QuickBooks 2010 Form Customization
Up until now, if you wanted a uniform appearance to all of your QuickBooks forms (invoices, sales orders, estimates and so forth) it took a lot of work on your part. You would have to apply your changes in background, fonts and so forth to each individual form. This could be tedious. With QuickBooks 2010 we have a new form design feature that lets you set a basic form design that can be applied to all forms.
Please note that the screen shots were taken from the beta test version, so there may be some slight variations from what you see now.
Click customize in a form window and see:
In prior releases you were taken direct to basic customization, where you can customize an individual form. That is still an option – you can click the customize data layout button. But, if you want to have a common look and feel for all of your forms, click the create new design button.
If you select create a new design you are led through the design process. First, select a background and logo. At the time that this was previewed there were a limited number of designs – I anticipate that the options will expand quickly.
Next, select the colors for your fonts, and the font typeface to use. You can also select some of the information that will print in the form. Note that if you click the box that says you use window envelopes, the phone, fax and website information is moved out of the header (where it might show in the window) down to the footer automatically.
You will select a “grid style”, which controls grid lines and shading on the form.
After reviewing your selections you can select which forms that you want to apply this design to. Note that this makes copies of your templates so that you don’t lose the original templates.
The last step is to ask if you want to save this design template. The template is not stored on your computer – it is stored in your Intuit online account.
I like this feature, but it needs to be expanded. For example:
- The number of form background options are limited.
- I would like to see more color options. This was far too limited in the preview copy.
- You can select font sizes for company information, but the choices are just 8 to 14 at the time this was tested – far too limited.
This is a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t address many of the complaints that I see regarding forms in QuickBooks. You still have the page-oriented designer, so that you cannot have different designs for the first or last page in a multiple line form. You still can’t, for example, have the total box show only on the last page, or easily add a contract statement that shows only on one page.
Rox | Oct 6, 2009 | Reply
Quite frankly I do not find this useful, and my clients have all rolled their eyes
None of us will ever waste the ink to print these backgrounds (everyone is trying to ‘go green’ and this is totally the opposite direction); it takes to much time to launch and fiddle – so we use the old way anyway, and being forced to store it ‘in the cloud’ is just getting irratating.
In my opinion, this has a very limited appeal. I would much rather seen some improvement in inventory!
Charlie | Oct 6, 2009 | Reply
Thanks, Rox. I find it mildly useful – if you are going to design a nice form and want it to apply to all your documents, this is helpful. And, using backgrounds doesn’t have to consume ink if you don’t actually print the form. Nice appearance for emailed invoices can be useful. The green savings isn’t in using ink or not, it is in printing it or not.
But I’ll agree with you that they should be focusing on other more important issues. This is fluff when compared to what they should be doing.
And as far as web orientation – that is the direction they are going. More and more things will be on the web…
Kenneth Reid | Oct 9, 2009 | Reply
I love the concept of this article. My question is, How do I find the screen that has “Create New Design”, “Apply Saved Design”, and “Customize Data Layout”? D Are you talking about the Lists:Templates, clicking on Templates and choosing Create Form Design?
I would like to make ALL my forms uniform in appearance. I have downloaded an email invoice that I would like to implement (and use for ALL forms that are sent to my clients.
How would I use the downloaded invoice template to create all of my other forms?
Charlie | Oct 9, 2009 | Reply
Kenneth, you must have the 2010 version of QuickBooks to see this.
If you click the “customize” button on a transaction screen it will automatically take you to the web site to do this.
Or you can click lists then templates, click the templates button, and select create form design.
Duane | Oct 14, 2009 | Reply
It appears that you if you live in a second class country like mine (Canada) that your newly purchased 2010 Quickbooks Pro does not have the Form Designer. Thanks Intuit
Joyce | Oct 21, 2009 | Reply
As far as marketing/branding is concerned, this is a useful feature and a time saver so agreed, it is mildly useful.
Robert Chin | Oct 29, 2009 | Reply
Yes definitely Mildly Useful.
Most small – med business use pre-printed invoices, on B/W Invoice printers, so being able to print different color backgrounds would be slow and wasteful.
Richard Silk | Dec 1, 2009 | Reply
Hi
I run a graphic design company so the look and feel of our invoices and statements are very important to us… this feature is very useful however i am struggling to apply a design that we have implemented for our invoices using the layout designer (which dosent save to intuits online server) so i am unable to use the same design for our statements, does anyone have a practical solution for us to implement the same “custom” dsign too both invoices and statements.
Thanks
Richard
Charlie | Dec 1, 2009 | Reply
Richard, other than the new service, you can’t copy a custom design from an invoice to a statement as far as I can see. You have to duplicate your work in the layout designer for the other form.
Shannon V. Waldron, CPA | Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
Any way to change the color scheme of the forms for on-screen viewing, not printing? For example, I have a client with 5 different Sales Order templates depending on the nature of the work that is being done. There old manual system was a Blue card meant Service Call, a Green card was a New Install, etc. We have mirrored these work order cards as separate Sales Order templates. Is there a way to make the background of the sales order (or any other form) input screen different colors? I had a client whose “Write Checks” window showed the check in a bright purple color on the screen.
Charlie | Mar 10, 2010 | Reply
The “change account color” feature works with the check window, but not the invoice window. I don’t know of a way to do what you are asking. The best I can suggest is to change the “Default Title” field in Additional Customization to say “Service Call” instead of “Invoice”. If you dont’ want that to show on the printed form then uncheck the “print” column and use the Layout Designer to add a text box that says “Invoice” for the printed form.