Long Disclaimers on QuickBooks Forms

Q We have several different situations when we need to include a disclaimer when we sell specific products, or offer specific discounts. How is the best way to handle this in QuickBooks?

A You have three different alternatives for addressing this issue.

1. Item Level: If the additional information needs to be included when a specific product is sold, that information can be included in the description, or create a new item with a zero sales cost for the purposes of adding the information to the invoice. The advantage of the later, is that you can place the item with the disclaimer where you would like: right after the item it relates to, or at the bottom after all the products, for example.

2. Template Level: If this disclaimer is long and you want to have control over the placement (at the bottom for example) and the font size (smaller font rather than in the same font and same section as the item that was sold) then the long text disclaimer on the template may be the best solution. Choose Lists > Templates > Edit the template. The text can be entered and then the size and placement can be adjusted using the layout designer. If the long text disclaimer has already been used for another purpose or there are several disclaimers you need to do, right click on the form in the layout designer and add a text box for the information and place it where appropriate. The disadvantage to this approach, is that if it does not need to be included every time, the template will need to be changed as the transactions are entered.

3. Outside of QuickBooks: Depending on what needs to be included, it might make more sense to print the disclaimer on the back of the form, or as an additional sheet to be included when the form is provided to the customer. It would be possible to use one of the options above to state something along the lines of "see additional disclaimer information on the back of this form" to include reference to the information without having it included on the face of the form.

The decision will really depend on what makes the most sense for the business.