This example shows how to set up QuickBooks and FormCalc for the task described above. If you need more basic information about the setup steps, please see the FormCalc Tutorial.

Overview

Lawson & Smith, P.C., is a CPA firm with two partners and several employees. They charge different rates for client services provided by the partners and by various employees, and they want their invoices to show separate totals for hours billed at those different rates.

This example illustrates an invoice for services rendered to a client by John Lawson, one of the partners, and Jerry Williams, a Certified QuickBooks Advisor who does QuickBooks installation, setup, and support for the firm's clients. FormCalc provides separate totals on the invoice for hours billed for services rendered by John and by Jerry.

QuickBooks Setup

Add two Items to use as FormCalc triggers. Make both of them Service-type Items, and name them Subtotal and TotalHrs, respectively, as illustrated by the screen shots below.

Notes:

• The FormCalc Item Postings account assigned to these Items is an Equity account and is discussed in the FormCalc Tutorial.

For reference, here are some of the column headings from the QuickBooks invoice this example will work with, so you can see the column order:

FormCalc Setup

Enter the two QuickBooks trigger Items on the Trigger Items tab.

Choose a Layout tab to use, then add an Action called "Add up hours" which totals the Quantity (Qty) column of the QuickBooks form.

Here's how the Edit Action window might look, given the QuickBooks form column headings shown above. Note that the results destination is the Description column, and that "billable hours =" will be added to the Description column to help describe the results.

Associate both trigger Items with this Action.

When you're done, the Layout tab should look something like this:

Processing the QuickBooks Form

If the QuickBooks form is filled out like this before you invoke FormCalc:

Then it should look like this when FormCalc has finished processing the form (red was added to for emphasis):

Notice that the total (the TotalHrs line) is not at the bottom of the form--there's more following it. From FormCalc's perspective, totals and subtotals are really the same thing, and they can appear anywhere in the form's detail area.

 

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