QuickBooks Asia

How to import an invoice template from one company file to the other company file?

Sometime as a business owner or an Accountant, you are requiring managing more than one company files within a business group. In some cases, the layout of the templates such as Invoice, Credit Note, Statement of Account and Purchase Order form are similar within this group of companies. So to cut down the time spend in creating templates, usually, we create a “Master” template in one main company file; then, duplicate it for the rest of the company files that we manage.

After you have created a “Master” template, you can export this template and import it into the other company file.

To export a template, go to the List menu and select Templates List. In the Template List window, select the template that you like to export, and click the Templates button that located below the window and select Export (Template files are having an extension of *.DES).

To import the template, go to the List menu and select Templates List. In the Template List window, click the Templates button and select Import. Browse to your exported template location and select your template that to be import.

If you did add some custom field in your original “Master” template, and if these fields are not supposed to bring over to the new company file, you may have to remove it before exporting. In this case, usually, from the original company file, I duplicate this template and edit it before exporting. To duplicate a template, just select the template that you want, click the Templates button, and select Duplicate.

Microsoft Excel only allows 256 columns in a worksheet

When export QuickBooks Profit and Loss by Class report to Excel, a warning message:

Excel allows 256 columns in a worksheet.
This report has 3445 columns (5 row title columns + 3440 data columns)
Use "Customise" to change the number of columns in this report.

This was neither an error nor bugs in QuickBooks. This was a limitation in Microsoft Excel, as the warning message stated; Excel allows only 256 columns in a worksheet.

In this case, this user has more than 3000 data columns which was far beyond Excel can take. To resolve it, you may customise your report to reduce the number of Class to be displayed.