How Turn an Estimate Into an Invoice?
Many business owners will find themselves in need of converting an estimate into an actual invoice for their Quickbooks account. After sending a price estimate to a customer for a product or service, they will either accept or deny the quote. If they deny the estimate, there’s no additional steps necessary on your part. If they accept the estimate, however, you’ll need to convert it into an invoice; otherwise, it won’t factor into your Quickbooks account properly. Keep reading to learn the basic steps of converting an estimate into an invoice.
Step #1) Locate The Estimate
The first step in converting an estimate into an invoice is to locate the estimate in your Quickbooks account. With your Quickbooks account open, click the ‘Customer Center’ tab on the main menu. It’s important to note that you must have the estimates feature turned on in order to locate past and current estimates. You can refer to this guide located at Intuit.com for more information how to toggle on and off the estimate feature.
After selecting the ‘Customer Center’ from the main menu, click the ‘Customers and Jobs’ tab. You should now see a list of all the respective customers and clients associated with your Quickbooks account. Scroll through them until you find the client connected to the estimate. Click on the client and locate the estimate.
Step #2) Creating The Invoice
The second step is to create the invoice. Assuming you followed the steps previously mentioned, you should see a button titled ‘Create Invoice’ above the client details box. Click this button and adjust the invoice as needed. This option allows you to manually enter in the desired amount for the customer’s invoice. As long as the customer accepted your previous estimate, you should be able to use this same number. If they countered with another number, though, you’ll have to use it instead.
Please note that Quickbooks users with ‘Progress Invoicing’ turned on will have to enter additional information during this step. Progress Invoicing is a slightly more complicated and time-consuming option which allows for greater transparency, so there are a couple extra dialogs and options to choose from when creating a customer’s invoice.
Step #3) Save & Exit
As with any major change or update in your Quickbooks account, double check the changes to your invoice before clicking save. You can always go back and modify invoices later, but taking a minute to double check them before saving will ensure your account is properly balanced and accurate.