Quickbooks Pro question.

[KenH]

I use Quickbooks for accounting and payroll, but not for billing.
If you have customer X, and record 5 lawn cuts and a hedge trimming for the month of August, can this be printed out on an invoice???

The way I understand it, is you cant print invoices for specific dates, only specific jobs. If that is the case, the invoice portion would be useless to me. Does anyone use the invoicing in a maintenance business?? and if so, can you give me some pointers?? It does not seem to be set up for repeat work for the same customer. Thanks

[RMDoyon]

Everything you asked for is possible in Quickbooks Pro.

You need to set up an "item" for each task.
For instance, I have an item called "Basic Mowing" that has a price of $35 associated with it (my minimum)and a brief description.

All you need to do is create an invoice for your customer and select basic mowing from your item list and put in a quantity of 5 and the extension will calculate the total.

You can either change your price per cut at the invoice creation stage or create a bunch of different "Basic Mowing" items with various price points. I do not do this because all of my customers are on annual pro-rated billing. I just change the basic mowing rate when I have the occasional one-time customer.

Next, you select your other item from your item list "Pruning". Again, this will have a price associated with it that you can change within the invoice.

The invoicing power of Quickbooks comes from the customization of the item list. You should get familiar with it.

Regarding repeat invoices for customers, all you need to do is "memorize" an invoice once you have created it, then the details of that invoice will appear the next time you want to bill that customer.

All of this is in the manual as well as an excellent help index (one of the best).

[KenH]

Thankis Roger for the great response. I guess one of the things I was concerned with was the fact if I had 30 different mowing prices, I would need 30 different items just for mowing, or else I would have to change each individual invoice.. I thought it would be alot easier to just choose a customer, enter specific dates, and an invoice would fill itself in based on the previous entries in the register.

[KenH]

The more I think about it, the more I wonder why you just cant print out an invoice as easily as you can a report. For example, for Mr X I did 5 cuts, mulch, grub control, and hedges....to itemize each one individually will take some time and confusion (I might have 25 different shrub prices, say) . But if I just told QBooks to create an August bill for Mr X it would be a whole lot easier. I think the invoicing works alot better for one time jobs, or for a company who has alot of one time customers. It seems complicated for monthly maintenance, especially if you dont have standard price points.
Hope this is making some sense.

[Tvov]

I've been using QuickbooksPro for a few years, and I just ended up making up different items for each thing done for each customer. It takes awhile, but once all the information is in, and your customers don't change alot, it is easy to use. I print up an invoice with work done, and also a statement and send them both to the customer either monthly or whatever billing arrangement we agreed upon. As you probably have found out, the statement is very important because it tracks previous payments and invoices. The statement helps the customers to keep track of their payments, and also keeps them honest (at least those who try to only make partial payments in hopes to screw up your bookkeeping!).

RMDoyon, do you know how to get rid of the advertising on the latest version of QuickBooksPro? It really pisses me off that I paid full price for the new program, and yet there is advertising of one sort or another on essentially EVERY screen. The best I could come up with so far is to have a blank screen, except for the toolbar, come up at the start by using the customizing screen.

My QuickbooksPro98 DID NOT have this problem, and I was much happier with it.

On another message board awhile back I was told that this new, wonderful feature of QuickBooksPro2002 was not able to be removed.

KenH, have you looked into programs specifically for the lawn industry? Such as Clip, Lawn Monkey, etc? Although I don't use them, friends who do like them. Basically everything you asked about they supposedly do automatically (once the information is entered initially!).

[dforbes]

i make up an estimate for each customer making four colums showing mowing and the cost per time. It remains in the system. at the end of the month i hit create invoices then type in the customers name. it ask if you want to use the estimate to create invoice select yes and it brings it up. then I just type in the dates they were serviced and it totals it all. works great for me. This way they have more specific information and we get fewer calls asking whats this. Its late so if i didn't explain this good or you have questions let me know. It takes a little time to set it up but i think its worth it.
Dennis

[Soupy]

Every night I enter all work into the statement charges section, and as payments come in I enter those in the payments recieved section. Then on the last day of the Month I hit create Statements, set the dates for the 1st through 30/31 then hit print. It's that simple. Also if you don't want it to print statements for non active customers, just tell it not to print statements with 0 balance.

Soupy

[KenH]

Thanks for the replies....Soupy---- I do do that, but you cant add sales tax into the statements:rolleyes:

[RMDoyon]

Originally posted by Tvov


RMDoyon, do you know how to get rid of the advertising on the latest version of QuickBooksPro?

I'm afraid not, I'm running QB Pro 2001 so I guess I have this to look forward to when upgrading.

[Ax Man]

dforbes-
Iv'e run qbp for about 8 years and thought I had it down.
Your method is the way to go! Thanks for the great idea!

[dforbes]

Ax Man,
Your welcome, I have been using QBP since 1994. This method has worked well for me. Saves a lot of time at the end of the month.
Dennis

[lrose2]

I also run QuickBooks Pro 2002 for my lawn maintenance business. I am very happy with it, especially the price compared to Clip, LawnMonkey and some of the others. It takes very little training time and everything is well explained in the Help and manual. Great purchase if you don't have a lot of money for the Clips and LawnMonkeys.

[Ax Man]

Yeah, and my biz is small enough I have no need for help on scheduling or tracking.
Qbp does all I need.

[jamesday]

I own an Information Technology consulting firm and we QBP 2001. 50% of our work is billable time and the other 50% is hardware sales.

I'm wondering, why don't any of you use the time feature? We enter our time (we bill by the hour) each day and whenever we want to create an invoice we open a blank invoice, choose the client click time/costs and select the time and hardware we want to bill that client.

Also, why have different items for this type of business? Are all of you trying to track how many "basic mowing" jobs you've done compared to "tree pruning"? Looks to me like I would use only one item...Lawn Care and then change the description and amount to whatever I wanted when I created the invoice?

Just thinking outloud

[dforbes]

Jamesday,
Most of our services are billed by the job not the hour. Also it is important to track different items because workmans comp rates are different for landscaping vs sprinkler work vs mowing. Even clerical has its own rate, we are audited every year and without good records our insurance would be much more.
Dennis

[KenH]

QUOTE "It remains in the system. at the end of the month i hit create invoices then type in the customers name. it ask if you want to use the estimate to create invoice select yes and it brings it up. then I just type in the dates they were serviced and it totals it all."

Can someone help clear something up for me. I understand about having different "items" for different clients, but when you print the invoice at the end of the month, how do you remember the dates you did service.?? You say you just type in the dates, but do you do it from memory?? Do you look at the statement and toggle the pages back and forth???

Also, if you use statements as an invoice, how do you add sales tax??
I dont think you can.

I think I need a way to carry the info I have entered in my statement section directly to an invoice. I really dont understand why QBooks wont let you do that. It seems like it would be the easiest way.

[dforbes]

I have my guys fill out timecards each week (NEBS has some good ones) payroll is entered from the timecard to a weekly timesheet in quickbooks. This gives you a record of customer service provided time spent on job memos. when its time to do invoices I print a time activity detail and enter the dates from this report to the invoice. also has information of anything else you did for this customer. If you have your taxes set up right in your qb, taxable items should automaticaly come up on your invoices. once you get this system set up it works extreemly well. I would be happy to do what i can to help.
Dennis

[dforbes]

Also doing my method you don't need different items for each cutomer. on the estimate it might say ms Smith mowing $60.00
your next estimate can say Mr Jones $85.00 and so on. We put the items on the estimate that we do on a weekly basis. If any other services are done that month we just add them to the invoice after its created.
Dennis

[lrose2]

To KenH,

I will start a new invoice at the first of the month for my customers with the service charge. I then type the date after the description of service performed. Next week I pull up that same open invoice for that customer and add another line with service charge for that week, again typing the date. Keep doing that till the end of the month, print the invoice and mail it.

[KenH]

Thanks lrose2-- That is a good idea. If you set it up that way, can you still run reports and such?? I was under the impression you can only run reports from the numbers you enter in the statements section. This is my dilemma----the invoice info and the statement info is not interchangeable. If there was only a way to create an invoice directly from the statements that would be perfect.

[dforbes]

Ken
you can run reports of anything you enter in QBs. What kind of reports are you needing. Are you using an accoutant for anything. Most accountants are familiar with this program and could show you the basics in an hour or two. If you would like to call me sometime I think I could talk you through some of your questions. You have a very powerful accounting program and from your posts you haven't even began to use it. If you need some help just let me know.
Dennis

[KenH]

Hi Dennis-- Thank you for being so patient.

I have an accountant who is telling me I cant do what I am trying to do. (But as you can see, I dont believe her)

I have my accounts set up in the account register, where I enter work done at the end of each day. My biggest beef with QB is you cant print an invoice right off your account register.

Someone above said just make up an estimate for each customer and at the end of the month just pull up this estimate and fill in the dates, work, etc. But my question is this....When you are filling out this invoice this way, you have to switch back and forth to see what work was done and on what dates. (Its impossible to do this from memory.)

Someone else said to print out statements to use to send to the customer, but using this method you cant include sales tax.

I do alot of different work for different customers, all with different pricing. Its very time consumong for me to have 25 different "shrub" items all with different prices. What I would like to do is have my customer account register on screen, and be able to put the info I see automatically into an invoice.....but I believe you cant do this.

Thank you again for your time, and I know this is starting to get annoying...this will be my last post.

[dforbes]

Ken,
I'm not exactly sure where you are entering your information. You will not not be able to have your customer register and invoice on the screen at the same time. It was me who said make an estimate and create an invoice at the end of the month. We also have many customers at many different prices. This sytem works well for me. I enter my payroll on a weekly timesheet. (this can also be done on a daily timesheet). The information is entered which gives the customer name and what was done. At the end of the month I print a time activity detail report. This has all the information needed to complete invoices. You should be able to print a report of where your entering your information and it will have your dates and all information you need. You don't need to make this your last post. Lets work on this till you find a system that works for you. If you can tell me exactly what is says where you enter your information I can probably tell you what report you need.
Dennis

[carltip]

We have tried several different billing methods over the years and this is the best way I have found. When we sign up a new client, I create an invoice for the amount we charge for that client. If the are on contract, I put that on the invoice with the appropiate monthly charge. If they are pay as you go, I put what each item cost and the decription I want, say mowing is $25, shrubs are $20, and so on, putting every service that we may do and the amount. I then memorize the invoice. You can then put when you want it to schedule it to automaticlly enter again and how many to remain, say 9 for a 9 month contract. Mine come up on the 1st of the month. I then enter all the dates throughout the month as services are performed, print them on the last day of the month and start over again on the first for the next month. I hope all that is of some help to someone :rolleyes:

Carl