Question

Change orders

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
July 27, 2023
1 reply
3 views

I know how to create a change order that shows up in an original estimate. Is there any way to send/email that change order to a client for approval before work is commenced? This for a construction company. Trying to avoid having to use a different platform, ie. google docs, Excell to perform this so I can keep it all under one program.

QuickBooks Desktop

JessT

Moderator

Hi Sudbury builders!

It's a good idea to notify and let clients approve changes to their orders before starting a project. I'm happy to walk you through emailing a change order without having to use the other platforms you mentioned.

I understand that you know how to make a change order. Therefore, all you need to do is open the estimate that has the change order note and send it like sending a regular transaction. I've added a screenshot for your visual reference.

On the other hand, an estimate is part of the accounts receivable workflow in QuickBooks. That said, I'm glad to share this article for your additional reference: Get started with customer transaction workflows in QuickBooks Desktop.

I'm just right here if you need more help sending your change order or if you have any other questions related to estimates. My colleagues will also continue to assist if I'm out of office.

S

Sudbury buildersAuthor

Step 1: create an estimate

Job starts change orders come in

Step 2: go into existing estimate and add changes, this creates the change order.

After that how do I extract only the change order from the estimate to send to the client without creating an invoice?

T

totallytol

I appreciate you getting back here, @totallytol. I know a way you can email estimates to your customer with the details you need.

Before that, I'll share details about this. In QBDT, the option to edit the estimates when emailing is unavailable. Additionally, you're unable to modify the estimate's template to only include the headers and the change order portion. This is the reason you're advised to send feedback to our product developers (just refer to the steps of my colleague above).

With that said, you can consider editing the form outside your QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) as a workaround. To do so, you can download and convert it into an editable file (using an online file converter) and email it to your customer once done. Here's how:

Select the Customers tab in your QBDT company and click Customer Center.
Locate the customer where the estimate is assigned and double-click to open the form.
Next, click the Print dropdown and choose Save As PDF.
Enter the name you can easily remember and Save.
Once done, open the file on your computer and convert it to an editable one.
From there, remove the information you don't need and keep only those you want your customers to see (Change Order and the Headers).

When finished, you can now email this to your customers.

For reference, read this article: Create an estimate in QuickBooks Desktop.

In case you need to modify the email templates of your other forms, you can refer to the steps in this link: Create custom email templates in QuickBooks Desktop.

Should you have any other questions or things you want to discuss about emailing estimates to your customers, please don't hesitate to comment below. It's my priority to ensure your goals are achieved.

Thank you, I am glad someone finally was able to answer my questions. My problem is not being able to trun the PDF into a workable document. If there is no way to save as a workable document like word doc, any other suggestions? I was thinking of duplicating the estimate, making the changes to email then deleting the duplicate. I really think that would be the best way unless I can find a workaround of the pdf documents.

Thanks again

Tolly

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