How to Create & Send QuickBooks Online Sales Receipts

In this tutorial, we’re going to cover what a QuickBooks sales receipt is, as well as how to create and send a QuickBooks Online sales receipt. Sales receipts allow you to record the sale of products and services to customers. You can complete and send a sales receipt in four easy steps. Let’s begin.

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What a QuickBooks Sales Receipt Is

A sales receipt is a document that provides customers with a detailed description of the products or services that they have purchased from you. If you receive a payment from a customer at the time of sale, then you would create sales receipt in QuickBooks to record both the sale and payment.

When a sales receipt is created in QuickBooks, the accounts and financial statements are affected as follows:

Account Affected	Impact on Account	Financial Statement
Checking account	Increase	Balance Sheet
Income (Sales)	Increase	Profit & Loss

Below you will find a sample of a completed QuickBooks Online (QBO) sales receipt for our fictitious company, Paul’s Plumbing:

Importance of Creating a QuickBooks Online Sales Receipt

By creating a QuickBooks Online sales receipt, you can stay on top of the income generated from the sale of products and services. Instead of using snail mail, you can email sales receipts to your customers directly from QuickBooks. Plus, your financial statements are updated in real-time to reflect the change in your income and bank account balances.

How to Create a Sales Receipt in QuickBooks Online

There are four easy steps to create a sales receipt in QuickBooks. After logging into your QBO account, navigate to the Customer Center and create a sales receipt. You will select a customer and include all of the details of the sale that was made. Once you have completed the form, you can give your customer a paper copy or email the sales receipt directly from QuickBooks.

The four steps to create a sales receipt in QuickBooks Online are:

1. Navigate to the Create Sales Receipt Menu

From the Home page, below the “Customers” column, select “Sales Receipt” as indicated below:

2. Create the Sales Receipt

The sales receipt template should display on your screen. There are 12 fields that need to be completed. The information you will need to provide consists of the customer’s contact information, like email address and billing address. There is a field to enter the payment method and a field to indicate the bank account you will deposit the funds to.

The fields that need to be completed for a sales receipts are as follows:

A brief description of how to complete each field is below:

1. Customer name: Select the customer’s name from the drop-down list. Tip: If you have not set up the customer information yet, you can do so by clicking on the drop-down arrow, scrolling up to the top of the list, and selecting “Add New.” A new window will open up that will allow you to enter your customer’s information.
2. Customer email address: The email address will automatically populate from the customer profile. If you did not enter the email address in the customer profile, then this field will be blank. Tip: You can enter the email address directly in this field and it will automatically update the customer profile.
3. Billing address: The billing address will automatically populate from the customer profile. If you did not enter the billing address in the customer profile, this field will be blank. Tip: You can enter the billing address directly in this field but it will not automatically update the customer profile. You will have to update the customer profile.
4. Sales receipt date: Enter the date of the sale in this field. Tip: QuickBooks will typically default to today’s date. If you are creating the sales receipt sometime after the date that you made the sale, then you will need to change this date.
5. Payment method: Select the payment method from the drop-down list. The options are check, cash, or credit card. If you have an Intuit payments account, select credit card for the payment method, and enter your customer’s credit card information. Once you save the sales receipt, QuickBooks will process the credit card payment.
6. Reference no.: If the customer paid by check, enter the check number in this field. If not, you can enter any information here that will help you reference the payment later on.
7. Deposit to: From the drop-down, select the bank account that you will deposit this payment into.
8. Product/Service: Select each product or service from the drop-down list. Tip: If you have not set up the products and services information yet, you can do so by clicking on the drop-down arrow, scrolling up to the top of the list, and selecting “Add New.” A new window will open up that will allow you to enter your product or service information.
9. Description: This field will auto-populate based on the product or service you selected in step 8. However, you can customize this description by typing directly in this field. Tip: Any custom description that you enter on this sales receipt will not update the description for the product and service. You will need to update this information in the products and services list.
10. Qty: If applicable, enter the quantity for each product or service in this field.
11. Rate: This field will auto-populate based on the rate you set up for the product or service selected. If you did not set up a rate, then you can enter it directly on this form. Tip: The rate entered here will not update the rate for the product or service. To make this change permanent, you will need to update the products and services list.
12. Amount: QuickBooks will automatically multiply the quantity and the rate columns to calculate the amount.

3. Preview the Sales Receipt

Once you have completed all of the necessary fields, you can do a print preview to see what the sales receipt will look like. Just click the “Print or Preview” button at the bottom of the screen. If you need to make changes, you can do so before sending the sales receipt to the customer.

Below is a sample sales receipt for our fictitious company, Paul’s Plumbing:

4. Send QuickBooks Sales Receipt to Your Customer

After you are satisfied with the sales receipt, you can either print it out and mail it to your customer, or you can email it directly from QuickBooks. When you email sales receipts from QuickBooks, your customer will receive an email with a PDF copy of the sales receipt as an attachment.

To email the sales receipt directly from QuickBooks, you will click on the drop-down arrow to the right of the “Save and close” button, select “Save,” and send as indicated below:

In the next screen, you will see a preview of the text that will appear in the body of the email as indicated below:

Below is a brief description of what to include in each field:

1. Email: This field will auto-populate with the email address that is saved in the customer profile. If you need to edit this field, you can do so here.
2. Subject: This field will include a sales receipt number assigned by QuickBooks and your company name. You can edit this information directly on this screen.
3. Body: This is the information that will appear in the body of the email that your customer receives. You can edit this information directly on this screen.

Once you have made your changes, select the “Save to send queue and close” button as indicated below:

Tip: Check your email delivery settings before sending emails to your customers. We covered this in the how to set up sales form content tutorial.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About How to Create a Sales Receipt in QuickBooks Online

We have included the most frequently asked questions about how to create a QuickBooks sales receipt in this section. If you don’t see your question, head over to the Fit Small Business forum and post your question there. One of our industry experts will answer your question.

The most frequently asked questions about how to create a sales receipt in QuickBooks Online are:

How do sales receipts work in QuickBooks?

When you sell goods or services to a customer, you can create a sales receipt to record sales in QuickBooks. Head over to the Customer center and select create sales receipt. Select the customer and enter all of the details of the sale. You can print the sales receipt or email it directly from QuickBooks.

How do I print a receipt in QuickBooks Online?

After completing the QuickBooks sales receipt template, you can print the receipt by clicking on the “Print or Preview” button located at the bottom of the screen.

You also have the option of emailing sales receipts to your customers. Just select the “Save and send” button and follow the on-screen instructions to email the sales receipt.

What’s the difference between a QuickBooks sales receipt & an invoice?

The primary difference between a QuickBooks sales receipt and an invoice is when payment is received from a customer. A QuickBooks sales receipt template should be completed if payment is made immediately. However, if you offer payment terms to customers, you would complete an invoice that includes a payment due date.

Bottom Line

Now that you know how to create a QuickBooks sales receipt template and email it to your customers, that wraps up the lesson on how to create and send sales receipts in QuickBooks Online. In our next tutorial, we will show you how to write and print checks, when to write a check, and the impact this will have on your financial statements.