In QBO, my invoice is printing my line items in the wrong order. The lines items are correctly displayed in the invoice entry screen. How can I prevent/fix this?

Hey, Could you share the screenshot of the issue window. It'll help us to understand the issue
better.

You've come to the right place, nabil1.

 I'm here to get this straightened out right away and make sure your invoices will print correctly.

I haven't received reports similar to this issue. When you encounter unexpected behaviors like this, I recommend accessing your account in a private browsing window to ensure there are no outdated files leading to this issue.

Here are the keyboard shortcuts that will help you accomplish this in all supported browsers:

• Chrome: Ctrl+Shift+N
• Internet Explorer: Ctrl+Shift+P
• Firefox: Ctrl+Shift+P
• Safari: Command+Shift+N

Once you've logged into your account, try to print your invoice again and check if the line items print in order. If it works, it would be a good idea to clear the cache of the browser you're using to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Cache is stored in order to speed up browser loading times, however, too much can accumulate and impact processes and cause this kind of behavior. The following article contains additional insight, as well as steps for the supported browsers: Delete or disable cache and temporary internet files in your web browser

Please don't hesitate to keep in touch with me if you need more help with your invoices, I'm determined to get this fixed for you. Thanks for coming to the Community, I'll be standing by for your response.

I have this issue all the time, every invoice, all the time, ALL THE TIME!!!!!.  The print function for the invoice has some algorithm going on that decides the line order and overrides the order I have selected. I choose a nice logical order that takes the client through the invoice 'story' and then AB screws it up.  ALL THE TIME did I mention that.

Never used to happen in desktop and drives me mad.  Yes I've tried the pointless waste of time private window nonsense.

Updating and repairing the Adobe Reader can fix this issue, robert5.

You can visit the Adobe website for the detailed instructions to update the reader.

Then, follow these steps to repair it:

1. Close all open web browser windows.
2. Click Start on the lower left-hand corner of your screen.
3. Type Control Panel, and then press Enter.
4. Click Programs and Features.
5. Select Adobe or Adobe Reader, and then click Uninstall/Change.
6. In the Setup dialog box, click Next.
7. Select Repair, Next, and then Install.
8. Click Finish when the repair is complete.
9. Restart your PC, log back in to QBO, and then try to print the reconciliation pages again.

If the same thing happens, please contact us. We can check what's causing this and make sure the issue gets resolved right away. To get our phone number, click the Help (question mark) icon in the upper right-hand corner of your QBO Dashboard. Then, click the Contact us button.

Don't hesitate to let me know if you need anything else.

I am having the same issue! Has Intuit offered a solution yet?

Help, I am having the same issue! Please advise if there is a resolution to this problem. 

Thanks for joining the thread, Carol-BEB.

I'm here to provide additional insight regarding this issue.

I have reported this to the Engineering Team, so we can investigate this on our end and come up with a permanent solution. In the meantime, you can try following the instructions I shared on my original post about accessing your account in a private browsing window.

In addition, it would be a good idea to check if your Adobe Reader is updated as my colleague SophiaAnnL suggests. Lastly, you may also get in touch with the Customer Care Team for further assistance if the issue persists. Here's how you can reach them:

1. Click Help at the top right.
2. Select Contact us to connect with a live support agent.

Keep me posted with the result, I want to make sure this is taken care of. Thanks again for reaching out, I'll be looking out for your response.

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I took the steps suggested in your previous post but they did not resolve the problem.

I have used the online and desktop QB versions with the same results. I am on a MacBook Pro running OS 10.14.2. 

My immediate work around is downloading the estimate / invoice and editing the PDF in Acrobat Pro. This is not ideal but is getting me through until the issues is corrected with an update or verified steps to resolve.

Thank you!

Hi there, @Carol-BEB.

Allow me to join the thread and help share additional information about printing invoices in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

Invoices print accordingly unless there is a service date included when creating the invoices. When adding a service date if sorts the items from the oldest date to the latest one.

To print the invoice with the line items in the correct order, you may need to turn of or remove the service date when creating invoices.

For additional reference about printing invoices in QBO, you can check this article: How to email or print multiple invoices and sales forms at one time.

Stay in touch if you have any other concerns about printing invoices, I'm always here to help you. Have a wonderful day ahead!

Hi Angelyn,

Thank you for your response. I typically have an initial line item where I include the service date. For the following line items, I do not include the date since it is redundant on my project estimates and invoices. 

However, I when I added the service date (same date) to each line item as you suggested, it did correct the ordering!

I do still believe that this is an issue that needs to be addressed... order of the line items on the estimates/invoices should correspond to the order of line items as prepared by the user with out having to include the service date... especially since this date is the same.

Thank you for your help! 

Thank you for getting back to us here in the Community, @Carol-BEB.

I'd be glad to help address and send feedback to our product developers/engineers about the line items that should correspond to the correct order when printing invoices/estimates.

In addition, you can also send feedback on your end:

1. Click on the Gear icon.
2. Select Feedback under User Profile.
3. Share your feedback under the Feedback page.

As always, I'll be right here to help you if you have any other QuickBooks concerns, don't hesitate to add a post/comment below. Wishing you the best!

Yes, I have also confirmed the line items are printing according to the service date regardless of how they appear on the screen. Good question, is why? 

Hello there, @Meesh.

Thank you for joining this thread and providing some insights about your printing results. Allow me to chime in and share some more insights.

The line item arrangement of the sales transactions is according to the order of your template's heading. 

• If Date is your template's first column, then the items are arranged according to service date. 
• If the template you're using doesn't have the Date column, the next default header will be used to organize the line items.

But initially, the items order are according to the service date. To know more about customization, please check this article: How to customize invoices, estimates, and sales receipts.

That's it, Meesh. Let me know if you have additional questions. I'm still here to help you more. Have a good one!

Thank you for the further insight.

The question remains as to WHY is the invoicing sorting...period. I enter my line items as I would like them to appear when the invoice is printed. Sounds really simple to me... 

Changing my invoice layout to meet QBO's issue is not an option.

Thank you for commenting back, @Meesh.

Currently, the invoice sorting default is by the Service Date. I already sent a feedback statement to our engineers about printing the invoices the way they enter in QuickBooks.

They do their best to review and implement all requests for future releases. As we have new and relevant information, we will communicate that out. For now, you can visit our blog site to get the most current news about QuickBooks products and services.

You can also send your feedback by clicking the Gear icon and choosing Feedback.

As always, I'm still here to help you further, just drop a comment below. Wishing you all the best!

Thanks everyone,

This now explains what QB is doing but not why.

There is no point having the facility to order the lines in the invoice generation window if QB will then override that when creating the invoice.

I will use the work around of deleting the service date or I will try modifying the template to remove the column but I would appreciate it if QB changed their routine to follow the basic principles if WYSIWYG

Thanks

Just tried to communicate directly with QB and there is still no answer to why this is happening, except to refer me back to generic questions.  How difficult can it be to allow an invoice to order itself according to entry number (the column on the far left).  It's always done that for me but is now doing something differently. Have your product developers made any progress in the last three weeks?

Hey @GavinSP,

I appreciate your effort in reaching out to our phone support. Let me provide additional details about this to help you further.

QuickBooks is working based on how it was designed by our developers. 

When you print your invoice, the items on the preview are based on how you entered them. If you entered them in a specific order, they should also appear the same way. 

Also, the service dates for your items will be sorted according to the dates in descending order. 

In the meantime, you may want to enter service dates your invoice items to sort them correctly. You may refer to the screenshot below about how your invoice would appear with service dates.

If you have further questions or concerns, please reach out to me. I'll be here in the Community to help you.

This has just happened to me today. I've sent invoices and quotes before and the line order has stayed as I had laid it out, but now it's making up it's own order when I go to print the quote. This is extremely annoying to say the least. I have tried the above suggestions and so far none of them seem to work.

Scratch that, I read all they way through these posts and then realised two of my items which I didn't want to give service dates too were causing the issues. Workaround is to give them dates but this is not ideal. If the template allows you to shuffle the lines around, which it does, it should honour that rearrangement regardless of date imho.

Hi Matt, my workaround is to delete dates from everything but I agree this is unsatisfactory. If the app implies WYSIWYG then that is what it should be.