Turn an invoice into an estimate?

"everyone wants to turn an estimate into invoice."

Because Estimates = quote or proposal, or Scope of work for price, as a step Prior to the actual charges.

You don't go from Invoice (actual Charges) to Estimate. You can create an estimate and use it for good comparison reporting, but is is a bit late to try to Progress Invoice; you already invoiced the customer.

"open your invoice and change the template to the Estimate."

You cannot do this; the templates are matched to their Transaction Type.

"Print or e-mail it.  mark it Pending."

Pending invoices are replaced by Estimates about 20 years ago. And if this person issued their invoice, that customer has been charged and that is a sale. Making it Pending after the fact changes all the financial reporting.

I think we simply need to understand the Impact, not the tasks available.

Turning an existing Invoice into Anything is impossible; there is no Next Stage.

You can Mark It Pending, which changes your financial reporting. You impacted sales and sales taxes, if you have them. We don't :)

It isn't turned into an estimate, because it is the Sale. Estimates come before the sale, or are created to offer comparison reporting.

There is no Going Backwards, from the sale, unless you want to Void or delete or undo the sale from the Financial reporting perspective, which only the user can determine is the proper thing to do.

You can create an estimate and ReDo the invoice, to get the same sales info, and avoid affecting financial reporting, as well. This is more of a Recreation using a different method.

It helps when people give us better details.

Then you delete the invoice and redo all the work with the method you wish you had used, first. But since the invoice exists already, you need to recreate it so that it doesn't change the financial reporting; you recreate it to be the same as what it was. And, since there was no estimate before, there is no need to create an estimate to invoice from, now. All of this is just busy work, really. The existing invoice wasn't created from an Estimate and doesn't have to be created from the estimate, to give good reporting. If you were not going to create from the estimate, anyway, then it doesn't matter which sequence they get created in, now.

In other words, without knowing more details for what needs to change, just making an estimate now is no different than having it there previously.

We really are answering everything about how all of this works, and not any specific reason to do anything specific at all.

@homeboy4   This is exactly what I'm looking to do as well.  I'm all about saving time and for a new customer who needs an estimate with a similar job request as a different customer that we went direct to an invoice (and therefore didn't have an estimate), I would prefer to "make a copy", but as an estimate (vs. invoice) for the new customer.  Or in another instance, for the same customer in a prior year we went direct to invoice, but this year new management wants to see an estimate first...I hate the idea of re-typing the entire thing when a simple "create estimate from prior invoice" would be a great option!  

QB - please add!

Thanks for joining this thread, @DAH.

The ability to create an estimate from the prior invoice is unavailable at this time. I can see how having this feature available in QuickBooks would save your business' time.

Our goal is to make QuickBooks Desktop the go-to software for small business owners, so we're always looking for ways to improve it. Any changes about this, I’ll be sure to post the details here in the Community.

To keep up with updates and new product features, you can visit the Firm of the Future site.

This should point you in the right direction.

Reach out to me if you have any questions about QuickBooks. Please know I’m always here to answer them. Have a good one.

but your talking about your industry.  In my industry, we sign a large contract and slowly do the work over a period of months or years and the payments have to be applied to this "invoice"  We actually do not send out that invoice but use it to keep track in QB of the payments and the balance owed.  Recently QB started "progressive" invoicing which I switched to but now I have a lot of open invoices that should be "estimates" but are really signed contracts.  so my boss wants me to use this feature.  I want to put the balances on all the contracts into the estimate area and pay the balances off as we are paid.  However,  I have two concerns...(1)  am concerned if this is going to impact our accrual method of reporting.  Are these balances in the estimates going to show up on our P&L?  and (2) is the only way to make these invoices into estimates by deleting the invoices and redoing the entire database?  (of course, #2 is irrelevant if we are not going to be counting the balances of the signed contracts as accruals in the reports).

It's important to use the estimate feature if you're doing job or project costing, Carolexx.

An estimate is used to create a bid, proposal, or quote. This doesn't affect any methods of reporting in QuickBooks nor show it in your Profit and Loss report since this isn't a posting transaction. You'll want to use progress invoicing so it is easier for you to track balances of your industry.

Please check this article to turn on the feature and show the steps on the process: Set Up And Progress Invoices In QuickBooks Desktop.

For your reference, you can categorize each transaction after invoices and payments are entered: Add And Match Bank Feed Transactions In QuickBooks Desktop.

Fill me in if you need further assistance. I'll be right here to help you anytime.

Yes, Quickbooks Online can be handy out on the field. But I regularly have two-three page invoices that probably should of started as an invoice. But we have "add-ons" that happen at the moment and often. Plus our part numbers we deal with are ten to fifteen digits. My minor dyslexia can cause havoc of course. 

We are wrapping up a job and someone wants an estimate for almost exactly the same thing. I groan under my breath because I know I can't give it it to him spur of the moment and in real life I have to make the estimate at home because its not a one minute effort as I have to print out the invoice or for me copy and paste part numbers into a new estimate. So between being exhausted at the end of the day, not wanting to pound on keys that night or have other things to do, like live a life, that potential customer may not see an estimate for 24 to 48 hours or more. And, I have entirely dropped the ball and forgot all about it until I find my note I made to myself days later. And don't say I'm a poor businessman, I'm mid 60s, worked hard all my life and have a thriving business. So yes, occasionally being to copy an invoice to an estimate for a new customer would be a serious time saver and a better customer relations tool.

I understand that you want to do your invoices and estimates as easily as you need, yamahatci.

Copying the information from the invoice can cause so much time. However, it's part of the limitations that QuickBooks is unable to turn an invoice into an estimate.

You need to follow the progress invoicing workflow in QuickBooks Online. I suggest sending feedback about the feature that you want.

Here's how:

1. Select the Gear icon at the top, then Feedback.
2. Enter your comments or product suggestions.
3. Click Next to submit feedback.
    

Your valuable feedback goes to our Product Development team to help improve your experience in QuickBooks. You can track feature requests through the QuickBooks Online Feature Requests website.

There's so much thing you can do while working on your invoices and estimates. I'm adding this article as your guide: Learn how to send invoices over time as you work off an estimate in QuickBooks.

Don't hesitate to post again if you have other QuickBooks concerns. I'm always around here in the Community forum to answer questions.