QuickBooks Tip – Dealing With Special Invoicing Requirements

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.