Change Order on Sales Order-QB Desktop.Enterprise.Contractor

Hello, Shannon.

I'd like to share some details and pointers about creating a change order entry when doing your projects. 

At this time, we can only create a change order directly from the original estimate. We're unable to get it directly from the succeeding sales order. 

It looks like your original post was cut off but we can do a couple of workarounds. 

The first one is to simply leave the estimate as is and edit the succeeding sales order. We want to add a memo indicating the changes on the Memo field. 

The second workaround is to delete the original sales order and create a change order from the existing estimate. Then, simply create another sales order with the changes. 

Although, it would also help if there was an ability to create a change order directly from the sales order itself. This would definitely add some flexibility in terms of tracking the changes in your project workflow. 

It's best if we send feedback directly to our developers regarding this idea. Click on the Help menu, hover on Send Feedback Online, then select Product Suggestions. Enter your ideas about having the ability to create change orders from existing sales order. 

Your inputs will be reviewed by our developers and might consider them for future improvements or updates. 

If you need a quick refresher about handling sales orders, this article can help: Create a sales order.

In case you also need help pulling up reports to see the relevant data, I recommend checking out this article: Understand reports.

Do you have more questions about handling or creating sales order? Or would you like some assistance in handling other transactions? Let me know and I'll assist you again. 

Thank you! - we will review our process and see which work around solution works best for us - I will also submit the suggestion to development for future versions.  

We also create the Estimate for a project and then would like to leave that in tact so the client knows exactly where we started.  In some cases however, there is a need to credit the customer for choosing something less than what was included in the original estimate hence a negative change order.  QB will not allow the creation of negative change orders so is the a way to create this credit without changing the original estimate?

Yes, you're right, Natalie08.

We're unable to create negative change orders in QuickBooks Desktop. As a workaround, let's enter a credit memo less the amount of the original estimate.

Here's how:

1. Go to the Customers menu and then select Create Credit Memos/Refunds.
2. From the Customer: Job drop-down menu, select your customer.
3. Enter the other necessary details.
4. Click on Save & Close.

Once done, apply it to the invoice. For the detailed steps, please see this article: Give your Customer Credit.

Aside from that, you can also edit the estimates and manually change the items.

Additionally, I've added an article that'll help you organize your cash flow and track sales, receivables, and profitability more accurately: AR Workflows in QuickBooks Desktop.

Please keep us posted if you have additional questions or concerns about recording your sales transactions. We're always here to help you out.