How to Customize an Invoice or Sales Order Template in QuickBooks Desktop

Before you start

• Templates live at Lists > Templates. Intuit lists invoices, sales receipts, estimates, statements and purchase orders as forms you can customize, plus bill payment stubs in QuickBooks Desktop 2022 and newer.
• Some templates are locked. If you're working in a locked template, select Make a Copy and change the copy.
• Have your logo ready as an image file. If an image later causes errors when you print or email, Intuit suggests saving it in another format, such as .JPG instead of .BMP.
• Sales orders are only in QuickBooks Desktop Premier and Enterprise. Turn them on with Enable Sales Order at Edit > Preferences > Sales & Customers > Company Preferences.
• These steps are for QuickBooks Desktop for Windows. Intuit has a separate article for the Mac version.

Step 1: Open the template you want to change

1. 1Go to Customers > Create Invoices to open an invoice.
2. 2Select the Formatting tab, then Manage Templates.
3. 3Select a template to preview it.
4. 4Select Copy to start a new template from it, or OK to edit the selected template.

You can also start from Lists > Templates. Right-click a template there and select Edit Template.

Step 2: Add your logo, fonts and company details

After you select Copy or OK, work in the Basic Customization window.

1. 1To show your logo, select Use logo. Use Select Logo to pick the image or swap it for a new one.
2. 2Under fonts and colors, set the look of the company name, labels and data.
3. 3Under company and transaction information, choose which contact details appear on the form. Select Update Information to change them.

Step 3: Add or remove fields and columns

1. 1Select Additional Customization.
2. 2Use the header, columns and footer tabs to add or remove items.
3. 3Select the Screen box, the Print box or both for each item you want on the form.
4. 4Select OK.

Step 4: Arrange the layout in Layout Designer

1. 1From Additional Customization, select Layout Designer.
2. 2Move and resize fields until the form looks the way you want.
3. 3To change one field's font, select the field, then Properties > Font.
4. 4For notes that must show on every page, select Add > Text Box instead of stretching a long text field.
5. 5Select OK, then Print Preview to check the result. Close the preview and select OK.

On forms that run to several pages, a long text field resized in Layout Designer may show only on the last page. Intuit's fix is a text box.

Step 5: Put custom fields on the form

Custom fields hold customer, vendor, employee or item details that the standard fields don't, such as an item's color. Define the field first, then add it to the template.

Item fields

1. 1Go to Lists > Item List and double-click any item.
2. 2Select Custom Fields, then Define Fields.
3. 3Type the field name in the Label column and select Use.
4. 4Select OK.

Customer fields

1. 1Go to Customers > Customer Center and double-click any customer.
2. 2On the Additional Info tab, select Define Fields.
3. 3Type the field name under Label, and under Use for select Customer. Enterprise also lets you pick a preset data type in the What kind of data? column.
4. 4Select OK.

Add the field to the template

1. 1Open the form, then select Formatting > Customize Data Layout.
2. 2Choose the tab for the part of the form where the field belongs.
3. 3Find the custom field and select Screen, Print or both.
4. 4Select OK. A new field may change the layout, so check it in Layout Designer.

Step 6: Customize the sales order form

Sales orders have a Formatting tab too. Intuit's Enterprise help on linked purchase orders shows how to change the columns on a sales order.

1. 1Open a sales order and select Formatting > Customize Data Layout.
2. 2Go to Columns.
3. 3Select Screen or Print for each column you want. Change a column's Order number to move it.
4. 4Select OK, then check Print Preview.

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise 24.0 release R9 lets you link sales order lines to purchase orders. With that preference on, the Columns tab has a Linked PO column you can print on your sales orders.

To reuse a design on another form type, go to Lists > Templates and select the template. Open the Templates dropdown, select Duplicate, choose the form type and select OK. Intuit's example is reusing an invoice design for packing slips.

Step 7: Copy templates to another company file

1. 1In the file that has the template, go to Lists > Templates and select it.
2. 2Open the Templates dropdown and select Export. Choose where to save the file, then select Save.
3. 3Open the other company file and go to Lists > Templates.
4. 4Open the Templates dropdown, select Import, pick the file and select Open.
5. 5Keep or change the template name, then select OK.

A template made in a newer version of QuickBooks can't be imported into an older one. Templates also can't move between regional versions, such as from the Canadian version to the US one.

Fix common template problems

• No lines around fields when you print: go to File > Printer Setup and choose the form. Select Blank Paper and clear Do not print lines around each field.
• Fields misaligned in emailed PDFs: change the font on those fields in Layout Designer, then email a test copy to yourself.
• New invoices don't keep the template you picked: QuickBooks should reuse the last template. If it doesn't, Intuit says the template may be damaged, so restore a backup from when it worked or rebuild it.
• Export fails with an error about the logo: edit the template, clear Use Logo in the Logo & Fonts area, then export again.
• Error C=291 on import: the template has a problem or came from a newer version. Recreate it in the file where you need it.
• Insufficient data for an image: remove the image in Layout Designer, save it in a different image format, then add it back.

Where QuickBooks Desktop leaves the work to you

• Each template is used for one form type. To reuse a design on another form type, you duplicate the template and pick the new type.
• Custom name fields are free-form, so someone has to fill them in on each customer, vendor or employee record.
• A damaged template has to be rebuilt by hand unless you have a backup from before the damage.
• To use a template in another company file, you export it from one file and import it into the other.

Once your sales order template is set, see how to turn a sales order into an invoice.