Rustler’s Quickbooks Tips

You cannot customize and save a default invoice, but you can use one as the template. Just above the drop down box for what kind of template you have displayed (when an invoice is open on the screen) is a button titled “Customize”, click it and the template list comes up, select the default template and then click New, that uses the template but allows you to save it under a new name.

Since QB sorts all lists alphabetically, I preface all my invoices with the business initials, that keeps them together in the list. Explore the tabs that are provided, one nice function is the ability to have information on the screen that is not printed, so make sure when all is said and done that you bring up an invoice and use print preview to insure that what you designed is what you are going to print. You cannot do this from the designer, you must exit the designer and bring up an invoice normally.

I’m kind of a control freak so I don’t add fields from this screen, I would rather add what I can see and put it where I think it belongs - your choice.

Click “Layout Designer” and the invoice comes up with a drag and drop screen. You can add and delete what ever you want. If you are going to put a logo on the invoice you should make sure it is at least 300 dpi or better.

When you click in a field, it gets a funny border and that is when you can drag and drop, resize, etc. If you right click you can select properties. Some fields on my invoice I do not want borders, if you click the tab “Border” you can select which border you want, or none. Selecting the bottom border only allows you to put what looks like a fill-in the blank line, I use this for a field where I want the customer to enter the amount paid.

Since I print on plain paper, I don’t use a lot of borders, wastes ink and it takes longer to print. And for the most part the borders I do use are the thinest possible.

If you click the button “Font” then you change the size, color, bold, italic, etc etc. Interestingly enough if you select bold for a calculated field (like amount due) when QB automatically fills in that field with the total billed, the result will be bold.

The default green areas are for windowed envelopes, put your return and send to address fields in them and you can use windowed envelopes. I use normal printing for the return, and bold printing for the send to fields.

On the screen that has the button “Layout Designer” there are several tabs. Those tabs control what you see on the screen and what you see when you print it. Go through each one and set it to what you want. As an example, there is no reason to print sales tax or totals on the packing slip, so in the tab that says “Footer” make sure those items have no check marks under the print column at least.

In my business I need the following templates, you might need more or less, but what I did was get the first one right, then use it as the selected template to use when I clicked on “New” and rename it. My invoice names are”

EEC-invoice
EEC-invoice-overdue
EEC-invoice-revised
EEC-invoice-payments

I also have an EEC-packing slip which was created from the default packing slip.

The two invoices called revised and overdue have those words in large red capital letters right between the Amount due and the Amount paid fields on the top tear off portion of my invoice. Sometimes our contracts for service are revised and that is the reason I need that kind of invoice, changing the template allows me to make the changes in the detail part of the invoice without changing the invoice number or voiding and creating a new invoice.

The payments invoice I only use for those times that I have received a partial payment and need to rebill. My thinking is that human nature being what it is, if the customer sees a field that says “payments/credits” they will think to themselves that I accept (as a normal course of business) payments on invoices - without prior approval. I would rather they see the amount due and think the whole thing has to be paid and pay it, than take it upon themselves to only pay a portion of the amount due.

Since I am really lazy, I found an easy way to fold an invoice the right way every time. Bank of America, and I would imagine others, have fliers in the bank lobby. I found one that was a tri-fold and made out of heavy card stock. Slip the invoice into the flier face down and close the flier over it, then use the edge of the flier to create the first crease. Fold the rest of the invoice inside the folded part and crease again. Perfect fold each and every time.

If you need to put disclaimers or copyright notices on your invoice do that with a text box, I have found that Times New Roman and a font size of 9 is about the smallest most legible printing you can get.