IDEA: Improved Edit Capability for Customer Statements (2 Merged Votes)
So....submitting an idea for you to consider, like or build upon.
I would like to see the editing capabilities of the Statement to be similar to that of the Invoice and Credit statements.
Quicken uses a "forms designer" to edit and customize a business invoice form. See image 1. While a bit cumbersome to use, it produces okay results with a decent amount of configuration options. Customer Statements, on the other hand, have very primitive editing capabilities. See image 2.
The customer statement should be capable, through editing, of having the same look and feel as the customer invoice. I am not able to do that today with my customer statements. And, IMO, they don't look professional.
Like the forms designer for Invoices, I should be able to create and edit Statements using these features:
- Resize and move text boxes around the form
- Set typeface and font
- Resize and move logo and company address boxes
- Add an account summary
- Include and exclude text boxes (common feature)
- Rename text box headings (common feature)
Basically, for Statements, I would like to see very similar editing features and "ways of working" found in the Invoice editor.
Given there are two editors, one for Credit and Invoices and one for Statements, I would suggest that a solution could be to integrate the Statement default form into the more advanced Invoice editor. See image 4.
That is, consolidate inconsistent editing approaches to common and related business forms and get rid of what looks to be a orphaned or legacy Statement editing functionality for one that is a bit more capable.
Aside from "the how", please consider the above improvements to Statement editing capability.
Regards,
Scott
QW2018R5.20
Image 1
Image 2
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Image 4
Comments
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QW 2018 R2.3 HBR here...
I am trying to edit a customer statement.
When I go into the "Print Statement" menu, and I select edit "Statement Default", Quicken gives me some very basic edit options in a dialogue box. Using this edit dialogue box, I find my customer statement does not position the logo correctly in
relation to my company address, does not allow resizing of the logo,
does not allow font size and type choices and the shading on the tables
is a much lighter gray than found in my Invoice default form.
I go into the forms designer, there is no option to open the Statement Default form and make those edits there. I want my statements look and feel like my invoices, in terms of layout (logo size, company address, font choices and shading color). And unfortunately, I cannot create a new form, name it Statement, as there is no option to include the "aging" layout item.
How do I edit the Statement form in the Forms Designer? It would seem like I should be able to do that.
Regards,
Scott1 -
Sorry, Statements are more or less WYSIWYG.
The statement format can be somewhat edited not by going into the Forms Designer, but by doing this:
Select Print Statements.
In the popup click the black triangle next to Layout: [...] v at the top
Select <Edit>
Either edit the existing Default statement or create a new one under a different name, e.g., Custom Statement
In the Edit Layout dialog you can select which logo to choose and where to place it: Left, CenterIf the logo doesn't appear to fit, try creating a different, perhaps smaller logo and use it instead.
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Thanks UKR for the suggestions. I was messing around with these edit features but to no avail.
I think this Statements form needs to be incorporated into the forms designer and not have a stand-alone dialogue. Its very messy as it stands and looks very odd and unprofessional if I were to send a client both the current invoice and a statement together.
Some behaviors observed....
When placing the company logo, I tried to vary the size, all the way down to 100 x 75 pixels, but it seems that Quicken scales whatever logo size you give it to a fixed size. The size that Quicken uses is much too large for the form. Looks very odd.
When placing both the logo and company name and address, the logo is positioned on the top left (if so chosen in the print options dialogue) and the company name is position to the right of the logo. Another oddity of formatting. The positions of the logo and company name are swapped if the logo is chosen to be centered in the print options dialogue.
Whatever the case, I hope that Quicken can put this on the schedule to incorporate Statements into the Forms Designer.
Regards,
Scott0 -
I totally agree with what you've said about editing capabilities for customer statements. I am using QH&B 2016 and have unchecked the "print company address" box in the statement editor because my logo has the address incorporated already.
My aggravation is that I am only able to upload .BMP files for logo files the statement form and it shows up VERY small when printed. I cannot find a way to enlarge it. In the invoice form editor, I am able to resize the logo to make it look reasonably good. I don't get why you can't in the statement form editor!
I see you have a .PNG file in your picture. I was hoping to try that type of file to see if the size/quality would be any better, but I don't have that file type option in the invoice or statement form editors. Is that because my QH&B is 2016?
I've been using QH&B since 2006 and you'd think that by now Developers would have done some simple improvements in these areas so that Quicken users (like you and me) can put out professional accounting documents to our own clients!0 -
I totally agree with what you've said about editing capabilities for customer statements. I am using QH&B 2016 and have unchecked the "print company address" box in the statement editor because my logo has the address incorporated already.
My aggravation is that I am only able to upload .BMP files for logo files the statement form and it shows up VERY small when printed. I cannot find a way to enlarge it. In the invoice form editor, I am able to resize the logo to make it look reasonably good. I don't get why you can't in the statement form editor!
I see you have a .PNG file in your picture. I was hoping to try that type of file to see if the size/quality would be any better, but I don't have that file type option in the invoice or statement form editors. Is that because my QH&B is 2016?
I've been using QH&B since 2006 and you'd think that by now Developers would have done some simple improvements in these areas so that Quicken users (like you and me) can put out professional accounting documents to our own clients!I suspect very much that your Q 2016 can only handle BMP files.
After upgrading to Q 2018 HB&RPM I was surprised to see enhancements to the Customer Invoice layout and customization process, including different file types for logos.For as long as you're on Q 2016 I recommend you remove the company address from the logo, to keep the logo small and use the Company address fields in both invoice and statements instead.
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10-4... will doI totally agree with what you've said about editing capabilities for customer statements. I am using QH&B 2016 and have unchecked the "print company address" box in the statement editor because my logo has the address incorporated already.
My aggravation is that I am only able to upload .BMP files for logo files the statement form and it shows up VERY small when printed. I cannot find a way to enlarge it. In the invoice form editor, I am able to resize the logo to make it look reasonably good. I don't get why you can't in the statement form editor!
I see you have a .PNG file in your picture. I was hoping to try that type of file to see if the size/quality would be any better, but I don't have that file type option in the invoice or statement form editors. Is that because my QH&B is 2016?
I've been using QH&B since 2006 and you'd think that by now Developers would have done some simple improvements in these areas so that Quicken users (like you and me) can put out professional accounting documents to our own clients!0 -
I think UKR is correct. After upgrading to QW2018, I happened to notice that my logo was in fact a BMP file. I since changed that to a PNG file.I totally agree with what you've said about editing capabilities for customer statements. I am using QH&B 2016 and have unchecked the "print company address" box in the statement editor because my logo has the address incorporated already.
My aggravation is that I am only able to upload .BMP files for logo files the statement form and it shows up VERY small when printed. I cannot find a way to enlarge it. In the invoice form editor, I am able to resize the logo to make it look reasonably good. I don't get why you can't in the statement form editor!
I see you have a .PNG file in your picture. I was hoping to try that type of file to see if the size/quality would be any better, but I don't have that file type option in the invoice or statement form editors. Is that because my QH&B is 2016?
I've been using QH&B since 2006 and you'd think that by now Developers would have done some simple improvements in these areas so that Quicken users (like you and me) can put out professional accounting documents to our own clients!
I don't have my logo and address as a single image; they are separate. I think if you separate the logo and address as UKR suggests, you may still feel the frustration of positioning logo and address boxes to have that professional look....Have a try : ).
The ability to size and move these two items (logo and address) on the Statement is probably my biggest beef.
Scott
2018QW HBR r6.110 -
Thanks for your replies...I totally agree with what you've said about editing capabilities for customer statements. I am using QH&B 2016 and have unchecked the "print company address" box in the statement editor because my logo has the address incorporated already.
My aggravation is that I am only able to upload .BMP files for logo files the statement form and it shows up VERY small when printed. I cannot find a way to enlarge it. In the invoice form editor, I am able to resize the logo to make it look reasonably good. I don't get why you can't in the statement form editor!
I see you have a .PNG file in your picture. I was hoping to try that type of file to see if the size/quality would be any better, but I don't have that file type option in the invoice or statement form editors. Is that because my QH&B is 2016?
I've been using QH&B since 2006 and you'd think that by now Developers would have done some simple improvements in these areas so that Quicken users (like you and me) can put out professional accounting documents to our own clients!
I decided to eliminate the logo and just have the business name and address appear as text. My logo is just too small and looks odd. I'll just hope a future improvement in the software will occur (OK Quicken Developers?)0 -
I keep the books for my husband's side gig, and it drives us bonkers that we can't customize the statements to match the style/format of the invoices. It looks profoundly unprofessional.I love the idea of adding "Statement" as a layout type that you can choose in the Create New Layout dialog box and then customize it in the same ways you can customize an invoice, estimate or credit. I wish I could vote this up a thousand times!MicheleQW2019 HBR R18.150
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Thanks for the vote Michele. Agree that it looks bad. I hope that others can see the same usefulness of having a more capable and integrated editor for Statements.I went to "edit statement" to take another crack at making it work. Nope. I'll stand by my original idea for improvement! In fact, I noted that the JPG and TIFF files types are not shown in the "browse file dialog" even though they are indicated as acceptable formats. Perhaps another improvement or issue that can be sorted out if this improved editor can be implemented.Quicken Product is welcome to reach out if they want to further promote the idea. Available to illustrate the issues!Scott2019 QW HBR0
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If you haven't voted for the Idea post, please do not forget to do so. Every vote counts. Locate the big blue box near the top of this webpage (or page 1 for long discussions) and click the "Up" triangle under the voting count. Wait a moment for the vote count to be registered and updated before you continue.
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I agree. This is a needed functionality. Editing Invoice and Estimates forms is awkward but doable. We need at least this capability for Statments. I voted for this suggestion. We need to get more people to vote.0
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As a newer user, I also cannot understand how to add my company Name , address and logo to the statements I print. I would also like to have each invoice show the PO number entered for each invoice, but I cannot see how to do that.
Hopefully someone can help with this in the latest online version.0 -
Some customization capability is available in the Customer Statement form. It's not the complete set of customization tools available to other business forms, but there is some:livedb said:As a newer user, I also cannot understand how to add my company Name , address and logo to the statements I print. I would also like to have each invoice show the PO number entered for each invoice, but I cannot see how to do that.
Hopefully someone can help with this in the latest online version.
Bringing up the Print Customer Statement dialog, click on the "▼" button in the Layout box. Select "<Edit>" from the popup. Click to select "Statement Default", then click "Edit" (or select "<New>" to create a new form, giving it a new name). The Edit Layout dialog shows what you can change, including Company Address and Logo and some other fields.However, there's no way to add the PO Number to the limited information shown on the statements. That's something for the programmers still to consider.(I'm using Quicken R 43.32, US)
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