QuickBooks 2011: The Missing Manual

Other Types of Items

If a line on a sales form isn’t a service or a product, read this section to figure out the type of item you need.

Other Charge

The Other Charge item is aptly named because you use it for any charge that isn’t quite a service or a product, like shipping charges, finance charges, or bounced check charges. Other Charge items can be percentages or fixed amounts. For example, you can set up shipping charges as the actual cost of shipping, or estimate shipping as a percentage of the product cost.

If a customer holds back a percentage of your charges until you complete the job satisfactorily, create an Other Charge item for the retainer (the portion of your invoice that the customer doesn’t pay initially). Then, when you create the invoice, enter a negative percentage so QuickBooks deducts the retainer from the invoice total. When your customer approves the job, create another invoice, this time using another Other Charge item, called Retention, to charge the customer for the amount she withheld.

Tip

Progress invoices (Comparing Estimates to Actuals) are another way to invoice customers for a portion of a job. They’re ideal if you invoice the customer based on the percentage of the job you’ve completed or on the parts of the job that are complete.

For Other Charge items, the checkbox for hiding or showing cost fields is labeled “This item is used in assemblies or is a reimbursable charge”. Turn on this checkbox when you want to set the Cost field to what you pay and set ...