QuickBooks Estimating & Progress Invoicing

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This is QuickBooks lesson: estimates and progress invoicing.0002

Today, we are going to go ahead and show you one of the most vital things that you can use in QuickBooks.0007

And that is getting new customers and invoicing them for your products and services.0013

So, the first thing we are going to do is we are going to show you how to turn on the estimates and progress invoicing in QuickBooks.0019

And we want to make sure that, that is turned on for you.0024

So, when you go into your QuickBooks, you want to go to your Preference field, and how do we get to Preferences?0027

We go Edit. From the Menu screen, we will say Edit and Preferences.0033

And down here, in about the middle of the screen to the left, we will see Jobs and Estimates.0042

There is no My Preferences, but under Company Preferences, you want to make sure that, that is turned on.0050

You want to make sure you say Yes to Do you create estimates. You want to make sure you say Yes Do you progress invoice.0054

And we are going to say Yes to both of those.0063

We can make sure that it says a warning about duplicate estimate numbers and Do not print items that have zero amounts, etc.0067

So, we can set all these up for us but make sure that we say yes to these two questions, and then, we hit OK.0073

So, that is how we turn on the Estimates and Progress Invoicing feature of QuickBooks.0081

Now, the first thing that we are going to do is we are going to show you how to create a new job,0086

so that when we get a new job or an estimate that we have a possible or potential customer.0091

This business is a construction company, and let’s say we are giving an estimate on a remodel of a kitchen, let's say.0095

So, we are going to do an estimate, and we want to give this new customer or a new job rather to an existing customer an estimate for that new kitchen.0105

So, how do we do that? We want to go to our Customer Center.0112

The first thing we will do is we will click on either from the Icon bar, the Customer Center or from Customers on the Menu bar, we can say Customer Center.0116

It will pull it up for us. When we have the Customer Center opened, we are going to go down to an existing customer, let's say Paula Easley.0125

So, we find this new person, and we are going to be doing a remodel of a kitchen, so what do we want to do?0138

Well, we are going to create a new job for that, so in order to create a new job, under the Customer Center, we can say there is New Transaction.0143

So, once we highlight that customer that we want to add a job to, we can say New Transactions.0153

Actually, my bad. Under New Customer and Job is where we want to add the new job there.0160

So, under New Customer and Job, we are going to click on, Add job. It will bring up the Add job window for us, and we can put in a new name for that.0166

And We will say Remodel or Kitchen Remodel. How is that?0177

Remodel. How is that? So, we add in the name Kitchen Remodel.0183

It is for Paula Easley. Here is the address.0187

We put in that information, but notice the tabs, the far right tab is Job Information. This is where we are going to put additional information for this job.0193

Now, we have not gotten the job yet, but we are trying to get it, so we are going to say it is a pending job.0203

We are just giving an estimate. They have not awarded it yet to us.0211

But, under Job Status, you could see where we can actually put in a variety of statuses- Awarded, In progress, Closed or Not Awarded.0215

So, right now, it is Pending. We are going to give them that estimate, and it will be pending.0226

Will say we will put in a start date. We will put in that word, a guestimate.0231

We will start on the 10th of January, and we will project it after. It will be about a three week project.0236

So, we should be done by the 31st of January, let's say. That is a big job and that is the projected.0245

And then, we can put in the real job and date there, OK.0252

We can put down what type of this is. It is a remodel job type.0255

Job description is - oops - I just got out of that accidentally. We deleted it, so we will have to do it again, go up to our customer who is Easley.0259

I just got rid of them there. There it is.0277

I got to edit it in, and we will go edit that job, so we are there.0280

And I will go right back to the job information because I was going to put in a job description and that it is a kitchen remodel, cabinets, etc. OK?0284

So, we have that.0299

Once, we put in that information, we can click OK, and now, we see that it has added the kitchen remodel is a job under Paula Easley.0300

So, we have that. It is good.0309

It is done. Now, we are prepared to write the estimate. We want to give them the estimate, what it is.0310

That is when we click on the job, make sure that is highlighted, and we say New Transaction Estimates.0316

Get in there. It is going to pull up something that looks very much like an invoice, but this is for an estimate.0323

Under the Customer Job, it pulls out the name. We are going to click on tab.0329

This is an activate estimate. This is a remodel, new construction.0335

Alright, when you say it is a remodel, for classification there, we are going to start putting down what it is.0341

Well, the first thing that we are going to do is list Cabinets, so, we want Kitchen Cabinets.0348

We are going to use these of - I do not know - five of those.0353

Under Cabinets, we are going to do some Cabinet Pulls. We are going to need a bunch of those.0359

We will say 25 of those Cabinet Pulls.0363

When we put in all the materials that we suspect we are going to need for this job, I am not an expert on that,0367

but we are going to use a couple of wall units.0374

We will use two of those for this job, and we are going to put in some labor, OK?0377

So, we are going to put in some labor. I will type in Labor.0383

And we are guess-timating it is going to take three weeks a time, or maybe it is going to take 80 hours of work.0387

So, we are going to put in 80 hours and, we are going to bill our customer at $45 an hour for a skilled labor.0393

We might be paying our employees or our sub-contractors maybe $25 an hour or whatever, but we are going to charge them a reasonable fee.0402

Actually, the cost is going to be let's say $25, and we will increase it by, say, 15% or whatever.0410

Oops, not decrease, we want to increase that, so we will increase the mark-up.0421

That is additional mark-up. We will just put it down at $45 at this point.0430

I will just bill it out as an estimate of $45 a cost.0436

We could always choose a market if we are going to give a commercial job.0440

There is a 10% discount or a 15% discount on those. This decreases a residential decrease by 5% if we would want to give them a 5% decrease, whatever.0444

But, we are not going to do that at this point, OK? We will just do the base rate.0455

So, there is our estimate, $7500 for a remodelled kitchen that has all the materials to it and our labor that we are going to estimate.0461

So, at this point in time, we are going to Save and close it to add that estimate.0470

We print it. They will see that if we went ahead and printed it, they would see something that looks like this.0473

And there is our invoice, our estimate here that they can see for us, OK? And they can review it once they approve it.0481

So, we give it to our customer, and they approve that they want us to do the job.0491

Now that we have done that estimate and created that estimate a new job, we are going to go ahead and say "Great, they have awarded it to us".0497

So, we are going to now convert that estimate into an invoice and actually invoice them.0506

I am going to open up that estimate. It is still active, but at this point in time, we are actually going to convert it.0511

So, you will notice up in the top menu bar of the estimate window screen, we have this option that says Create.0518

We will drop that menu down, and it says we can create an invoice for this.0527

Great! I am going to say an invoice, so I am going to invoice this, and I am going to invoice for a 100% because they have accepted the job.0532

So, I want to invoice them a 100%, or I can invoice only 50%.0539

Maybe, they want to reduce it, whichever, but at this point, we are going to choose it is a 100%.0544

They are taking it, and we are going to invoice them the entire amount, and maybe, we have different payment arrangements on that.0549

Here, we can say we can track the progress of our invoice from here.0558

So, when we invoice it, we can actually see what the progress is, and at this point, let’s say we are just going to do 50% progress.0562

So, if we click on the Progress button here, it is going to pull up the invoice amounts for items on estimates.0570

And let's say, we are just going to give them...on this, it is maybe currently only 50% done, OK?0577

Of all of the materials, we have only got 50% of materials, and at this point in time, we are only going to bill them 25% of the labor.0590

So, it is going to reduce that down a little bit, and we can reduce the bill down by percentage points there.0598

OK, so it is going to reduce it by 50% of the materials and 25% of the labor.0607

And then, we can go ahead and bill that to them, and we could print this to them, and then, they get this.0616

They have accepted the invoice and the estimate.0622

And now, we are just going to preview and bill them this percentage portion of it or just 50% of the materials and 25% of the labor up front.0626

And we can say OK to that and Save and close, and it now adds an invoice for that customer.0637

Now, we can look at the job progress of the invoice versus the estimates, so we are going to look at that and say "Well, let's see where we are at with that".0645

I am the manager here. I want to see what we are doing and what jobs that we need to complete, where we are at.0653

So, people are reporting properly and where we are at. We can run that report.0660

So, we want to go pull down the Report and go to Jobs, Time and Mileage.0665

And we are going to see that there is a Job Estimates versus Actual Detail, and there is Jobs Progress Invoice versus Estimates.0670

So, we are going to choose that report under the Reports, Jobs, Time and Mileage, and we will choose the Job Progress.0677

We can see where we are at with some of these. This is 99% finished.0684

This is 18% finished, and we can see where we are at.0688

We can actually go all the way down to Paula Easley on our kitchen remodel, and we are only 39% done.0691

Why? Because we have 25% of labor and 50% of the materials out of the total estimate.0697

So, we have only built a progress invoicing of 39.75%. We have built that.0703

We are still in progress with that job.0711

So, now we have our report. We see what other jobs we have.0714

This one is a 100% done. This one is 93% done.0717

We can look in and just find out why is it only 93% done and what else needs to be done and what else needs to be built, so that helps us there.0721

So, at this point in time, we have learned how to create the estimate,0733

turn that estimate into an invoice and only do a progress billing, which is a portion of the job.0738

Now, we are going to go ahead and update the progress on that job status. Let's say "Well, you know, under that job here, we want to update the status".0744

Remember, we said it was pending. Well, let's update that, so we are going to edit this job.0751

So, on the Customer window, the Customer Center, after we highlight that job, we are going to say Edit customer or Edit job rather in the Customer Center.0756

It will pull up that job name. We can go to the Job Info tab.0768

And here under the Job Status, we can say It was awarded, or now, we can actually say It is in progress.0772

So, we are going to update that to It is in progress now.0779

We are still on target with meeting our 31st January date, and we will say "OK, that has been updated".0783

So, now, let's say an estimate is done. We did not get awarded or whatever for whatever reason.0789

This is all done. We want to inactivate this estimate here.0799

It is no longer active, so we can change that very simply.0804

If we double click on that estimate that we created, you will see at the upper left corner where it says Estimate active or Uncheck it. Now, it is inactive.0809

Let's see how that affects the report, so, if we say Save and close, now, it is an inactive estimate.0819

We can go back to our Jobs and Job Progress Invoice versus estimate and see how that affected it.0828

It is inactive. It is still there because it is in progress, but at least, it is an inactive job. It is an inactive estimate.0837

And because we build it, so it does not really make sense for that to be inactive, but that is how we inactive it on that estimate there.0845

If we did not have an invoice there, it would not be on that report.0857

So thanks again. This is how we do estimates and progress invoicing.0862

Thank you for visiting Educator.com. We will see you next time.0867