If you are not charging for actual time and costs, and you want to invoice a job in phases, create an estimate first. You do not need to send the estimate to your customer, just use it to generate your progress invoices. In the example below, we have proposed a bathroom remodel with materials to be billed on delivery to the construction site and the balance to be paid on completion of the work. With the estimate open select "Inoice" from the drop down menu as depicted below.
In this case, we are billing 100% of the materials.
Note that, although our invoice form displays all items on the estimate, the actual invoice will not show items with zero amounts. In this case, the invoice will only show a line item for the lumber, excluding the installation and framing, which will not be billed on this invoice.
On completion of the work, we open the estimate and select "Invoice" as before. QuickBooks keeps track of previous bills against this estimate and allows us to bill the balance due under the estimate, a percentage of all unbilled items in the estimate, or to select a percentage of individual items.
In this case, we select to the entire remaining balance of the estimate.
Robert Guild is certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor in Austin, TX who conducts CPE courses for CPAs and individual training and group classes to QuickBooks users. His company, Accounting Insight, maintains a sixteen-station QuickBooks lab, providing hands-on training. You can contact him directly at rguild@accountinginsight.biz or follow him on twitter at QBPro
