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rachel
Level 3

Work around on invoicing/time needed

I run the office for a small restoration company and have many smallish jobs.  We use the projects feature for all our jobs to access profitability easily.  I am looking for suggestions on a work around for invoicing and progress invoicing.  We use QBO online, and we most often bill our jobs at the end in full.  However, we do occasionally receive several payments for the same job.  I haven't used progress invoicing before.  I wouldn't necessarily do full progress invoicing because we don't connect to estimates currently.  We run reports generally on cash basis.  My question is two-fold.  First, right now I generally just create a new invoice whenever we get multiple checks on a job.  On my final invoice, I have to add negative line items to show the payments made.  If I start progress invoicing, would I update my invoice date every time I add a new entry?  If I do, will that mess up anything with my P&L reports?  I don't want my P&L to show invoicing in the wrong month and so show unapplied services as a negative.    Suggestions appreciated!

 

Second, and this is a little complicated, so hopefully I can explain it well enough.  We must get our technician's time onto the job for accurate profitability, and we use T-Sheets synced with QB.  To do this, I have to have my guys mark all their time billable.  When I invoice, I then have to connect all those time transactions to the invoice.  If I don't, when I try to close the project, it won't let me due to un-billed time on the job.  However, when I send out invoices I do NOT want to show time costs to my customers.  They see only a one or two line invoice.  This gets tricky and tedious.  To do this, I have  set up my invoice to not show the amount or the date and then I have to go through and delete all the descriptions of the time transactions.  Which means, in the description for the charge I want my customers to actually see, I have to add the charge manually.  So I have to fiddle around with the spacing on each line to get the charge to be at the end of the row.  Does anyone have a work around for this that might save me time?  

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Best answer June 26, 2020

Best Answers
rachel
Level 3

Work around on invoicing/time needed

Thanks Grace.  I will look into the progress invoicing more.  As far as the other, I think I figured out how to make it more simple.  I already did know how to create an invoice.  But I didn't realize that I could group all similar time items together when linking them to the invoice.  Simply doing that cuts down on a lot of the labor involved with adding them & not wanting the customer to actually see them.  I also didn't realize I could delete out the price.  So if I delete the price and description for the linked time items, it gives me what I need.

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2 Comments 2
GraceC
QuickBooks Team

Work around on invoicing/time needed

Welcome to the Community forum, @rachel.

 

In QuickBooks, you can use the progress invoicing to split the estimate into as many invoices as you need. It will help you set up a security deposit by sending 50% of your sale.

 

In the meantime, when editing the item make your changes on the original estimate to avoid mismatch on your reporting.

 

You can also read this guide about progress invoices in QuickBooks Online. This article will explain how the progress invoicing works.

 

For your second question, you can create a default invoice template and turn off off the feature you don't want to view to your invoice.

 

Here's how:

  1. Go to the Gear icon.
  2. Select Custom Form Styles.
  3. Choose the name of the template, then click the drop-down button under Action column.
  4. Select Make default.

Once done, all of your printed invoices will be the same as your customized invoice template.

 

You might also want to read this article to learn more about importing custom form style: Import Custom Form Styles for Invoices or Estimates.

 

Please let me know if you have any other concerns. I'll be here to help.

rachel
Level 3

Work around on invoicing/time needed

Thanks Grace.  I will look into the progress invoicing more.  As far as the other, I think I figured out how to make it more simple.  I already did know how to create an invoice.  But I didn't realize that I could group all similar time items together when linking them to the invoice.  Simply doing that cuts down on a lot of the labor involved with adding them & not wanting the customer to actually see them.  I also didn't realize I could delete out the price.  So if I delete the price and description for the linked time items, it gives me what I need.

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