Modified Sales Order. Printed SO looks great. On-screen SO has cramped and small data fields.

Hi there, @DUCKS495.

Thanks for posting in the Community and for providing a screenshot. I'm to share some information about customizing sales order (SO) in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) Enterprise.

When customizing your SO, you can use the Layout Designer option and manually drag the sides of the fields to either widen or increase their sizes. However, you'll only see these changes when printing it. Here's how:

1. Go to the Lists menu at the top, then pick Templates on the drop-down.
2. Locate and double-click the specific template you're using to open the Basic Customization window.
3. Choose Layout Designer at the bottom, then manually drag the sides of the fields.
4. Select OK, then OK again.

I also added some sample screenshots for your guide.

That should do the trick. You can also check out this article for future reference: Use and customize form templates.

Please let me know how it goes or if you have any additional questions. I'm a comment away if you need further help. Hope you have a good rest of the week!

You missed the question.

On the screen that a user sees when he/she is entering the Sales Order, how do I make the fields larger on the screen that the user sees?

Not on the PRINTED Sales Order, not when I'm looking at the Print Preview of SO in the layout designer, but on the screen that a user sees.

I pasted a picture of what I said. I have attached it to this post.

How do I make these fields wider on the screen not on the printed Sales Order? They are all crammed together and all approximately the same width.

Please do not send me directions on how to make the fields wider on the printed Sales Order. I want to know how to make them wider and separate them on the screen.

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@Charies_M wrote:

Hello there, DUCKS495.

 

I appreciate you providing a detailed information and clarifying your concern. Allow me share some insight about this.

 

The data field of the Sales Order in QuickBooks Desktop is designed to have a limited space and there isn't a way we can widen those fields.

 

However, being able to modify the spacing of the Sales Order data fields is a great enhancement we could add in the future. We take this as an opportunity for us to improve our product features.

 

Once we receive any updates about this, I'll make sure to post the details here in the Community. In the meantime, here's a place where you can check for the newly updated features in QuickBooks Desktop:

1. Go to Help.
2. Click New Features.
3. Choose either New Feature Tour or What's New.

I'm always around if you have any other concerns. Just make sure to leave a comment below and I'll get back to you.

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If this could also be an option for Purchase Orders that will be great.

I understand how important this feature in your business, @ImpactWaterProducts. 

The voice of our customers is more important. So every added feature was developed and implemented by our engineers to provide customers necessities that fit everyone’s business.   

Rest assured, our developer's team is working hard to develop the best features to fit the needs of our customers.    

Once we generate any updates about this feature, I'll make sure I'll keep an update on this thread. In the meantime, this is where we share recent happenings and future developments, such as updates to newly added features. Here's how:  

1. Click the Help, and choose New Features. 
2. Press either New Feature tour or What's new. 

For visual steps, you can check out this article: QuickBooks Spell Checker.

Please know that the Community is always here to help you out to make you and your business easy and functional. Take care!

Our business sells annual subscriptions to services.  I'd like to have the Job Description, Job Type, Job Status, Start Date and End Date included in the header on our Sales Orders to cut down on confusion for which subscription period you are working in.  A client may have multiple product, differently dated subcriptions and billing against those subscriptions for usage can be very confusing (to our staff and to our client's accounts payable staff) without having this data in the Sales Order.

Hello there, @SpecialtyTX.

Thank you for joining the thread. I can guide you on how to add these fields to your sales order transactions.

First, you have to set these fields to your job/customer profile. Then, customize your template to display them on your form. Here's how to add custom fields from the Edit Customer window:

1. Select Customer Center from the Customers tab.
2. Choose a customer/job name, then double-click it to open the Edit Customer window.
3. Go to the Additional Info tab, then tap on the Define Fields button.
4. Input the fields under the Label column, then choose where you want to use these fields.
5. Click OK twice.

Once completed, follow these steps on how to add the fields to your sales order.

1. From the Sales Order window, click on the Customize Data Layout from the Formatting tab.
2. Go to the Header section, then select the fields from there.
3. Hit OK.

From there, you're now ready to enter the details from each field provided.

To learn more about custom fields in QuickBooks Desktop, feel free to read the details from this link: Create and use custom fields in QuickBooks Desktop.

You can also include these fields when running your reports in the future. For your guide, check out the instructions from this article: Customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop.

That should point you out in the right direction today. Keep me posted if you need additional assistance. I'm always here to help. Keep safe!

This comment does not make any sense.

"The data field of the Sales Order in QuickBooks Desktop is designed to have a limited space and there isn't a way we can widen those fields."

We can manually widen the fields perfectly to our liking on the SO/PO's/Invoices etc.. So we know there is plenty of space. The issue is after its perfect, when we create a new one, its defaulted to imperfect. For example the column for 'Item' is almost the same width as the column for 'Description'. Our Skus are short, our descriptions are long.. This causes huge wrap around and inconsistent line items and is horrible to read the order. A 5 second drag width (that QB is capable of) makes it clear and perfect (plenty of space). 

Why should we need to do this EVERY order on every part, why wont it save what we did?

I heard your sentiment concerning the sales forms preference in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT), @UnlimitedGO.

I can see how this option can be beneficial to you and your business by allowing you to set your form styles according to your preferences. That said, I recommend sending these suggestions directly to our product development team to review this option that allows the application to follow your previous customization.

I’ll show you how:

1. At the top, select the Help menu.
2. Choose to Send Feedback Online then click Product Suggestion.
3. Type in your feedback or feature request.
4. Click the Send Feedback button.

Feel free to lay down your concerns by tapping the Reply button. You can always count on me to help you with managing reports in QuickBooks. Have a good one!