(1) Having to save an packing slip after an invoice has already been saved (2) "Salesperson has changed" popup

Thanks for giving details of your concern, @DUCKS495. I've come to give you information about your packing slip and sales rep issue. 

QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) requires you to save the transaction you want to print to have a copy of the printed form in your program. To guide you in printing your packing slip, see the steps below:

1. Open your QBDT program and go to the Customers tab. 
2. Click Customer Center and look for the customer name where the transaction belongs.
3. Double-click the invoice you need to convert as a packing slip.
4. Then, select the Print drop-down and choose Packing Slip.
5. Click OK and then, Print.
6. Save your packing slip on your desired folder and enter a file name.

Regarding your sales rep concern, the pop-up appears as an indication that you've select a different sales rep for that customer's transaction. The only way to avoid the pop-up is to only select the default sales rep assigned to that specific customer. If there's no default sales rep linked to that customer or you've selected a different sales rep rather than the assigned, the pop-up will show. You can choose No so the changes won't be applied for that customer's past and future transactions. 

If you want to assign a sales rep to your customer, you can follow these steps:

1. Open your QBDT program and click the Customers menu.
2. Choose Customer Center.
3. Look for the customer's name you want to edit. Double-click to open.
4. Then, go to the Additional Info tab.
5. From the REP drop-down, select the sales rep you want to assign to this customer.
6. When done, click OK.

Then, to see your customers existing balance, you can pull up the Customer Balance Detail report. Let me guide you how:

1. Navigate to the Reports menu.
2. Hover over the Customers & Receivables section.
3. Choose Customer Balance Detail.

I'm always here in the Community if you have additional concerns about printing packing slips and selecting a sales rep for your customer's transactions. I got your back. Have a good one. 

@DUCKS495 

RE: ...why do we need to save again before printing the packing slip? I can see having to save if some information has changed, but literally nothing has changed. We have people write up 30+ orders per day.

The Template has changed. The Template determines which fields are visible on screen and when printing, and so is a significant change. It also may, in some settings, help determine the type of sale, like wholesale or retail.

RE: This seems needless.

Yes, the prompt is needless. You can turn it off for this use case in a couple of ways in preferences:

Start at Edit | Preferences

1. To turn off auto-saving invoices when you print, go to General | Company Preferences and de-select "Save transactions before printing".

2. To turn off the confirmation when making a change to a transaction go to General | My Preferences and de-select "Warn when editing a transaction".

Or, print the packing slip without changing the template:

At the top of the invoice, open the click the little arrow on the Print button and pick Packing Slip.

RE: The same person does not take an order from the same customer each time. When someone enters themselves as the sales rep, (every time) QB pops up with "You've changed Customer X's Rep for this transaction. This change will reflect in your current transaction. Do you want to make it permanent i.e. to reflect in all your past and future transaction?"  What are our options for not having this pop up?

1) In Preferences, turn off updating names when changes are made on transactions:

Go to General | Company Preferences and select "Never update name information when saving transactions."

2) Use a custom field.

RE: Is there some analagous field that we would map this to where we could still have the pull down full of order taker names, where an order taker can select themselves as the order taker from the pull down, but the system does not pop up with that annoying message every time.

Yes, a custom field.

Using Enterprise, you can set up a pick list that you can add to the invoice form:

Create the list:

- Edit a customer (any customer) and click on the Additional Info tab.

- Click Define Fields in the Custom Fields box.

- Add a new field, perhaps named Order Taker

- Pick User's multi-choice list as the type and then enter your order taker's names in the list.

Add it to your invoice template:

- Edit the template from the Templates list.

- Click the Additional Customization button.

- On the Header tab, enable your new field.

- Optionally, position it on the printed invoice using the layout designer.

Big Red Consulting:

Thanks for the effort you put into your reply. It truly is appreciated.

With respect to the "double save" (saving the invoice, then changing nothing, selecting the packing slip template, and having to save again although we've done nothing other than the steps here - no changes), you suggested:

"Or, print the packing slip without changing the template:

At the top of the invoice, open the click the little arrow on the Print button and pick Packing Slip."

This is exactly what we already tried to do to get around having to do the double save. One additional item of information is that we have the Intuit Packing Slip set as an inactive template and have our own packing slip (named Packing Slip - No Pricing, based on an invoice template, modified with logo, etc.). When we do what you suggest (clicking the little arrow under the Print button), then do a Print Preview, we get the default, inactivated Intuit Packing Slip "white bread" template. We don't know how to assign our Packing Slip - No Pricing as the default packing slip template. I've always been a big fan of RTFM. Unfortunately, THERE IS NO MANUAL FOR THIS SOFTWARE !!! (Not yelling at you, just at Intuit.).

I've Googled 'til my fingers are worn to the bone and I cannot find a way to assign my packing slip template as the default packing slip template.

As to the next item (Sales Rep vs Order Taker): I'm familiar with Custom Fields and have used them before. I tried it here and it worked fine except for one issue. I can set my customized Invoice template the way I want it, and print it that way, but the actual client Invoice screen on the computer does not reflect that because Intuit has the screen fields ordered in a certain way and that is not changeable. So, my people, who are on auto-pilot when entering an Invoice, and have become accustomed to doing it in the same ordered way for years, now come to a screeching halt (not really--they just stop for a second) because the fields on the Invoice screen are not in the same order that they've always seen them. In the Header grouping, a custom field on the Invoice screen gets thrown to the end of the Header grouping. I can't move it so it appears, on the computer screen, in the same position as the Rep/Sales Rep field was located. Again, I can change it so it prints in the correct position on the printed version of the Invoice, but not on the computer screen. It's out of order, at the end of the Header group. 

I saw that you had also suggested: "Go to General | Company Preferences and select "Never update name information when saving transactions." I wish I felt more comfortable about the other, unknown ramifications for doing so. If only there was a manual...

Thanks.

@DUCKS495 

RE: This is exactly what we already tried to do to get around having to do the double save. One additional item of information is that we have the Intuit Packing Slip set as an inactive template and have our own packing slip (named Packing Slip - No Pricing, based on an invoice template, modified with logo, etc.). When we do what you suggest (clicking the little arrow under the Print button), then do a Print Preview, we get the default, inactivated Intuit Packing Slip "white bread" template. We don't know how to assign our Packing Slip - No Pricing as the default packing slip template.

To change the default packing slip, go to Edit | Preferences | Sales & Customers | Company Preferences and then in the weirdly-named "Miscellaneous" box with only one setting, pick the desired template.

RE: I've always been a big fan of RTFM. Unfortunately, THERE IS NO MANUAL FOR THIS SOFTWARE !!! (Not yelling at you, just at Intuit.).

Manuals are so 1990's. Seriously though, in order for anyone to write a manual for QuickBooks, someone at Intuit would have to know how it works. I don't think that's been true for some time now.

RE: "Go to General | Company Preferences and select "Never update name information when saving transactions." I wish I felt more comfortable about the other, unknown ramifications for doing so.

I don't think there are any.  All it means is that if you make changes to values that are also stored on names  you won't be prompted to change the name and it won't be changed. These are things like terms, the addresses, the rep, and various other fields that exist on both names and transactions, and exist on the names to be used as a default when entering a new transaction.