welcome to the fit small business
QuickBooks Online training course in
this lesson we're going to cover how to
create estimates quote or bids in
QuickBooks Online to follow along with
me log in to your QuickBooks Online
account now or click the link below this
video for a free 30-day trial of
QuickBooks Online you can also click
this link to access our full QuickBooks
Online course and other helpful
resources let's get started some of the
benefits of creating estimates are they
help customers decide if they want to
purchase the goods or services they can
serve as a written approval to start a
job with the click of a button you can
easily turn the estimate into an invoice
in QuickBooks Online when you are ready
to build your customer for work
completed you can run reports in
QuickBooks that will help you compare
your estimates to actual income and
costs after the work is completed
keep in mind estimates are not a
required transaction for the sales and
income process no money changes hands
when you create an estimate in
QuickBooks and estimates have no impact
on your financial statements for the
purposes of this video we will use a
fictitious company called paul's plumbing
as you view this video think about how
the information might differ for your
business to begin after you sign into
your QuickBooks Online account click the
plus sign at the top of the homepage and
select estimate in this first field we
want to select the customer that we want
to send the estimate to so we will go
ahead and select our customer bridgett
o'brien
from the drop down if you have not set
up the customer information yet you can
do so by clicking on the drop down arrow
and you can scroll up to the top of the
list and select add new in the setting
up customers module we walked through
how to create your customer profiles
click this link to watch this video
tutorial the customer email address
automatically populates from the
customer profile if you did not enter
the email address in the customer
profile then this field will be blank
you can answer the email address
directly in this field and it will
automatically update the customer
profile billing address this information
will automatically populate from the
customer profile as well if you did not
enter the billing address in the
customer profile then this field will be
blank you can enter the billing address
directly in this field but it will not
automatically update the customer
profile you will have to go back to the
customer profile and enter this
information for it to automatically
populate go the estimate date is the
date that you are creating the estimate
typically QuickBooks will default to
today's date but you can change this if
you need to the expiration date field
can be useful if the pricing that you're
providing on the estimate expires after
a certain period of time products and
services in the body of the estimate you
want to go ahead and select the products
and services that you're providing an
estimate for so you can click the
drop-down list to select the products or
services that you want to provide the
estimate for if you have not set up the
products and services information yet
you can do so by clicking on the drop
down arrow and go ahead and selecting
add new and the setting up products and
services video tutorial we walked you
through how to set up products and
services that you sell to your customers
click this link to watch this video
tutorial so let's go ahead and select
our items that we want to provide
estimated costs for here and once we
select our items the description field
will automatically populate based on the
product or service that you select you
are able to customize the description by
typing directly in the description field
keep in mind any custom description that
you enter on this estimate will not
update the description for the product
or service if you want this description
to automatically populate when this
product or service is selected then you
need to update the products and services
list so we'll go ahead and tab over and
enter our quantity and our rate for this
item and QuickBooks will automatically
calculate the amount for us by multiplying
the quantity times the rate
keep in mind that any rate that you
enter on this estimate will not update
the rate for the product or service if
you want the Ray to automatically
populate when you select a product or
service then you will need to update the
products and services list so we'll go
ahead and add a couple of more items
here got our kitchen sink and then we've
got a couple of bathroom sinks that we
will provide pricing for right below the
customer name field is the estimate
status field this field allows you to
keep track of where you are in the
approval process for an estimate there
are four status options pending accepted
closed and rejected the pending status
typically this is the status used when
you have created an estimate and sent it
to your customer for approval once your
customer has approved the estimate it
moves from pending status to accepted
once you have invoiced your customer in
full then the estimate is considered
closed if you send the customer an
estimate and they do not approve it this
will be considered an estimate that has
been rejected you're probably wondering
why would you keep an estimate that has
been rejected by a customer sometimes
customers change their mind and decide
later on that they want to purchase the
product or service in that case you can
quickly locate the estimate make any
changes requested by the customer and
change the status to accepted this will
save you time because you won't have to
create the estimate from scratch once
you have completed all the necessary
fields on your estimate you can do a
print preview to see what the estimate
will look like so we'll go ahead and go
down to the bottom of the screen and
select print or preview QuickBooks will
go ahead and save the estimate at this
time and then provide us with a preview
of what it looks like so this is what
our estimate for our customer Bridget
looks like we scroll down at this point
you could actually print the estimate
out and mail it to your customer or you
also have the option to email this
estimate to your customer once you're
satisfied with
so we're going to go ahead and save and
send this estimate via email to our
customers directly from QuickBooks so to
do this we want to click the blue button
in the far bottom-right that says save
and send you should see the send email
window display on your screen on the
left with the preview of the estimate on
the right here the email address that is
here is automatically coming from the
customer profile these subjects includes
the estimate number in this case
estimate one zero zero four along with
the company name you can edit this
information directly on the screen and
change the subject as you like and the
body of the information there will be
just a brief note to the customer
this is customizable and editable by you
so you can include change this message
up as you'd like the estimate will be
attached to the email as a PDF document
once you have made all of your changes
you can go ahead and select the save to
the send queue and close button at the
very bottom here be sure to check your
email delivery settings before sending
emails to your customers we cover this
in the how to setup customer sales
content lesson you can watch this video
tutorial by clicking this link after you
save the estimate you can easily go
ahead and copy the estimate information
to an invoice once you are ready to
build your customer so to do this we
will go ahead and navigate back to the
customer center and we'll go ahead and
locate our customer Bridget simply click
on her name and it will show us all of
her transactions and at the top there
you can see our estimate that we just
created estimate one zero zero four
we'll click on that and to the far right
as you can see we've got a button now
that says copy to invoice and QuickBooks
will copy all the information on here to
an invoice so that you can build Bridget
once the work has been completed
at wraps of the lesson on how to create
estimates quotes or bids in QuickBooks
Online to access our full QuickBooks
Online course or any of the other
lessons in this series click this link
you can also find a link below this
video for a free 30-day trial of
QuickBooks Online if you have feedback
about this course
or if you have any questions please
leave a comment below also don't forget
to subscribe