It is possible.  

Create the copy invoice - I put DELETE in the memo field as a notation because this is oh so ripe for error if you should get distracted.  So you are actually going to delete the "copy" not the original that is linked when all is said and done.  

Email yourself the copy. 

Edit the copy PDF invoice number to match the original in (2) places:

1. Use a PDF edit tool to change the invoice number from the "copy" to the original that is linked to the estimate. 

2.  You will also need to edit the PDF file name to match that of the original invoice number 

Email this version to your customer.  Delete the copy in quickbooks.  In this manner, nothing changes in your system - the estimate/invoice are correct and linked.  The customer gets the correct formatting and because you changed the invoice numbers, it all matches. 

Yes absolutely sucks.  Is time consuming with an extra 5-7 minutes per each invoice!!!!!   And completely prone to error if you forget to delete.. hence the DELETE in the memo field.  I created a custom report on only that and run it once per week to make sure I didn't forget to delete anything.  I've caught one or two here or there... and I'm very diligent, so you must have checks and balances in place to catch these possible errors because they will happen. 

There you go.  This is the work around.  A total nightmare, but I believe it to be worth the effort to keep our business records in order. 

Hi everyone, 

Allow me to step in and provide some update about the custom invoice template issue in QuickBooks Online. 

I've checked the investigation status about this issue, and it still in progress but rest assured that our engineers are currently investigating and working on an immediate fix. 

While we're continuing to work on resolving this issue, for the meantime you may want to consider the workarounds provided by my colleagues on their posts. I'll take note of your feedback about this investigation. I also encourage you contacting your QuickBooks Online Support Team to add your account to the list of affected users. This way, you'll be notified of any updates on the progress on the investigation via email. 

Here's how to contact our customer support:

1. Sign in to your QuickBooks Online company.
2. Select Help (question mark icon) at the top right.
3. Select Contact us to connect with a live support agent.

I also appreciate you posting your experience here in the Community @zoeyjohnson13. This way, other users will be able to use this as an additional workaround.

I truly appreciate your patience and understanding as we work through this. Please know that you're always welcome to post if you have any other questions. Have a good day ahead. 

Hi JanyRose

We look forward to seeing if your perception of an “immediate fix” is the same as ours. Here’s hoping to be up and running by Monday morning then.

Still not working so not very immediate.

is there any chance of a realistic timescale so we know whether to move to a competitor or not?

thanks

Hello there, @Gatsoman.

I'm here to help share additional information about the issue.

As of now, our engineers are still currently working for a resolution of the issue. If you're already added to the list of affected users, you'll automatically receive an email notification with the latest updates. On the other hand, you may also check our QuickBooks to stay updated with the latest QuickBooks news and updates.

To visit our blog, you can check it here: The QuickBooks Blog.

Stay posted if you have any other QuickBooks concerns, I'll be always here to help you. Have a great day ahead!

Thank you Angelyn

We shall continue to wait. I guess at least it isn’t anything important.. invoices are overrated in my opinion.

"We shall continue to wait. I guess at least it isn’t anything important.. invoices are overrated in my opinion."

Probably the exact sentiment of the Quickbooks engineers and the reason why this issue has remanined at the bottom of the triage queue for 6 months

Hi cetanorak,

I appreciate you keeping an eye on this investigation. Please know that when you're added to the list of affected users, our Support Team will update you once a resolution has been released for this issue. 

Our engineers treated this particular behavior with the utmost urgency. As a workaround, create the invoice separately from the estimate.

For now, I suggest giving us a quick call to receive updates and provide this escalation number: INV-28978. Then, follow the steps provided by my colleagues to get our contact information.

I'll be sure to update you on this thread once a permanent fix has been implemented. 

Thanks for your patience. Please let me know if there's anything else you need. I'm always here to help.

Cetanorak,

Just to provide some perspective, support have been saying this for the past 12 weeks. Even the workaround was devised by a user on this forum.  It does work, though honestly you may as well go back to

using Word to generate invoices.

I am thinking that there is absolutely no timescale for a fix given reported progress so far (as in, none). I’ve even reached out to the CEO personally who assured me it would be dealt with - and still no progress.

All I can think of is that there must just not be enough users using custom invoice templates to make the developer time worth the cost to fix.

If you are on a trial period I would strongly advise trying a different provider.

The only reason we have not moved over to Xero ourselves is that our accountant does not fully integrate yet, but they’ve actually employed someone specifically to do just that so they can move their entire client base over: all down to this issue. It’s at that point we’ll be looking to get our last 4 months subscription back!

Had a situation just now where someone from accounts issued a bunch of invoices applying the "workaround" of copying the invoice to a new (unlinked) invoice, and deleting the old one. Sadly they didn't notice that the data gets altered to today's date (now giving the client another 28 days to pay)

Just a heads up to people to check your dates.

Quickbooks Admins, any news on a fix? We're about 5 months and counting now.

We're working closely with our engineers to get this fixed, estherdean.

A lot of customers have also requested for the update. I'd recommend contacting our Phone Support Team. We will add your company details so we can provide updates once this issue is resolved.

Here's how you can reach out to us:

1. Click the Help icon located in the upper right-hand corner.
2. In the Help window, click the Contact Us button located at the bottom.
3. Enter your question and click Let's talk.
4. Choose either Start a chat or Call us.

If you need anything else, feel free to reply on this thread. Thanks.

Seems to be taking an awfully long time considering you are working closely with your engineers.

Considering invoicing is one of the most used and most basic functions of QuickBooks, I am confident we will notice once the issue is resolved.

Hello there, estherdean.

I'd agree that the invoice is one of the most used transactions in QuickBooks. With that said, our engineers are working to get this issue fixed the soonest.

I'll update this thread once updates are available. 

Thank you for your patience while we're working on this one.

For all that are affected by this incredibly frustrating issue, at my organisation we have found some light relief.

If you download the attached file, you can play "QuickBooks Support Bingo" whilst monitoring this thread.

Cut out each excuse (all of which are actual excuses given since March) on the excuses grid and distribute them amongst your Accounts department.

Whoever holds the excuse given in each reply from Support (both online chat and this forum count) wins the game and doesn't have to raise any invoices for an hour.

Hello,

Our company is struggling with this problem from long time. We creating about 5000 estimates and invoices monthly in QBO manually. It is really frustrating hearing from QBO Support that our problem is in progress, but nothing happened from a months. We were forced to hire new people just for creating documentation in QBO. I sent 30 mails for QBO support with questions if problem with Custom Invoice Templates can be solved, but nothing happened from 1 March this year. People using QBO in companies for making invoices, what now is pretty impossible. This is not acceptable....

Do you have estimated time when problem can be solved?

Thank you - Kamil, 

Thanks for taking the time to post in the Community, @KamilS.

Just to confirm, are you using the Progress Invoicing feature in QBO? If so, this has been designed to default to the Airy Template. That being said, I'm going to submit a feature request on my side to the Product Development Team.

On the other hand, if you're just converting a regular estimate to an invoice, we don't have an exact timeline for when this will be resolved. Our Product Engineers are still investigating the root cause of the issue and continuously working to fix this as soon as possible.

I suggest getting in touch with our Phone Support team and providing this investigation number 28978 so they can you to our notification list. This will help our Engineers know many users are affected by the issue. Once added, we will notify you through email once this has been resolved. I'll also inform you here when we get the update as well.

Here's how to reach them:

1. Click the Help (question mark) icon at the upper right.
2. Select Contact Us at the bottom to connect with our support.

Thanks for your understanding while we look into this. Please let me know should you have any follow-up questions. I want to make sure everything is taken care of for you.

---

@FritzF wrote:

...

"On the other hand, if you're just converting a regular estimate to invoice, we currently don't have an exact timeline for when this will be resolve. Our Product Engineers are still investigating the root cause of the issue and continuously working to fix this as soon as possible."

 

 

---

"don't have an exact timeline"

We always hear that from Intuit. Even phone and utility companies can give you a timeline these days. BUT Intuit can't. Obviously, something is wrong here if they want to be the so-called "Innovation" company.

"still investigating the root cause"

Maybe it's fair to say they've NO PRIORITY to fix this known BUG. Or the worse —Engineers has done nothing so far. This was reported over six months ago. Can anyone believe it takes that long...

When I look at what we are paying and the effort the workarounds take it makes my blood boil.

We're constantly promised updates, but nothing. In fact, there has never been an update.

Fritz (Moderator) - tell you what. Give us a bullet point list of the exact workflow so far that support have been through in getting to the bottom of this issue - what has been investigated, what has been attempted, what did/didn't work, and where we are right now.

Because no matter how many times you say "Thanks for your understanding while we look into this" and "I want to make sure everything is taken care of for you" we are all aware that it is complete nonsense. Us having understanding would have been all of us being OK about an outage for one or two days. We simply do not believe you are even working on this, let alone taking it seriously.

Fritz (Moderator) - we await your list!

Yes, well either way it's the same issue... progress invoicing or not - we currently have to use a QB defined template for out invoicing.  We can no longer use our own customized invoice template.  

Our issue isn't invoicing doesn't work.  It does work as long as you use a QB template.  

Our issue is we are NO LONGER ABLE TO USE OUR CUSTOM INVOICE.  Previously we could do this for both progress invoicing and regular conversion of estimate to invoice.  QB templates are:

a.  ugly

b.  irritating to look at with all the shaded grey fonts vs. black fonts???  

c.  do not give us the full options to rearrange data shown as needed - example, I can't put PO # as my first box, it defaults to shipping information first on Airy Classic?  PO # is always the first box on our invoicing. 

d.  does not allow me to change the location of our "message" 

e.  does not allow me to include additional information that is business specific - example we used some customized boxes for (2) purposes, so i can name the customized box for our system so we know, but then rename the custom invoice where it populates, so it only shows the correct title.  

f.  we also add additional info to our invoices as standard that we are unable to add in QB.  

g.  we also add specific 2nd page + information which we are unable to do with the template. 

In any event, you've completely eliminated a major business function for us.  It has nothing to do with progress invoicing or not, it is the same issue either way.  This has been an issue for at least 6 months now which is ridiculous.  Logically, we are all waiting because the enormous amount of time and pain points involved in switching to an entirely new system.  What would absolutely suck is if we undertook this gigantic task only to find QBO fixes it (2) weeks later.  On the other hand, had I known this issue was going to be a 6+ month with no end in site issue, we would have absolutely switched right away.  So you're "unable to confirm a time frame" bull crap is just that... and it's criminal and completely immoral.  Keeping us in the dark, so we keep "hoping of all hopes" and paying for a service that clearly isn't functionable. 

Better to just be straight out honest.  Only templates work.  We are not working to make templates more customizable and you are unable to use custom imports.  Period. 

And... P.S.  it's going to cost me $60.00 per month more simply to get the function of more customizable boxes.  This should be a feature everyone can use, not just "BIG" business.  We are an office of (1) person.  I do not need all that advanced has - unlimited chart of accounts, massive user access, multiple invoicing, training, etc.... but what I do need, is ONE thing, most especially in light of your issue above, is more customizable boxes.  $60.00 extra per month for that????

Again, criminal.    

The only thing I can suggest is to email the CEO. Though I raised this issue with him personally weeks ago and am still getting nowhere.

Worth a try though right?

I too am waiting for a solution to this issues. This is a major inconvenience and hope it is addressed soon.

No reply from Fritz

Standard QuickBooks.

Thank you for taking the time to voice your concerns here. This is certainly not the experience we want you to have. Here are some additional details and a solution to use your imported/uploaded invoice template.

This concern is caused by a limitation in Progress Invoicing. The best way to fix this is by turning off the Progress Invoicing setting. After that, your imported (custom) invoice will display when converting an estimate to an invoice.

The Progress Invoicing setting can be turned off using the following steps:

Within QuickBooks Online > Select the Gear Icon > Accounts and Settings > Sales > Progress Invoicing > Uncheck box > Save

What is Progress Invoicing?

Progress Invoicing (Progress Billing) allows you to create multiple invoices from an estimate so you can keep track of the progress of a particular job.

Why doesn’t my imported form display when I convert an Estimate to an Invoice?

The System Template (Airy new) is the only template compatible with Progress Invoicing at this time. This template can be customized to display the progression of invoices and provide key information, such as Estimate Summary and the Due column. This level of detail is not available on imported invoices.

What if I do not bill in progression or use Progress Invoicing?

You can simply turn off the Progress Invoicing and your imported invoice will display when estimates are converted to invoices.

What if I use Progress Invoicing and an imported invoice?

Imported invoices are not compatible with Progress Invoicing at this time. For the best experience, please utilize the Airy new template, as the level of detail needed will display using this template.

We are always looking for ways to improve our products and services and your feedback has been shared with our product teams. Short term, please use the solution provided above. I will circle back with this thread once we have finalized a solution to use imported/uploaded invoice templates with progress invoicing.