How to Customize Sales Forms in QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online offers businesses a variety of tools to personalize their sales forms—including invoices, estimates, sales receipts, and purchase orders. Customizing your forms allows you to present a professional image, track important information, and streamline communication with clients.

In this guide, we’ll cover custom fields, custom form styles, subscription limits, and step-by-step instructions to create your own tailored forms.

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1️⃣ Accessing Form Customization

To start customizing your forms:

1. Click the Gear icon in the top-right corner of QuickBooks Online.

2. Choose Custom Fields to add unique fields to your forms or Custom Form Styles to design templates.

There are two main customization options:

• Custom Fields: Add extra fields to your sales forms or purchase orders for tracking unique information.

• Custom Form Styles: Create personalized templates for invoices, sales receipts, and estimates, adjusting design, content, and email appearance.

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2️⃣ Understanding Custom Fields

Custom fields allow you to track important, client-specific information on your forms, such as:

• Customer purchase order numbers

• Project or job IDs

• Notes or instructions

Key Points About Custom Fields

• When you first open the Custom Fields tool, the list is usually empty for new clients.

• If you convert from QuickBooks Desktop, some fields may already appear.

• Each subscription level determines how many fields you can create.

Subscription Level	Sales Forms	Purchase Orders
Simple Start	Not available	Not available
Essentials	Up to 3	Not available
Plus	Up to 3 (shared)	Up to 3 (shared)
Advanced	Up to 12 active fields per form type	Up to 12 active fields per form type

ProAdvisor Tip: Plan which fields are essential to keep your forms organized and avoid clutter.

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3️⃣ Custom Form Styles

Custom form styles give you complete control over how your forms look and feel, including colors, fonts, columns, and how the form appears in emails.

Key Features:

• Modify the design: colors, fonts, and logos

• Adjust content: which items, columns, and headers are displayed

• Customize emails: control how forms appear when sent to customers

• Edit previously created templates or the standard template (the default template cannot be renamed)

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4️⃣ Step-by-Step: Creating a Custom Invoice Template

Here’s how to design a personalized invoice:

1. Click the Gear icon → Custom Form Styles

2. From the New Style dropdown, select Invoice

3. Use the Design tab to:

   • Change colors (e.g., try orange)

   • Update fonts (e.g., select Courier)

4. Use the Content tab to adjust columns, items, and headers

5. Use the Emails tab to set how the form looks in customer emails

6. Click Done to save your new template

7. Open your customized form to review your changes

5️⃣ Best Practices for Customizing Sales Forms

• Keep it simple: Avoid clutter by only adding necessary fields.

• Maintain brand consistency: Use your company colors, fonts, and logos.

• Test templates: Preview your forms before sending them to clients.

• Maximize subscription benefits: Advanced subscriptions allow up to 12 fields per form type, making them ideal for complex businesses.

ProAdvisor Tip: Encourage clients to customize forms for specific industries or projects, such as adding a job number field for service-based businesses or purchase order numbers for retail operations.

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