Of course, the bottom line is the meat of your estimate, the price you’re willing to accept for your work performed. It’s your job to determine that. But let QuickBooks do what it does best: provide intuitive, efficient tools for creating and modifying estimates.
First Steps
There are actually three ways to open an estimate form. You can click the Estimates icon on the home page or open the Customers menu and select Create Estimates. You can also open the Customer Center (Customers | Customer Center) and click on the Transactions tab. Click the New Transactions button in the toolbar and choose Estimates.
As you can see, you can create multiple types of sales forms from here. You can also see lists of existing and historical transactions.
Making It Yours
Take your time working with the options in this window. QuickBooks gives you an incredible amount of control over how your estimates will look, but don’t get ahead of yourself. Start with the most important content: the text you want to have appear. By default, the software opens a template called Custom Estimate that contains commonly-used fields, like Cost, Description, and Markup. You can easily change these by checking and unchecking their corresponding boxes.
You’ll notice that you can have specific fields appear on the screen and/or on printed copies of your estimates. You can also change the field names (use Bid or Proposal instead of Estimate, for example), and for columns only, the order in which they appear.
Warning: Be careful with the Markup field of your estimates. You wouldn’t want your customers to see this, so be sure that it is NOT checked in the Print column.
As you make changes to this template, you’ll see the graphical Preview over to the right change to reflect your modifications. Click Print Preview to see a larger, finished version of your template. When you’re satisfied with it, click OK. This will replace your Custom Estimate template.
Adding Templates
- Customize Design. This opens a multi-step wizard that helps you select a background, font, and grid style.
- Download Templates. You can choose from multiple pre-designed templates.
- Basic Customization. This window supplies tools for adding a logo and changing colors and fonts.
- Layout Designer. We only recommend this tool if you already have freeform design skills.
Just Like Invoices
Biz Bob and Biz Kat
QuickBooks Solution Providers (QSP)
www.biz-bob.com
(256) 337-5200