have to Import a new template.  I downloaded "Import Invoice styles in Quickbooks Online as well as EZ Map Fields.  I began to make up a template and realize that it only gives an option for invoice or estimate.  I want to create a Sales Receipt.  Is this going to work?  Should I choose Invoice or Estimate when downloading my Template if I want to create a sales receipt?  I really do not want ot spend any more time on this.  You should be able to create forms in Quickbook that do not affect other forms already made.  It is really ridiculous to have to spend all of this time to create a simple receipt.  Please advise.

Hi bcschoolsports,

It's great to see you here in Community!  Having the option to create your own template for sales receipts is a great way to reflect your business with your own personalization.  QuickBooks Online has an amazing feature where you can create your own sales receipt and have your business logo positioned as you wish, without it having an affect on other forms already created in your account.  I'd be happy to show you how!

Let's get started with building your template and giving it a 'custom form style'.  Here's how:

1. Click on the Gear in the top right of your QuickBooks Online account

2. Select Custom Form Styles

3. In the top right, click on the drop-down arrow on New Style and select Sales Receipt

4. Choose your Design

5. Open Content and click the Edit icons to the right of the document to pick the fields you want on your sales receipt

Note:  Be sure to take advantage of your options to Edit Labels and Widths in the middle section of your form.

6.  In the Footer section, add a default Message for your customers, pick your Font size and position

7. When you're ready, hit Done

When you create a sales receipt you'll have the option to use your new template by following these steps:

1. From the left menu click +New

2. Open Sales Receipt

3. Scroll to the very bottom and hit Customize to select your desired template

For future reference, see how to customize invoices, estimates and sales receipts in QuickBooks Online.

If you have any other questions, please reach back out.  We'd love to help!

Hi, Trish

As I wrote in my previous emails, I cannot create a new receipt in this manner as every time I make an edit, including when I create it, it changes all forms.  I have to create an entire new template offline and upload it.  This is going to be very tedious, and I am tempted to simply create a receipt in word or excel to use outside of Quickbooks for those specialized receipts.  It is very disheartening that I cannot create a new receipt or invoice directly in Quickbooks that will not affect all current forms that we have there. When I follow your steps, it always has a current form open in the window when I select New Style and select receipt.  Even if I rename it, any changes I make will change all forms, receipts and invoices, that we already have. I am wondering if the person who made up our first invoice did something incorrectly....

Hi bcschoolsports.

QuickBooks Online allows you to customize and set up multiple templates that you can choose directly from your invoice. I'd be happy to go over this with you.

Since you're QuickBooks is only letting you edit existing templates and not make new ones I recommend doing some browser troubleshooting as there could be something happening that's preventing your QuickBooks from working properly. The first step would be to clear your cache and cookies for your browser. Once that's done I recommend opening QuickBooks again in a private browser such as Google Chromes Incognito mode. If that doesn't work sometimes trying a different browser all together can work also.

If these steps still don't fix the issue I suggest reaching out to our support team so they can take a deeper look. You can reach them by the following methods: Schedule a Callback or start a Chat: click (?)Help in the upper right in QuickBooks Online > type and enter "Contact support" into the QB Assistant > click Contact Us > explain your situation > click Let's Talk > choose Get a callback or Start a Chat.
Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Support hours are from Monday to Friday between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. ET.

Have a great day!

Hi, Nick

I did speak with Chat and it was they who told me that I had to start with uploading a brand new template.  I have tried incognito mode, but will try again with cache and cookies cleared and will try a new browser .if that doesn't work.  Can I also make a New Receipt?  I see that the receipt the previous person made says Bill To:  rather than Received From:  and has the same wording as our invoice.  Thank you for your reply.

Hi again.

I recommend calling in to support so they can do a screen share and walk you through how to edit these templates as well as see what could be causing you to not create a new one. As for creating a new receipt template that is one of the options in QuickBooks Online that you can use. In the same template section when you click New just select Sales Receipt so you can start making a new one.

If you have any questions let us know and we'd be happy to help.

I am having this same issue- I would like my sales receipts to say- Paid in Full in the note section, but obviously do not want my invoices to say that !!  But when I make a "new template" for sales receipt it changes the section in all my invoices as well ?!?! Craziness.

I am assuming they never got back to you with an actual answer though.

Thinking I will have to have a Word document with the phrase I want and just copy and paste each time. 

Just nuts when they bill this as being able to make custom templates !

You are correct, LObrien4.

I have given up on this for now.  I do not have time to call Quickbooks and have them walk me through it.  I will go into the receipt when I create it and modify it as I am sending it. It is quite annoying.  Let me know if you eer figure it out!