Create invoice for a lead (non customer) in QBO

Welcome to the Community, Dave. We'll share details about how transactions work inside QuickBooks Online (QBO).

Yes, you're right. You can only create an estimate, invoice, or other transactions if you already added a customer to your company file. If there are no customers available inside the program, you won't be able to save and record the transactions because the Customer field is empty. Now, you can create a Customer Type to indicate which customer is a lead and which one is an official customer. We'll write down the steps below to get you going:

1. Go to Sales or Customers & leads, then select Customers.
2. From the Customers screen, select Customer types.
3. Select New customer type.
4. Enter a name for the customer type, then Save.

Once done, create a customer, and then in the Additional information section of the customer profile, click the Dropdown arrow below the Customer Type section and select the type. See this page for more details: Add and manage customers in QuickBooks Online.

About viewing and filtering a lead and customer notes field in the customer list inside QBO. We recommend sending a feature request to our engineers. This way, they can evaluate your suggestion and consider it for future program updates. Here's how:

1. Access your QuickBooks Online company.
2. On the top right-corner, click the Gear icon.
3. Select Feedback and then enter your comments or product suggestions.
4. Once ready, click Next to submit feedback.

Also, know that when running a customer report. You have the option to add a note section to reflect the notes you've added for a specific customer inside the report you generated. You can achieve this feat by customizing the customer report and manually adding the Notes field to your data. For more details, please see this page: Customize reports in QuickBooks Online.

Lastly, can you tell us the title of the article you tried to follow? This way, we can check it out and update it to show the latest steps on how to do it.

Moreover, you can check these handy articles to help you manage customer payments and keep your current report settings inside your company:

• Record invoice payments in QuickBooks Online.
• Memorize reports in QuickBooks Online.

It's been a pleasure to have you here today, Dave. We look forward to having you here again if you need assistance managing customers and transactions inside QuickBooks. Stay safe, and have a good one.

I feel like you are just repeating bad information from elsewhere, Kurt...

The sales/customer page(s) don't have anything like a customer type. 

The edit existing or create new customer does not show a customer type field.

The page you sent me to on how to create a customer also does not mention customer type anywhere on it.

The rest of what you suggest below is moot - if you cannot solve the customer type field issue, nothing else you provided is useful. 

Give it another reply.