QuickBooks Training Materials – Part 8

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A few months ago, I started a series on "Training Materials" for QuickBooks Desktop, in many cases using QuickBooks Enterprise as the showcase. I wrote a half dozen or so articles and then took a long pause to write quite a bit in preparation for "Scaling New Heights 2017."

A day or two before the conference I fell, breaking my right hand in the process. Not only did that cripple my performances and teaching at the conference, but it really slowed down my ability to crank out material/content for Insightful Accountant. 

Thankfully, I had some articles already accumulated and, we had some great contributors who could post some content during my slow period.

Well, I am out of my cast, and I'm starting to exercise my hand and fingers the best way I know, by typing content for you, my readers. With that said, I want to get back to my QuickBooks Training Materials Content by returning to the section I call, "Money-in," and looking at Estimates and Sales Orders.

Creating an Estimate

An estimate is a form you use to itemize the work you propose to do or the products you intend to sell to a customer. Your company might use a different term, such as bid, grant or proposal. Estimates are optional, not mandatory, for all businesses.

You can use the estimate form to prepare estimates, bids, quotes or proposals for your customers. You can change the title Estimate to anything that suits your business.

Filling in the estimate is similar to creating other sales forms in QuickBooks. And when it's time to bill your customer, you can create the invoice directly from the estimate by clicking Create Invoice on the estimate's toolbar. QuickBooks Enterprise then creates the invoice, with all the information from the estimate filled in.

Later, you can create reports that compare your estimated costs and revenue against your actual costs and revenue to see how accurate your estimates are.

To create an estimate:

1. From the Home Page, click Create Estimates (as an alternative, go to the Customers menu and click Create Estimates)

2. In the Customer:Job box, enter the name of the customer or job

3. Select an estimate template from the Template drop-down list

4. Fill in the estimate form.

  • In the Item field, choose the item you would like to add to the estimate
  • Enter the quantity in the Quantity column
  • If you're using Units of Measure, QuickBooks will default to the "sale" U/M for the Item, but you can change it by selecting a different U/M from the drop down
  • Enter the rate or per unit price for this item. If you set this item up with a default rate, it'll automatically show on the line, but you can overwrite it
  • Review the amount or extension of the Quantity multiplied by the per unit price
  • Let QuickBooks populate the Tax code for this item automatically, but you can change it by selecting a different tax code from the drop down

5. Click Print on the toolbar to print the Estimate now. Optionally, you can select the "Print Later" checkbox to print the form later or the email later checkbox to email the form later.

Note: Estimates and other sales forms can be printed, emailed or saved as PDFs by clicking on the drop-down under Print or Email in the Main tab at the top of the form.

6. Save & Close your Estimate or click the Save & New button to save this estimate and open a new blank estimate.

Note: You can create an invoice from an Estimate by clicking the Create Invoice button in the Main tab of the Transaction ribbon. You also can turn an Estimate into a Sales Order or a Purchase Order in the same area. We will learn more about these features later in this training material series.

To create a duplicate of an existing estimate:

Estimating is a common occurrence in many companies. Many times, companies provide almost the same estimate given to one customer to another customer within days, and perhaps hours. 

QuickBooks gives you a couple of ways to reduce the need to enter duplicative information.  One of those ways involves duplicating (or copying) a prior estimate. Once you have created a duplicate of any estimate, you can then make modification easily.

1. In the Main tab at the top of the existing estimate, select Create a Copy. (Two other ways to do this include right-clicking in the body of the estimate and choosing Duplicate Estimate from the list that displays, or using the Edit drop-down and select Duplicate Estimate).

2. Click OK when QuickBooks notifies you the duplicate estimate has been created.

3. Modify the duplicate estimate. You can change the Customer:Job name or any other information appropriate to your needs.

To mark an estimate inactive:

Many estimates for jobs are never accepted, you don’t want these estimates cluttering up your active estimate list, so you'll want to make any unaccepted estimate inactive.

  1. From the Customer Center, open the estimate you wish to inactivate
  2. Click the Mark as Inactive icon at the top of the estimate
  3. Click Save & Close

Using QuickBooks Sales Orders

Both QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise offer a Sales Orders feature that may help to schedule work, plan labor, materials and manufacturing requirements, as well as estimate revenue flow based on the work scheduled.  

To use Sales Orders, select Customers >Create Sales Order, you also have the option of creating Sales Orders from Estimates.

Some other uses of Sales Orders are:

  • Creating a single invoice for multiple orders – Some customers may place an order regularly enough that creating an invoice for every order is neither practical nor desirable. By using Sales Orders, it's possible to keep track of multiple orders and combine them onto a single invoice at an appropriate time, such as at the end of each month.
  • Partial invoicing – When you can fulfill only part of a customer's order, you can create an invoice based on the Sales Order and select only those items you can fulfill. The Sales Order keeps track of what has and hasn't been invoiced.

When you create an invoice for a customer with outstanding Sales Orders, QuickBooks prompts you to select the Sales Order you want to reference. You must select items from this list to keep the Sales Orders and Invoices linked. When you’ve invoiced for all the items on a Sales Order, QuickBooks stamps it as Invoiced in Full.

Use the Open Sales Orders by Customer report to track open Sales Orders. Modify the report to include the Ship Date field, which indicates the date promised for delivery.

You may want to memorize the modified report for clients. This report shows the Open Balance – the value of the Sales Order that remains unfilled.

Another use for Sales Orders is as a scheduling tool that can be used in place of pending sales as a way of entering future services.

To use Sales Orders to record information about services to be performed in the future, modify the Sales Order template by adding the Ship Date field to the form. You can change the field name to Date Scheduled on the template.

When an order comes in for services to be performed in the future, record the order on the customized form. Enter the date the service is to be performed in the Date Scheduled field.

To create a work schedule based on the information entered in the Date Scheduled field, modify the Open Sales by Item Report by removing the Due Date column and adding the Ship Date column. Then, sort the report by the Ship Date column. QuickBooks lists each scheduled service date in chronological order by service type.

QuickBooks Enterprise provides the extra benefit of allowing you to “auto copy” the Ship To Address onto a Purchase Order. When a Purchase Order is created directly from a Sales Order or an Estimate, a checkbox next to Drop ship to customer is available to select:

This populates the "Ship To" field on the Purchase Order with the customer’s shipping address:

Once selected, QuickBooks will remember your selection and default the same choice the next time a Purchase Order is created from these transactions.

Backorders

QuickBooks helps you track backordered items by adding a Backordered column to Sales Orders. You can add this column to invoices by customizing the Invoice template.

Note: Backordering always starts with a Sales Order and is only available in QuickBooks Desktop Premier, QuickBooks Accountant Desktop and QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise.

Use the Sales Order Fulfillment Worksheet tool to view information about open Sales Orders. Select Customers > Sales Order Fulfillment Worksheet.

This tool (shown above) enables you to quickly determine which Sales Orders can be fully or partially filled (and shipped) based on quantities available. You can choose to show only those orders that can be completely filled, or all orders that can be fully or partially filled.

Next time, we'll examine other aspects of QuickBooks "Money-In" training.