Is there a way to insert a variable for month & year inside the description of a reccuring invoice? I do monthly billing where the customer needs to see current month/yr.

Hi Brad,

Welcome to the QuickBooks Community. Allow me to share some information about adding variables on invoices in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

The option to add a variable feature on recurring invoices is currently unavailable in QBO. As a workaround, you can manually enter variables every time an invoice recurs.

This feature would be a great help to your business, so I suggest you make your voice heard by sending feedback. Let me show you how:

1. Click on the Gear icon.
2. Choose Feedback.
3. Enter your request or product suggestion and click on Next.
4. If there are related requests similar to yours, just click on it. 
5. Then, click on the I want this button. If you want to receive updates about your request, please enter your email address and click on Subscribe.

However, if there are no related requests, just click on Skip and send message. Then, choose Feedback as the Category and click on Send message. 

That should do it. Your request will be reviewed by our developers who are capable of adding this feature, and possibly implement this in the future.

I appreciate you taking the time to visit us here today. Looking forward to hearing from you soon if you have any other concerns. Have a great day.

The lack of this feature was the deciding factor in me choosing Xero over QBO. I've been a QuickBooks user for years but their refusal to implement simple quality of life features despite the ease of implementation and the demand from users is showing the disconnect between the company and their customers. This feature has been requested since 2015, or possibly before, on their own forums. 

See the original thread here:

https://feedback.qbo.intuit.com/forums/168199-quickbooks-online-feature-requests/suggestions/1110523...

Hi there, duanedelima.

Thanks for joining this thread. Allow me to address your concern, so let me help get this straightened out.

Finding new ways to adapt to our customers’ needs is how QuickBooks gets even better. Your feedback helps our Product Development team decide which feature will be implemented on the next future update. The change is also based on how popular a specific feature request is. 
 

Since the option you're looking for is currently unavailable and I can see how this feature would be beneficial to your business, I'm also preparing a feedback submission to our Product Development Team right now. 

We appreciate your patience. Please know that you're always welcome to post if you have any other questions. Have a good one. 

Really this is something that is going to force me to move away from Quickbooks Desktop. I should be able to put something like ::month:: and have it use the current month or ::Month+1:: and have it be the following month. I bill my customers this moth for services to be rendered the following month. With memorized transactions I have to go in and edit them every time and Im reaching a point where the number of invoices to edit each month is becoming a problem and there is lots of room for error. Its a task that should be automated as part of a billing structure. Is this a feature I can do with the online version?

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@JByers1 wrote:

Really this is something that is going to force me to move away from Quickbooks Desktop. I should be able to put something like ::month:: and have it use the current month or ::Month+1:: and have it be the following month. 

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This question is for QBO.

There were 500+ requests for this feature until 2 weeks when they deleted all the 60,000+ requests in the requests website, perhaps thinking that if they deleted them people did not want them.

This not being in there is overlooking some of the most basic needs of any business SaaS.  There should be merge tags in different formats for almost every element of the app that communicates with a client, and it should be embarrassing to the product team of such a mature product that it does not exist already.

Many many MANY people have asked for this feature for a very very long time.  The response is always the canned "We appreciate... blah blah blah".  Yet it is NEVER addressed sincerely.  I had NO idea Xero did this.  Well... off I go for a free trial of Xero.  Sad really... I've been a QBs customer for such a long time.

Hi there, everyone.

Thanks for providing some feedback about adding a variable field on recurring invoices.

You have the option to customize invoice templates and assign them to a recurring transaction. As mentioned, however, inserting a variable for the month & year inside the description of a recurring invoice is unavailable.

We make sure to take note and address all feedback for QuickBooks Online as possible as we can. You can always visit the QuickBooks Blog site to check the latest feature added to the application.

If there's anything else that I can do to help, just let me know by adding a comment below. Have a good one.

Its really funny that they keep sending me emails thanking me for my help in the community and they just upgraded my account to an "Established Member". Does that mean that I get more pull in new features? All I have done was ask for a feature that they are not offering and I keep getting generic form responses basically showing they have never really looked at my request.

Thanks for getting back to us, @JByers1.

Allow me to step in for a moment and share some information about the emails you're getting from the Community.

First of all, I appreciate you sending product suggestions to our Developers. They're constantly looking for great ideas from users, like yourself, when deciding how to enhance QuickBooks. As mentioned by my colleague, our QuickBooks Blog site is the place we post updates with regards to newly added features.

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On the other hand, the Established Member is a rank, and those ranks are earned in Community based on your participation like posting questions, comments or answers. For more information on how it works, you can check out this article: Big Changes to Our Community Ranking Structure.

Please post again or leave a comment on this thread should you have any additional questions or concerns. I'm always here to answer them. Wishing you and your business continued success!

Hello there, @Anonymous.

Please allow me to join the thread and help share a little more information about adding variables on invoices.

You have the option to customize your template as mentioned by my colleague HoneyLynn_G above, since this feature isn't available in QuickBooks Online (QBO) as of the moment.

On the other hand, I'll take note with this, so I'll be able to pass along the suggestions for you, so you'll be able to use this feature in QBO as quickly as possible.

For you to stay updated with the latest QuickBooks news and updates, you may visit our QuickBooks blog: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/blog/.

Please feel free to visit us here on the Community page if you have any other invoices concerns, I'll be always here to help you. Have a great day ahead!

Having just come from the land of Xero, I'm disappointed that variables aren't a part of QBO. That said, I am enjoying the really neat feature where I can automate sending of invoices AND have it actually work. Very novel and a major reason for leaving Xero. That said, ***please, please add the ability to use variables asap***. Now I have to go and figure out how to make my invoicing work without it. We really shouldn't have to try to find workarounds for what should be considered basic functionality. 

I'll personally let our engineers know about this, Tisonlyme.

Customer suggestions are used to consider by our engineers whenever they'll have future updates. I'd make sure to raise this concern and send them your feature request. 

I'd also make sure to keep you updated through this thread. Please let me know if you need anything else.

Thank you. As a side note, Xero already lags behind with a few vital things, from many people's perspective. They have made clear by their lack of response and action that they are not interested in keeping their current clients, but rather they just focus on getting new ones. QBO will really set themselves apart by being responsive and adding features that their clients have requested and have a legitimate need for. Xero's short sighted approach will not go well for them long term, my opinion. Thank you for considering our request.

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@Tisonlyme wrote:

lack of response and action 

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I'm sorry to say it's the same here.

The robots here give these canned answers saying they will "let our engineers know ", constantly.  They used to have 60,000+ requests on their requests page, going back many years, which they recently deleted.  This particular request for variables was very popular.

The funny thing it IS available in the new Manage Routines feature in Labs, for auto-sending late reminders

Oh what  a lovely canned response.  This has been asked for by customers of QBO for nearly 5 years, yet it has not even had a sniff of an engineer trying to include it.  As a programmer myself, it isn't that huge of a chore.  AT ALL.  This could be implemented, tested, QA'ed and rolled out in a pretty short order, even at the scale QBO has grown to.  Had they been responsive, the potential customer facing impact would have been much less. 

Since Intuit is trying and desiring to push customers to the online model for increased profitability and that oh so sweet Monthly Recurring Revenue model, one would think the QBO team would be super diligent implementing requests on this platform.  But no.  They aren't.  Heck, you aren't even making a descent attempt to get QBO completely caught up with desktop at all.

Very disappointing. 

Here's the re-created issue on the feature forum. Please add your vote!
https://feedback.qbo.intuit.com/forums/920245-quickbooks-mobile-feedback-forum/suggestions/39096322-...

Intuit, please add this feature. It's been around on other solutions for 20-years.

Hello there, @bgreiner.

Allow me to join the thread and provide some information about this

Currently, adding variables in QuickBooks Online isn't available. However, you have the option to customize your template as mentioned by my colleague above.

On the other hand,  I’ll surely pass this preference to our developers so they can work on making your experience as user-friendly as possible in the future. 

 Also, you can always visit the QuickBooks Blog site to check the latest feature added to the application.

Please let me know if you have any other questions with QuickBooks. I'm here to help you out. All the best!

This has been requested for years.  Even for a cloud based app, it should be a very very easy add.  My thoughts is QBO nor its software engineers have any desire to add this very basic feature.

Templates do not fix the problem.  

This option is still unavailable for now in QuickBooks Online @SimplyEric .

I just want to let know that your suggestions are important to us in developing the product. Our developers are closely reviewing any added features in QBO to avoid errors once they're release in the system. We would appreciate your patience until this feature is available.

Let's visit our QuickBooks Online Blog to stay current with our news and updates.   

Please know that you're always welcome to comment anytime if you have other concerns.

As a temporary solution (idk for how long), consider a reccuring billing app and sync it with your QBO.