Your Invoicing Account

Once you have set up an Invoicing account, added some contacts to your Address Book, and created some items for the Items List you are then ready to start creating invoices and estimates. This tutorial will cover creating an invoice, however the process for creating an estimate is more or less the same and once you have created an estimate you can instantly convert it into an invoice with just a mouse click! There are several ways to open your invoicing account from where you can start creating invoices. From the My Accounts screen double click on the name of the invoicing account to open or from the left-hand Navigation Panel under the Business menu click on the Invoices icon.

To begin creating a new invoice, click on the New button at the top of the Invoicing account screen (to edit an existing invoice, highlight an invoice in the list and click the Edit button.) This will open the Invoice dialog in which you will begin creating the invoice. The first section of the Invoice dialog box is the General tab.

1. Use the Customer pull down menu to select the recipient of the invoice. (This list will consist of all the names from your Address Book.)
2. Enter the date to associate with the invoice in the Invoice Date field, the current date is the default for this field.
3. Enter an identification number in the Invoice Number field.
4. Select a Due date for when the invoice payment is expected.
5. In the P.O. number field enter the number of your customers purchase order, if any, which you are fulfilling.
6. You may type a title or name in the Project field for reference (this can be used to generate reports later from the Reports menu.)
7. In the Bill To section the customer name and address will appear as it was entered in the Address Book. You may edit this information as needed.
8. In the Ship To section the customer name and address will appear as it was entered in the Ship to section of the Address Book. You may edit this information as needed.
9. If the information in the Ship To section should match that of the Bill To section you can duplicate it by clicking the Bill To >> Ship To button.
10. The Ship Date field allows you to specify the date on which the invoice items will be shipped.
11. Using the Ship via field enter the shipping method to be used.
12. By Clicking the Verify Address button you can verify the address against the USPS address database. (Note: any invoices you upload will automatically verify the address and must have a verifiable address to be uploaded successfully.)
13. In the F.O.B. (Field on Board) field enter the shipping destination.
14. Enter the terms of delivery in the Terms field.
15. Select a customer message to appear on the invoice, or leave it blank if you don't wish to add a message. (By clicking the ellipsis "..." button you may add new items to this list.)
16. From the Form template field select one of the preset templates to determine how your invoice will appear when printed (click the Preview button to view how the print out will look). By clicking the Customize... button you can change the layout and style of the invoice template.
17. If you wish to add a memo to the invoice, type it into the Memo field.
18. If there is a sales representative that works with the account for the customer for which you are creating this invoice you can add the name to the Sales Rep. field.

After you enter the general customer and shipping information you can add items to your invoice by clicking on the Items tab.

Adding Items

1. Click the Add button to add the first item to the invoice. The Invoice Item dialog box will open (see below).
2. As you add items to the invoice you can edit or remove items you have added previously by single clicking an item and then clicking Edit or Delete.
3. When you create your first invoice account a Sales Tax account is created by default. If you would like to record sales tax to another sales tax account you have created, select it from the Sales tax account drop down menu. Use the Tax field to enter the correct percentage for sales tax if necessary.

1. When you click either the New or Edit buttons in the Items section of the Invoice dialog, the Invoice Item box will appear.
2. Choose an item to add to your invoice from the Item drop down menu.
3. Select the Date to list for this particular item (the default is the current date.)
4. The Description will match the sales description you entered when you created the item in the item list (Tutorial step 3). You may add to or edit this description for this particular invoice if you wish.
5. Enter the number of this item to include on this invoice in the Quantity field.
6. The Rate will appear as what you entered in the Price field when you set up this item, you may change it here if you wish.

Checking the Status tab

The Status tab of the invoice dialog box is simply a quick way for you to track how many times you have printed, e-mailed, or uploaded an invoice. The list will show the number next to each option, as well as a Qchex Authentication Code that verifies that you have successfully upgraded the invoice to Qchex.

Saving, Sending, Uploading or Printing your Invoice

The final step of creating your first invoice is to choose how it will be delivered and then to save it. In the bottom right-hand corner are 3 check boxes that determine how your invoice will be delivered, they are: To be printed, To be sent, and To be uploaded. The first option sets the invoice up to be printed, the second to be e-mailed and the third to be uploaded. By checking one or more of these boxes you can then save and close the invoice and access it later with other invoices of the same delivery type (e.g., if you have created a bunch of invoices with the To be sent option checked, when you select Send > Send Invoices from the main File menu, the batch process window for sending invoices will open showing all of the invoices that you created with the To be sent box checked.) You may also click either the Print, Send or Upload button in the Invoice box to immediately print, e-mail, or upload your invoice. If you wish to see a preview of how your invoice will look, click the Preview button. To Save your invoice and close the Invoice dialog box click the Save and Done button, if you wish to immediately start work on another invoice click the Save and New button.