CREATING INVOICE FROM ESTIMATE BEFORE RECIEVEING INVENTORY

Hello there, @rufunky.

You won't mess up your transactions workflow if you create an invoice from your estimate before receiving inventory. I'll gladly share more details about this and guide you in recording your transactions to keep your data accurate in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT).

QBDT has a workflow if you need to complete a project, but don’t have complete materials on hand yet. To do this, you can create a sales order (only available in the Premier and Enterprise edition) from your estimate so you can track the items on backorder. Then, you can create an invoice from the estimate once the project is complete. Here's how:

1. Create and send the project estimate to your customer.
2. Create a sales order from your estimate.
3. Create an invoice from your sales order.
4. Record the invoice payment. Since you'll only receive 1/2 of the payment, you'll have to set up a liability account to record it. Refer to this article for the complete guide: Manage upfront deposits or retainers.
5. Deposit the customer’s payment.

Please see this article if you wish to learn more about the ways you can track customer transactions in QBDT: Get started with customer transaction workflows in QuickBooks Desktop.

Once everything is all set, you may also want to check out this article as your reference to guide you in managing your company's income and customers in QBDT: Sales and customers help for QuickBooks Desktop.

Please feel free to leave a comment below if you have other concerns about managing invoices and income transactions in QBDT. I'm always ready to help. Take care, @rufunky.

@rufunky 

Here's a thought: If the customer won't pay from an estimate, it's preferable, IMO, to create an invoice just for the required downpayment.  Create a service item named 'Customer Deposit' or something similar and map it to a customer deposit liability account (set one up if you don't have one).  That will properly record the downpayment as a liability and not income.  If you create an invoice based on your estimate, you will possibly drive the inventory negative (not good) and you will be booking income (also not good) if you're an accrual basis taxpayer which, presumably, you are if you carry inventory.