Customise invoices, estimates, and sales receipts in QuickBooks Online

QuickBooksHelp · ‎September 25, 2019

Learn how to personalise and add specific info to your sales forms.

QuickBooks Online gives you the tools to create attractive, professional-looking invoices, estimates, and sales receipts.

Customising the appearance and layout of sales forms is a simple yet effective way to enhance your business' communications. You don’t need to be a designer to make eye-catching forms. And you get to decide what info your customers see and only add the info that matters most to your business.

You can create and customise invoice, estimate and sales receipt templates. Here’s how to customise your sales forms.

Step 1: Create a new template

Go to Settings ⚙ and then select Custom form styles.
Select New style.
Select a sales form type you’d like to create a template for.

Step 2: Customise the appearance

Let's start with the layout and the design. As you make changes, you'll see a preview of the changes in the template.

Select the Design tab.
Give your template a name.
Select Change up the template to choose a layout. These layouts are fixed.
Note: If you plan to use Stock Keeping Units (SKUs), create progress invoices, or if you wish to include your Electronic Funds Transfer details, use the Airy New template as your default design. By default, the Airy New template includes your EFT details in the invoice footer. If you wish to remove these, you’ll need to use another template.
Select Make logo edits to adjust or hide your logo.
- To change the logo, select the (+) plus icon on the image. Select one of your saved logos or add a new one. Note: You can save multiple logos but you can only use one at a time.
- To adjust to logo size and placement, select the size and placement icons.
- To hide the logo, select Hide logo.

Select Try other colours to pick a colour scheme. You can enter a HEX code (the six-digit combination of numbers and letters for a colour) for a truly custom colour.
Choose Select a different font to change the font and size.
Select Edit print settings to adjust the margins. This is important if you send printed forms to your customers.

Add a stamp, signature, or QR Code to invoices

You can now save time and money and skip manually printing and scanning your invoices by adding a stamp, signature, or QR Code directly to your invoice template. If you update the QR code on the template, it will affect all invoices.

Note: Because a single QR Code applies to all invoices, this feature is not available for countries that require government specified unique QR codes, like Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirates.

Here’s how to add this feature to your invoice template:

Select Add a stamp, signature, or QR Code (only applicable on invoices).
Select the Add+ box
Upload the image and select Save. You can save multiple images, but you can only use one in the footer of your invoice.

This feature is only available in the Airy New Template. To check or change your template, just select change up the template.

You can see how your final invoice will look by selecting preview pdf.

To adjust to the size and placement, select the size and placement icons. The height and width of the image can not be changed.
To hide the stamp, signature or QR code select Hide.

Step 3: Customise the info on your forms

There are several options for customising the details of your form. We won't cover them all, but here’s how to get started and a few tips for each section of the form:

Select the Content tab.
Select the header, table, or footer on the sample form to start editing that section. You’ll edit each section separately.
Select the ticks next to the fields you want to display on your form. Then select a different section (header, table, or footer) on the sample form to customise it.
Whenever you're ready to save your changes, select Done.

Note: How you customise your default template, will determine how your other sales forms look.

Learn more about some customisation options for the header, table, and footer:

Header Section

Select the header section to customise what displays. Here's some things to keep in mind as you customise the header:

When you select a checkbox, a preview displays on the sample form.
Your company info automatically appears in sales form headers. Use the check boxes to add or remove what your customers see. You can also update the text fields to edit what displays.
Check the Form numbers checkbox to have QuickBooks add invoice or estimate numbers to your form.
You can add custom fields to your form. Tip: If you have made any previous edits to your template, make sure save your invoice before creating custom fields.

Here's how to create a custom field:

In the header section, select Manage custom fields.
In Custom fields, select Add field.
Enter the name of the field, and select All Sales forms.
Turn on Print on form so it appears in your form's header.
Select Save.
Note: You can add up to three custom fields for sales forms.

Table Section

Select the table section to customise it. Here’s some things to keep in mind as you customise the table:

When you select a checkbox, a preview displays on the sample form.
You can choose how you want to display your description, quantities, and rates:
- To display separate columns for item descriptions, quantities, and rates select the Description, Quantity, and Rate checkboxes.
- Or keep things in a single column by selecting the Product/Service checkbox and then the Include description here checkbox.
- Or select the Description checkbox and then Include Quantity and Rate.
To reorder the columns, drag each item's grid icon to a new place on the list.
To change the column name or size. Then select Edit labels and widths.
- Change the column names by editing the text fields.
- Adjust the width by moving the sliders.

Footer Section

Select the footer section to customise what displays on your footer. Here are things to keep in mind as you customise the footer:

When you select a checkbox, a preview displays on the sample form.
Select the Discount checkbox if you offer a discount and want it to display on the form.
You can customise a message to your customer and add text to the footer of the form. Just fill out the message and footer fields. Then choose the font size and/or placement with the dropdown ▼ fields.

Step 4: Personalise your email message

Make things personal by changing the message customers see when they get their estimate, invoice, or sales receipt. If you want to use QuickBooks default messaging, you can skip this.

Select the Emails tab.
Choose if you want to display details or a summary by selecting Full details or Summarised details.
If you’d like to attach a PDF with a full pricing breakdown, select the PDF Attached checkbox.
Change the subject line, greeting, and message body by entering your customised text.
Note: QuickBooks doesn't show shortened URLs when you send emails to customers. You can customise your invoice reminder emails by selecting the reminder email dropdown.
Select Done.

Step 5: Select and use a template for invoices, sales receipts, or estimate

QuickBooks uses your default template each time you make a new invoice, sales receipt, or estimate . You can select a different template for specific transactions directly from the form:

Create or open an existing invoice, sales receipt, or estimate.
Select Customise at the bottom of the transaction.
Select a custom template from the list.
Select Save and close.

Step 6: Set a default custom template

QuickBooks uses the first custom template you create as your default for invoices, sales receipts, and estimate. To set another custom templates as the default:

Go to Settings ⚙ and then select Custom Form styles.
Find your template.
Select the ▼ in the Action column.
Select Make default. You'll see (default) displayed by the default template name.

Step 7: Edit custom and manage templates

To manage your custom templates:

Select Settings ⚙ and then Custom Form styles.
Find your custom or standard template.
Select Edit in the Action column.
Make any edits. Then select Done.