Using the Invoice Feature - Invoicing, Progress Invoicing, Job Costing, and Reporting

Sep 21, 2026

A comprehensive guide to using QuickBooks Online invoices for construction workflows, including full invoicing from an estimate, and progress invoicing with multiple partial invoices tracked against the original estimate. It explains how invoices populate with customer, date, and service or product items linked to the general ledger, how unpaid invoices increase accounts receivable, and how job costing and reporting connect to these processes. Step-by-step instructions cover creating invoices from inside an estimate and from the new invoice workflow, plus enabling progress invoicing.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryInvoices

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time4 min

AccessFree to download

About this Guide and Webinar

What are Invoices in QuickBooks Online?

Invoicing in Full from an Estimate

What is Progress Invoicing?

Enabling Progress Invoicing

Progress Invoicing from an Estimate

Invoicing, Progress Invoicing, Job Costing, and Reporting About this Guide and Webinar This guide is designed to accompany our webinar entitled Invoicing, Progress Invoicing, Job Costing, and Reporting, in which you will be introduced to the concept and use of Invoices in QuickBooks Online. Invoices are what you send to your construction customers, and it is based on these Invoices that your customers pay you. This webinar will cover invoicing based on an estimate, as well as progress invoicing (multiple invoices from an estimate), job costing, and reporting on these areas. Note: this supplemental guide and the video it accompanies were prepared using QuickBooks Online (“QBO”) Plus Canada and a Construction Demo company set up specifically by the author for this purpose. This company is not available to students taking this webinar, but you can set up your own company with this Demo company as a model. You can also access the QuickBooks Online Canada Sample Company, Long for Success – Event Planning to test out what you’ve learned. Long for Success – Event Planning is a “dummy” set of QBO Plus books that will maintain your additions, deletions, and edits only as long as the browser windows you use to access it are open, or after a period of inactivity. Do not use this company as your real set of books. The Long for Success – Event Planning is accessible here: [http://tinyurl.com/canadasampledata](http://tinyurl.com/canadasampledata). What are Invoices in QuickBooks Online? Invoices are sales forms you use to notify your customers that they owe you money. They are populated, very much the way estimates are, with customer details, the date, and product or service items, which are linked to the general ledger or chart of accounts. Unlike estimates, invoices do affect the general ledger. Invoices for service items, such as we are using for construction, affect those linked general ledger accounts, usually income accounts (AKA revenue or sales) and any sales taxes being collected. Invoices that are issued to customers but not yet paid in full increase Accounts Receivable (“A/R”), and you can view A/R reports so that you know who owes you how much and from when. There are other sales forms, such as Sales Receipts and Credit Memos, but those are not necessary atthe present time. Your income will result mainly, if not entirely, from producing invoices. You can start your sales workflow with an invoice to a customer, but in a construction setting we are going to focus on invoicing from an estimate. Invoicing in Full from an Estimate QuickBooks has made it very simple to invoice in full from an estimate. The workflows that follow assume that Progress Invoicing, the ability to issue two or more partial invoices from an estimate, is not enabled. We’ll cover that later in this webinar. To invoice from an estimate, you can follow one of two workflows. Workflow \#1: Invoicing from inside the estimate 1. Open the estimate from which you wish to issue an invoice. You can find the estimate in many ways, but we’ll concentrate on clicking on it from the Customer or Sub-customer record’s transaction list tab. 2. With the estimate open, select Create invoice in the top right corner. 3. The invoice pops open, populated with details brought over from the estimate. It also includes a link to the estimate in the header. Make any changes such as the date or message. 4. Save the invoice. 5. If you open the estimate again, you see a link to the invoice in the header. And remember: once you’ve invoiced from an estimate in full, the estimate’s status changes automatically to Closed. There is a second way to create an invoice from an estimate. Workflow \#2: Invoicing from outside the estimate 1. Select +New and then Invoice. 2. Enter or select the name of the customer or sub-customer and then hit the TAB key to get to the next field. 3. A “drawer” pops out from the right side of the screen with items you may wish to

FAQs

How do invoices differ from estimates in QuickBooks Online?

Invoices affect the general ledger, while estimates do not. Invoices for service items typically impact linked income accounts and any sales taxes collected.

How does full invoicing from an estimate work?

You can create an invoice from inside the estimate using the Create invoice action, or start from +New > Invoice and add the linked estimate. After full invoicing, the estimate status changes automatically to Closed.

What is progress invoicing and what does it enable?

Progress invoicing lets you issue multiple partial invoices from an estimate, dividing work by milestones or phases. QuickBooks tracks invoiced amounts per line item and shows what has been invoiced and remaining balances.

Sep 21, 2026

Upload by Sophia Brooks