It is important to have the facility to create your own sales template in QuickBooks Online. We have been successful with that in the past, all but the population of the customer VAT number.

The customer VAT number entered into QuickBooks Online (in South Africa) consists only of 10 numbers, but for some unknown reason that field returns the following when populated: “VAT registration number 1234567890”. If this label was set by default by the programmers, then it was set in stupidity, because the wording does not even refer to whose VAT registration number it is, i.e. belonging to the company or to the customer. Why not leave the label to populate only the numbers? If there was a need for additional text, then an additional text box could have been created on the other sample templates where the customer’s VAT number was suppose to be printed.

The phasing out of the custom sales templates is very disappointing and in my opinion a degrading of the product. The current existing sales templates available in QuickBooks Online just do not meet any of my client’s standards and for any small business to stand out and make a difference, in most cases its invoices are the window to its business. I trust that everybody and especially the development team and programmers will take note of this.