Dealing with special customer invoicing requirements can be a royal pain! Sometimes it feel like each customer you deal with says “if you don’t invoice me like THIS you aren’t going to get paid”. While QuickBooks is a very flexible software program, sometimes it’s very difficult to meet the requirements of specific customers or clients. Below is a perfect example, submitted by a reader of just how difficult billing requirements can be.
I use QuickBooks Contractor version as a self-employed contractor with a hospital. The problem is I get the job on a P.O. from the hospital, say it’s for $80,000. As I do different stages of the job I bill the hospital for that stage and they send me a check. When I do the next stage the hospital wants the invoice to reflect the original P.O. and the money they have already paid. How do I do that on this software? Jean
____________________________________________________
Jean, I’m pretty certain that you can meet these requirements – it will cause some extra work on your part each time you are ready to bill the hospital for the next stage; but I don’t think it will be a lot of work.
Go ahead and create your invoice as usual – I’m making a BIG assumption here that you take the PO from the hospital and set that up as a QuickBooks Estimate and generate Progress Invoices from your Estimate {but even if you don’t that’s ok}.
Once you are viewing that Invoice in QuickBooks, click the Letters icon at the top and choose Prepare an Invoice Letter
Right click on the image to enlarge it
When the Choose a Letter Template window appears, select Invoice Letter with Details and then click the Next button
Right click on the image to enlarge it
This now sends your Invoice into Microsoft Word and by default provides information about the invoice that you can then modify to meet the invoicing requirements of the hospital.
Right click on the image to enlarge it
For example, I would change the heading called Invoice Amount $720.00 to read Original PO Amount $80,000.00, Invoice Balance $720.00 to read Previous Payments Received $XXX.XX, and add a line that reads Current Payment Due $720.00.
Right click on the image to enlarge it
NOTE: You can edit this letter template and include the changes to the wording – that way all you have to do is enter the amounts for Original PO and Previous Payments. To Edit a letter template go to the Company menu -> choose Prepare Letters with Envelopes -> Customize Letter Templates -> View or Edit Existing Letter Templates -> choose Invoice Templates -> Invoice Letter with Detail.
QuickBooks has a lot of built-in functionality – the problem is finding it! We hope you found this QuickBooks tip for dealing with special invoicing requirements to be helpful. If so please take a moment to leave a comment or share it on your favorite social network.
Top 10 Tuesday includes our favorite tips and news stories from around the web. This week there are some important articles for you to read and information to be aware of, split out into the following categories:
QuickBooks News & Tips:
- The Wall Street Journal | How I Built It – For Intuit Co-Founder, the Numbers Add Up (an interview with Scott Cook)
- QuickBooks & Beyond – An Overview of the Apps in the Intuit App Center (Part 1)
- QuickBooks & Beyond – An Overview of the Apps in the Intuit App Center (Part 2)
Tax News:
- accountingTODAY for the WebCPA – IRS Lowers Interest Rates in Fourth Quarter
Construction News:
- Construction Law in North Carolina – The NC Court of Appeals Upholds Contractor Lien Rights
- Construction Advisor Today – Nearly Half of All States Have Adopted a Residential Energy Code at Least as Stringent as 2009 IEC
- Orlando Sentinel – SunRail project finally starts to leave the station
Business, Social Networking, Customers & Websites:
- TechRepublic – Three Tips for working with bullets in PowerPoint
- Rebecca Tervo – Financial Roadmap Part 7; Budget and stay on the map!
- BRASS TACK thinking – Consider This: 24/7 Access, Work, and Social Media
Well there you have it, these were the top 10 most interesting articles that we found on the web last week – I’m sure there are a bunch more that I missed, do you have an article that you’d like to share?
This week’s Freebie Friday – 100 Essential Tips for Microsoft Office 2010 comes from PC Magazine.
Most of us use Office, and most of us could make better use of it, too. Check out these tips, sorted by application to learn basic tricks and advanced tips for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access.
The editors have shaken down the programs and pinpointed 100 tips and tricks to help put you back in command. These tips cover not only the basics, like deleting that infuriating line that appears when you type one too many hyphens in Word (one that I find especially annoying), to more advanced tricks, such as connecting your email to social websites and services.
They’ve also included some tips about features that you might not know to search for at all but which offer a lot of value and are worth knowing. The tips are separated by program, and some are further parceled out into sections for beginners, intermediate-level users, and advanced users. Each tip is accompanied by a screenshot to further guide you, no matter your comfort level. All of the tips will work in Microsoft Office 2010, and many are also compatible with earlier editions of Office, too.
| 5 Essential Microsoft Office 2010 Tips for Everyone The five how-tos in this piece will show you some of the most fundamental things you’ll want to do in Microsoft Office, no matter which program you use most. |
 |
| 15 Essential Microsoft Word 2010 Tips for Beginners If you consider yourself a novice with Microsoft Word, start your Office education by picking up a few of these 15 tricks. You’ll soon find that they’ll become second-nature actions that you’ll be performing with a couple of clicks or keystrokes. |
 |
| 10 Essential Microsoft Excel 2010 Tips for Beginners Fumbling with spreadsheets can makeanyone feel like a complete dolt. These ten essential functions and tricks will make you feel much more adept at creating and managing charts, lists, and data. |
 |
| 14 Essential Microsoft Outlook 2010 Tips for Beginners Whether you’re brand-new on the job or a 20-year veteran, chances are your company uses Microsoft Outlook and you only know as much as you’ve ever needed to get by day-to-day. Pick up 14 new ideas, and learn how to implement them, from this list. |
 |
| 14 Essential Microsoft Excel 2010 Tips for Intermediate Users Comfortable with Microsoft Excel? Good! Let’s move up a half-step to the next level of difficulty. Click through the title to find 14 new things you can do with spreadsheets. |
|
| 10 Essential Microsoft Word 2010 Tips for Advanced Users Let’s say you’ve mastered the basics of Microsoft Word. These nine tips will expand your horizons to do some advanced tricks with macros, use OpenType typography, export a Word document to your blog, and more. |
|
| 5 Essential Microsoft Excel 2010 Tips for Advanced Users Fine tune your Excel skills with a few more masterful tricks. These five tips cover working with transposed tables, how to create Sparkline Microchartsin Excel, and more. |
|
| 8 Essential Microsoft Outlook 2010 Tips for Intermediate & Advanced Users After you’ve gone through our basic Outlook tips, turn to this next batch to make your email life even smoother and more efficient. Outlook can perform a few amazing stunts—don’t miss out on any of them. |
|
| 9 Essential Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 Tips The last time you saw someone give a dynamite presentation, filled with video clips and text that was actually large enough to read at a distance, you probably made a mental note to teach yourself some new PowerPoint skills. And, lo, that day is finally here. Learn how to check the accessibility of your presentations, integrate videos, use the animation painter, and more. |
 |
| 10 Essential Microsoft Access 2010 Tips for Beginners This ten-point primer for Microsoft Access users starts out with the basics and moves into slightly more difficult territory. Whether you’re totally new to Access or have been struggling for a while to learn it, these ten simple tips will help you on your journey to becoming more proficient with databases. |
 |
Have a great weekend everyone!
Top 10 Tuesday Tips from around the web includes our favorite QuickBooks and business productivity tips from other bloggers around the web. We hope you’ll find these articles as interesting as we did.
- Veritas Consulting Safety Services – Free Health Safety Checklists, Templates and Forms for your Business
- BNET – 7 Things Employees Are Thinking – But Won’t Say
- Construction Law Developments blog – Are You REALLY An Additional Insured on All Subs’ Coverage?
- QuickBooks in the Cloud – Running QuickBooks in the Cloud: Information from those who know
- Mashable – HOW TO: Create Custom Twitter Backgrounds
- Accounting Today for the WebCPA – Selling Your Services? Think Like a Buyer
- Inc. Magazine – 3 DIY Facebook Design Services
- PC Magazine – 100 Essential Tips for Microsoft Office 2010
- TFCN – Don’t Let Them Fool You – 5 Myths and Facts of a GSA Proposal
- Business Insider – How to Better Utilize Social Media to Grow Your Business
That’s it for this week’s Top 10 Tuesday, stop back next week to see what we’ve come up with.
