Pick one (or more)
Invoices were once about
the only way to record sales, but the choice
has expanded. An invoice is used here
as the baseline form to describe the
recording of sales, and filling in many forms
in QuickBooks. About a dozen different
means can be used, and one or more is quite
likely to be useful for any business.
Intuit sells pre-printed forms for Product,
Service, and Professional invoices.
Product Invoice This is the baseline XE "product invoice" invoice. The next two types simply display less and print less. All cats are gray in the dark, and the internal record of every invoice is (at least) a product invoice
Service Invoice Service businesses will (hopefully) find the XE
"service invoice" Service Invoice
fits their needs.
Professional Invoice XE "professional invoice" Professionals, such as attorneys, will find a wide description field, with the omission of quantity and unit price.
Customized Invoice QuickBooks 5 provides XE "customized invoice" fully-customizable forms, with a chapter of their own. Baseline content of invoices is tabulated below. QuickBooks 4 allows custom columns, and selection of fields printed. Earlier versions have less custom capability. Customized invoices will not print onto Intuit’s pre-printed forms, but another small business near you might be eager to supply forms.
Estimates
Estimates (QuickBooks Pro) may sell your
customers on doing the job, but do not record
sales of anything. However, they are
the basis of progress invoicing.
Progress
Invoicing
You can bill for one part of the work quoted
in an estimate, and then another, beginning
with QuickBooks 5 Pro. This is
described in the Chapter 20.
Cash Sale Form If you know it is a cash sale XE "cash sale" , a payment in full is built in. This is a logical choice for this case. However, in QuickBooks 4 and earlier, the customer QuickReport looks only in Accounts Receivable, and will not find cash sales, unless the report is customized
Cash Sale
Invoice
Businesses using the original QuickBooks for
DOS devised a cash sale invoice, and set it
up as a memorized transaction. It is
not as convenient to use as the Cash Sale
Form, but customer records are in
Receivables, an advantage in earlier versions.
Daily Sales Invoice Restaurants (also going back to the DOS days) XE
"daily sales invoice" have used
this memorized invoice, as a sale to a
customer named “Daily Sales.” They
often have to break out sales tax and liquor
sales, and memorize the format they need.
Statement
billing
Progressive billing through the month, on one
form, is possible with statement billing,
beginning with versions 4.0. Invoices
are not used. Significant limitations,
particularly the exclusion of sales tax,
preclude statement billing for some
businesses.
Customer
register
Direct statement billing is done by entry in
the customer register (a subset of the
Receivables register.)
Make
Deposits
The Make Deposits window (bank account
chapter) works for recording cash
income. The income account is required,
and entered directly. Customer name is
optional. No record is produced for the
customer.
Check
Register
A Bank Account Register can be used to record
a cash sale, on the same terms as Make
Deposits. A more likely use is for the
recording of bank interest.
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