Many QuickBooks users don't know that you can email many items directly from QuickBooks, particularly statements and invoices. Emailing statements and invoices can save a lot of time and money and can also reduce your accounts receivable.
First, I will tell you how to inform QuickBooks that you would like to email an invoice. When you create an invoice there are two boxes that can be checked called "To be printed" and "To be e-mailed." We don't like to print an invoice unless absolutely necessary (SLC Bookkeeping saving the world one sheet of paper at a time...bunch of hippies). The email option is the "greener" option that we lean towards. Select it to save a tree and save some time.
Once the invoice is selected to be emailed it goes into the queue to be emailed. You can then create other invoices to be emailed and then send them all at once. Invoices can be emailed by going to File/Send Forms. You can then select all, some or none of the invoices to be emailed. You can also edit the email message by selecting the message and clicking on Edit email.
Statements can be sent just like invoices. On the home page of QuickBooks click on statements; this will launch a new window. Here you can select various statement options by date, open transactions, etc. You can also select single customers, multiple customers etc. All statements can be previewed before being emailed to ensure accuracy (I always review the statement before sending them). Once the statements are ready to be sent you simply click email which launches a window similar to the one where you send invoices from. Here again you can select all, some or none to be sent and also edit the email message to give them more of a personal touch.
The last thing I will touch on is how to edit the standard message that QuickBooks has for each type of form or transaction that you are sending. Go to Edit/Preferences and select Send Forms. Now select the Company Preferences tab. The first drop down box allows you to select the type of transaction you want to change the default message for. The rest is pretty self explanatory. By changing the default message you save lots of time by only having to personalize each message a little bit when you feel it is necessary.
Sending invoices, statements and other forms directly from QuickBooks not only boosts efficiency, but will also save your business tremendous amounts of time and money. If you have any further questions on this QuickBooks topic or any other issue you are having feel free to drop me an email.
