Danged if I can remember how to do this. Used to be, we set up customers with terms of two weeks (30 days if a commercial customer). Now I want all invoices to read 'Due on receipt' For new added customers, is there a way to set a default term?
Additional wrinkle... is there an easy way (NOTE: GCG's -- I do *NOT* condider using the SDK to be easy!!!!) to change the terms for existing customers? I figure it will take a good hour or more to click on each customer:job entry and change terms to 'Due on Reciept' Thanks in advance
Can't remember off the top of my head if that is in the company wide preferences, or if it is in the interview. Just type your question into the help box, it will find it.
As for changing the existing customers, if all you have got is an hour of clicking to do, get clicking. Learning enough to export the customers and import them back will take you longer than just doing it.
Oh, you may find a number of your customers refuse to go along with having their terms changed. Life is like that.
Well heck! Give me credit. I tried that before I posted. QB help offered nothing other than an explanation of the terms list, and instructions for setting up new terms list items. I also 'Googled' and did a search on the Intuit knowledge base. I have great respect for the time of the volunteers of usenet.
I'm not averse to knowledge. Exporting and importing the customer:job list has its own set of hazards, however. What happens to all the invoices under the customer:job? Remember, I'm trying to globally edit TERMs and *NOT* to change the customer entries in any other way. If you have a solution, I would appreciate a post. I'm sure there will be other occasions where a global change to customer information will be necessary.
They *MAY* balk.. if they even notice. We are electricians. Large jobs are usually estimated, with terms that aren't driven by date, but by progress. Having progress invoices default to terms other than 'Due on Reciept' makes little sense -- progress payment schedules are in the estimate. Still, one or two progress invoices slipped under the radar with the 'default' terms we normally reserve for regular invoicing. While we certainly can explain the need for payment based on the terms of the estimate, it looks less than professional.
Invoicing for jobs other than estimated happens when the folks don't pay C.O.D.
The decision to change the default in terms on regular invoicing has come about because we've learned as we've grown. My original intention was to give the client enough time to get the invoice, and mail the payment, without worrying excessively about the date 'due'. There are clients who are very concerned with paying 'on-time', and they get upset when they receive an invoice with the due date of the payment equaling the invoice date (mailed 2-3 days earlier). As we've expanded, we've noticed this group has an opposite, the client who feels even mailing the payment before the 'due' is a frivolous use of their money. We've decided to adjust our terms to account for the latter group.
This weekend I've only got access to an older Mac version. In that version there is no way to set default terms for customers, only vendors. That is located in preferences, so that is where it would be for customers if QB supports it, and now that I think about it, I don't believe it does.
I understand the problem. You export, change the term in the exported file, import and then I suspect have a much work as just clicking through them in the first place as I suspect you wil have to merge the inported customers with the existing ones. And I think I remember that isn't possible if the customer has jobs. Another solution would be to see if via QODBC customer terms is a modifable field. If so you should be able to write up a macro to automate changing the entire database. I think however that would take longer than just doing it the by hand method. If you had 10,000 customers to change, automation would be the way to go.
Typo's suck, and we all look like idiots to the customer once in a while.
No, you are supposed to mail the payment so it arrives on the due date. That way when they report you to D&B you get a "Pays on Time" rating. Sending it sooner is a waste of cash flow, and cash flow drives the world. As you have found out with your own cash flow being squeezed.
BeanSmart website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.