Pre-billing hours to customer

Hey chrisk3,

Thank you for reaching out to the QuickBooks Community! Just curious but are you familiar with progress invoicing? Progress invoicing lets you split an estimate into as many invoices as you need. Instead of asking for full payment at the beginning of a project, you can invoice customers for partial payments. As you complete the tasks you can add items from the initial estimate to progress invoices.

For more information about this, you can use the article below to learn how to create a progress invoice. 

• Create and manage projects in QuickBooks Online

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. My team and I will be here to help. Take care. 

Thank you but that is not what I need to do. The customer is requesting that the full amount be invoiced at the beginning of the project because they need to have it in their books by year end so progressive invoicing will not work.

I appreciate you getting to us, chrisk3. Let me help you sort this out.

Instead of generating an Invoice right away, please start by creating an Estimate at the beginning of the project. Once your customer completed the 580 hours work, you can then immediately convert that estimate into an invoice. This process will ensure greater accuracy and efficiency in our billing cycle.

Let me show you how to do it:

1. Click + New, then select Estimate.
2. Enter all the necessary information in the fields provided.
3. Then click on Save or Review and send.

Check this article for more details: Create and send estimates in QuickBooks Online.

After completing the hours rendered, here's how to convert your estimate into an invoice:

1. Navigate to Sales and choose All Sales.
2. Locate the estimate you wish to convert.
3. Check the status column; if it shows Rejected, you must update it before converting (If the status is not Rejected, proceed to step 4).
   • Select the ▼ dropdown in the Action column, and select Update status.
   • In the Status field, select  the ▼ dropdown and select Pending or Accepted.
   • Select OK. Then find the correct estimate on the Estimates list.
4. In the Action column, click Convert to invoice.
5. Then, hit Save.

In addition, I've also included a link here for you to personalize your sales form and add the specific details you need: Customize invoices, estimates, and sales receipts in QuickBooks Online.

If you have any more questions or need further assistance with managing invoices or anything else, please don't hesitate to reach out, chrisk3. We're here to help make your accounting as smooth and efficient as possible.

Thank you again but that still is not what I need to do. The customer requires an invoice before year end or they lose the funds that have already been budgeted for the project. So I cannot send them an estimate, I need to generate an actual invoice for the total dollar amount at the beginning of the project.