Title when converting from Estimate to Invoice

[Electrician]

I have switch to using Square for the estimating and invoice of my electrical contracting business.  The default title of my estimates is "Estimate" and of my invoices is "Invoice".  

That works fine when opening an estimate as an estimate or an invoice as an invoice.  But what I found is that if I convert an estimate to an invoice (which I will be doing most of the time) it keeps the title as "Estimate". which is clearly wrong.  

What can I do to fix this?

[Electrician]

Yes, I’ve been speaking about the title from the beginning. But then I realized that the message is also doing the same thing.

There is a default title and message for estimates.

There’s also a default title and message for invoices.

That makes perfect sense, right? 

so why when you convert an estimate to an invoice does it not switch over to the invoices default title and message? That’s the way every other estimating/invoicing program works.

As for the message, why would you want to give that same information when you are sending an invoice after the work is done?  It doesn’t apply any longer.  The message on the invoice is where you would generally thank the customer for the business.  

That’s the entire reason why Square gives you the ability to set a different message for invoices and estimates.  

So apparently the only way to work around this bug is for me not to convert estimates to invoices. Instead I have to start a new invoice and fill in all the information a second time.

[Ravenssong69]

What I can say to help with the confusion, is there are separate areas in the App and on the dashboard and the client has on their view several areas the help identify what they are looking at (estimate vs. invoice) even the number changes as you can see from the screen grabs (64 vs 165). 

[Electrician]

I’m not sure what you mean.

Square sets the default title for estimates to the word “estimate“.

Square sets the default title for invoices to the word “invoice“.

When you open an invoice it is titled invoice. When you open an estimate it is titled estimate. That will make sense.

What doesn’t make sense is when you convert an estimate to an invoice and it becomes an invoice, it still says estimate on the title and it still has the message set for the estimate. 

Any way that you look at it, it is dead wrong. It’s not an estimate and it shouldn’t be titled that way. And it should have the message for an invoice, since it is an invoice.  That’s the whole point of having the option to set default titles and messages for both estimates and invoices.  Why have the ability to set a title and message for an invoice if it’s going to carry over the estimate title and message when you convert it?

I guess I’m just in bizarro world.

[Ravenssong69]

You can change that in options to whatever you choose or you can leave it blank. Leaving it blank by clearing it out would be my suggestion in your situation. 

You can always edit both at any time. Square puts you in the drive seat. As I stated I have to comply with certain laws here you may not have to. That is part of the reason for my message. Like wise at the bottom of the Invoice I have created a custom message thank you. Which is also an option for you. 

I would like to make a suggestion for you, Square Customer Service is closed for the weekend now, but it seems like you could use a guided walk through of the platform. We Supersellers are just like you. We are fellow small business owners who have been on the platform for a long time and are very knowledgeable about Square in one or more or all of Squares products. I personally have been a Square seller for 5 years and a Superseller for 2, with a great deal of knowledge in appointments, POS, invoices, and contracts. But at this time I think it would be best if you give Customer Care a call and have them give you a detailed walk through of how to use Invoicing and all of its ins and outs. 

Here at the Superseller forums we donate our time to help our fellow Sellers grow, sometimes we have to pass Sellers on to those who are better equipped with tech that can see your screen and help guide you on your screen and other things. 

[Electrician]

Never mind, I’m done with Square.

[Minion]

Hey @Electrician 

I'm just catching back up myself.  I think that we are all honestly on the same page but maybe we have a setting turned off, or removed that you don't.

Like I mentioned before, are you able to share a screenshot of a test Estimate, and then a screenshot once you convert it to an Invoice so that we can see what it is you are looking at that may differ from when we try to create one based on our settings? 

Is this the customer copy that it shows on, your copy that it shows on or both?

I just tried to send another test one, and then i manually clicked "convert to invoice", and on my copies that I see  everything converts over to invoice setting as it should except the message.  Which i never paid attention to until you noticed it,  because I rarely use estimates.  But the message section  on my estimates say " we look forward to working with you", on my invoices say "thank you for your business" which i believe are the default.  And yes I do see that my message section when converting it, DOES NOT convert over to the invoice message setting as it should, so that is a bug, which maybe it was never brought up?  I'm not sure, but I am aware of that now and will pass that along ASAP.

If you do, and are able to find some time and mind sharing your screens here of the title area, that would be very helpful. 

[Electrician]

The Title and Message are grouped together and function the same, including this bug.

I can't take screenshots right now, but I assure you that the screenshots would show you exactly what I have been describing. 

If you can see how the estimate message is carried over when converting from estimate to invoice, then you should see how the title is also carried over.  It does NOT switch to the title that you have set for invoices (the same way as how it didn't switch to the message that you have set for invoices).  

[Minion]

---

@Electrician wrote:

The Title and Message are grouped together and function the same, including this bug.

I can't take screenshots right now, but I assure you that the screenshots would show you exactly what I have been describing. 

If you can see how the estimate message is carried over when converting from estimate to invoice, then you should see how the title is also carried over.  It does NOT switch to the title that you have set for invoices (the same way as how it didn't switch to the message that you have set for invoices).  

---

Okay then that right there now makes sense.  Because I do not have default titles on my invoices or estimates and leave them blank (I personally use customers VIN in the Title) to keep myself more organized, I wasn't seeing what you were seeing.

So since you are using a default title on estimates, labeled "estimates", yes that title is being carried over to the invoice.  So for example, if you were to put in Electrical Estimate 101 as the default estimate title, that title would carry over to the invoice.  Which is why I suggested to leave it blank, (since it's optional) and fill in your own or simply leave it blank as it will still say estimate or Invoice on the customers copy that they view, so when you convert it to an invoice, it wont' say "Estimate" in the title. 

The message section is definitely a bug, which like I said, no one may nave ever noticed, so Thank you for bringing it up. 

In the meantime though, I'll pass this thread along to someone higher up, who can have the Invoice Team take a look into it, and get the issues resolved, and possibly follow up with you if they have any more questions. 

[Electrician]

It came with the words "Estimate" and "Invoice" as the default titles in the settings.  I left those words there, I never touched them.  So it is definitely a bug that the word "Estimate" is carried over to the invoice when converted.  The same exact bug as with the message.  Why have the option to set an invoice title if it is going to use the estimate title?  

Now you said something that is making me wonder.  If I delete the words completely from the default title in the settings for both estimates and invoices, you say that it will enter the words "estimate" and "Invoice" in them?  And that it will convert to the title "invoice" when converting from estimate to invoice?

If that is true, it seems very odd.  It would also cure my problem, but it would be a bandaid.  There would still be a bug for the people that want a default Invoice title set.  Maybe someone wants the invoice to be titled "Your work is complete, now pay me!".  It wouldn't show that, it would show the title from the estimate.

[Electrician]

This is the best I could do at the moment, it's a screenshot of an invoice that was converted from an estimate.  This is taken from an email, but it is the same when you click on the link to see it on the website or when you make a PDF invoice.  The title and message are wrong.

This is an INVOICE, it should use the title and message set for invoices.  it should NOT say Estimate in the title nor should it have the message that is set for only the estimate.  The job is done, I want to give them a different message, and Square knows that which is why they give you an option to set a different title and message for invoices and estimates.

[Minion]

Just wanted to follow up with you @Electrician from the invoice team quoted below

"At this time auto converting an estimate to invoice, the invoice will inherit the fields from the estimate including estimate/ invoice title and message. the seller can remove “Estimate” or “Invoice” from these fields as the email/ pay page will clearly display New Estimate or New Invoice at the very top."

So I would personally remove and leave blank the default title in estimate as I mentioned before, but the message part will still stick. Sorry its not better news, but thanks for bringing it to attention. 

[Electrician]

The funny thing is that they WANT us to convert estimates to invoices.  That is how it is supposed to work.  So much so that they want us to pay more money in order to have estimates automatically converted to invoices.  Yet they admit that it does not function correctly, and won't be fixing it.  

I've come to expect this, and it's why I will be finding another Estimating/Invoicing suite as well as taking my CC processing somewhere else. The shame of it is that I really like Square's Estimating and Invoicing.  It's just the multiple blaring small (and easily fixable) issues that they ignore.  How can they not be ashamed of themselves for having 40+ people over many years ask for a link to the PDF invoice in their customer's email?  It's disgusting.

[JJ_]

Hey there @Electrician 👋

This sounds like a feature request that makes a lot of sense. I will be making sure to pass this to our product team for visibility.  In regards to PDF links that is currently available on the email sent when the invoice is submitted and after the invoice is paid the Seller is able to visit the original email that had the link or you may share it from the dashboard.

[Electrician]

Why should we have to deal with these workarounds?  I think one of the problems is that people continually make excuses for the developers not doing what they should, and come up with workaround band-aids and leave it at that.