Incorporating contract language in estimate forms

[Guest]

High everyone,
I just got QBP for Contractors. I would like to incorporate change order contract lanquage into the estimate/proposal. What field would be the best? Should I use the item field? The amount of text would be the equivalent to a page and a have--double spaced. Thanks in advance for your responces.
Fred

[Guest]

Re: Incorporating contract language in estimate fo

Fred
Are you going to follow the suggestions in QB Contractor Edition and add the change order items to the bottom of your original Estimate?
Unfortunatley you are going to be limited by QB by space in the Item Description block, the Customer Message, and the Long Text Disclaimer field on the Estimate Form.

There are 2 ways that I've worked around this in the past and I have always liked this one best.
Go to the Company Menu, choose Write Letters, choose Design QuickBooks Letters, Create a New Letter from Scratch, give the letter a name (Change Order), select Customers:Jobs (other than collection letters), and then click on the create letters button at the bottom. This starts Word where you can create the standard language in any set-up that you'd like and you can pull in your company fileds and the customer fields that you would like to have pulled from QB and save it.

Then when you wish to generate the Change Order Language you go back to the Company Menu, choose Write letters, choose prepare another type of letter, be sure to choose the customer:job list and the change order letter, in the next screen choose to create a letter for each job, click on the Clear All button, and then scroll down the list until you see the correct job and place a check mark next to it. fill in the name and title of the person signing the letter, and click create, now you have your standard template with all the normal info filled in, simply add the variables that deal with this particular change order and print it, you can save this anywhere you choose so that you have a copy on your computer.

The other method is to create a copy of any of the billing templates, edit it to reflect Change Order. Type in the standard contract language in the description section and memorize it. To use it go to your memorized transaction list, chose the change order template, select the job, type in the details of the change order, print it out but do not save it.

I hope this helps.

Nancy


Certified Payroll & AIA type billing from QB data

[Guest]

Re: Incorporating contract language in estimate fo

Nancy,
Thanks for the info. Before I read your post, I got an old estimate of a job I did'nt get and played with it. I was able to add the whole text of an old change order contract to the estimate. Let me run an idea by you. What if I went to the items list screen and added an item called ChangContract to the item list in the description would be the change order language with no price. Then after I generated my new proposal with the change order, I could use the item menu to add the change order language. You asked if I've used the change order feature yet. The answer is no. I'm just adding jobs and generating the invoices from each new estimate. If the customer needs a total, I get it from the customer detail report. I show the new totals in the change order contract. I'm hoping with the new program I can keep the running total on the same estimate and just add the subcontract language to it. Thanks again for your post!
Fred

[Guest]

Re: Incorporating contract language in estimate fo

Fred, it's certainly worth a shot to create the item and and the language in the description with no price. If it works, let me know - there used to be a total character limit in the description field, but I can't seem to find that information in the specs for 2003 versions. Let me know if you run into any issues.

Nancy


Certified Payroll & AIA type billing from QB data

[Guest]

Re: Incorporating contract language in estimate fo

I used the item list to create items that I have to add to a contract. I have 8 different clauses, they are called Note 1, Note 2, etc.
It works well, but doesn't show up on the invoice, because they don't cost anything. So I haven't quite figured out that battle yet.

[Guest]

Re: Incorporating contract language in estimate fo

Stacey,
Add an arbitrary amount, like $2.00 make a joke out of it. Like that's what I charge for typing that clause.
Why would you want to print out the clauses on every invoice anyway. It only needs to show up on the proposal or change order. I wouldn't want all that verbage on the invoice anyway.
Nancy, I have'nt tried to paste a contract into 1 item. I think I would do what Stacey does and break it up into clauses that I could put in or not depending on relevance.
--Fred

[Guest]

Re: Incorporating contract language in estimate fo

The only information I want to include on an invoice is warranty information. I think it would be nice for the owner to have that.

[Guest]

Re: Incorporating contract language in estimate fo

Stacey & Fred
Be sure to check your preferences for Jobs & Estimates and be sure that the box for Don't print items that have zero amounts is NOT CHECKED, that way those clauses that have a 0 value will show on your forms. Just remember that this method has the potential of generating multipage invoices.

Nancy


Certified Payroll & AIA type billing from QB data

[Guest]

Re: Incorporating contract language in estimate fo

Nancy,
I think if you go to the create an invoice buttom from the estimate screen you get the option of doing different percentages for different items. Only the items actually billed from will show up on the invoice. The proposal/estimate may be long, but each invoice only shows the items that were billed. Also at the invoice level, I can change discriptions without altering the items or totals in the estimate--I'm sure you know this, but I thought others might like the info. Thanks for all your help.
Fred

[Guest]

Re: Incorporating contract language in estimate fo

Nancy,
Used the item description field to paste my word generated change order to. It worked great, except the format got messed up and I had to realign some columes. Also for some reason I had an extra blank page that only showed the total at the bottom. At least I got it down to one form instead of a change order and an estimate.
Fred

[Guest]

Re: Incorporating contract language in estimate fo

Fred
If you go to the end of the pasted in Word info and keep pressing the CTRL & the delete key you should be able to get rid of those blank spaces.

Congratulations on your success!
Nancy


Certified Payroll & AIA type billing from QB data