How to Create a Custom Invoice Template in QuickBooks Desktop

Short answer: to create a custom invoice template in QuickBooks Desktop, go to Lists > Templates, click the Templates button at the bottom of the list, and choose New (or select an existing invoice template and choose Duplicate, which is what I recommend). Pick Invoice as the type. Use Basic Customization for your logo, fonts and colors, Additional Customization for which fields and columns appear, and Layout Designer to move and resize things. Check it in Print Preview, click OK, and it shows up in the Template dropdown on the Create Invoices window.

You can also start from an open invoice: on the Formatting tab, choose Manage Templates, preview a template, and click Copy to make a new one. Both routes end in the same editor.

The rest of this article covers what actually trips people up: which of the three editing layers owns what, the Screen and Print checkboxes, adding your own fields (PO numbers, job sites, load numbers), moving a template to another company file, and what the 2026 changes to QuickBooks Desktop mean for your invoices.

Duplicate first, then customize

QuickBooks Desktop ships with stock invoice templates (Intuit Product Invoice, Intuit Service Invoice, and others). You can edit some of them directly. Do not. Duplicate instead.

1. Open Lists > Templates.
2. Click the template closest to what you want.
3. Click the Templates button at the bottom left, then Duplicate.
4. Choose Invoice as the type and click OK.
5. Rename it something you will recognize later. "Copy of Intuit Product Invoice" is not a name, it is a future archaeology project.

Why duplicate? If you mangle the layout, you still have a clean baseline to compare against. And templates live inside the company file, so a heavily edited stock template is annoying to get back to normal. A duplicate costs nothing.

The three layers of customization

QuickBooks does not explain this well. There are three separate editing surfaces, and each controls a different thing.

Layer 1: Basic Customization

Select your template and click Templates > Edit Template. The first window is Basic Customization. It controls branding:

• Logo. Check "Use logo" and browse to your image. Use a reasonably high resolution file with a simple background. If the logo prints blurry or with a box behind it, the source file is the problem, not QuickBooks.
• Fonts and colors for the title, company name, labels, and data.
• Company and transaction information to show: name, address, phone, email, website. Check only what belongs on an invoice. A cluttered header reads as amateur.

Layer 2: Additional Customization

Click Additional Customization. This layer controls content, with tabs for the Header, Columns, Footer, and print options.

Each field has two checkboxes: Screen and Print. This is the feature people miss. Screen controls what you see while entering the invoice. Print controls what appears on the document your customer receives. They are independent on purpose: keep an internal field (a sales rep, a cost note) visible on screen and unchecked for print, so the customer never sees it.

Worth doing here:

• Rename column headers. If your clients think in "Hours" and "Rate," say that instead of "Quantity" and "Price Each."
• Turn off columns you do not use. An empty "Ship To" block on a services invoice signals that nobody looked at the template.
• Put payment terms, late fee language, or remittance instructions in the footer message, so you are not retyping them on every invoice.

If QuickBooks warns that fields overlap when you turn something on, that is your cue for layer three.

Layer 3: Layout Designer

Click Layout Designer from either customization window. It is a drag and drop canvas of the printed page. Every element is a box you can move and resize.

• Drag fields to reposition them. Turn on Snap to Grid and zoom in to check edges. Misaligned baselines are the most common tell of a homemade template.
• Widen the description column if you write detailed line items, and shrink columns like quantity that only ever hold two digits.
• Use Add > Text Box for static text (a thank you line, a registration number) and Add > Image for anything beyond the single logo slot.
• Select several elements and use the alignment tools instead of eyeballing positions.

One honest warning: Layout Designer is old software. It works, but it is not pleasant. Make one kind of change at a time, click OK, and check Print Preview after each pass.

Add your own fields (PO number, job site, load number)

The stock header has a P.O. No. field you can switch on in Additional Customization. For anything else your customers require on the invoice, create a custom field first, then add it to the template:

1. For a customer-level field (an account code, a billing contact), open the Customer Center, double-click a customer, go to the Additional Info tab, and choose Define Fields. Name the field and tick the lists it applies to.
2. For a line-level field (a load number, a service date, a site), go to Lists > Item List, edit an item, choose Custom Fields, then Define Fields, name it, and tick Use.
3. Back in your template, open Additional Customization and tick the new field on the Header or Columns tab, for Screen, Print, or both.
4. Open Layout Designer and fix whatever the new field pushed out of place. Intuit's own help warns that adding a field may affect the layout.

This matters most when a customer rejects invoices that are missing a reference. If you bill freight or contract services, the freight invoice packet checklist covers the documents that have to travel with the invoice.

Set your new template as the default

There is no global "make default" button, which confuses everyone. QuickBooks Desktop remembers the last template you used on a form. Open Customers > Create Invoices, choose your template from the Template dropdown, and save an invoice with it. New invoices then start with that template. Memorized transactions keep the template they were saved with.

Editing a template later changes how every invoice assigned to it prints, including reprints of old invoices. The data on past invoices does not change, but the presentation follows the current template. If you need a record of exactly what a customer received, save the PDF when you send it.

Reuse the template in other company files

Templates live inside the company file, so one built in one file does not appear in another. Export and import it:

1. In Lists > Templates, select the template.
2. Click Templates > Export and save the file (QuickBooks Desktop saves it as a .DES template file).
3. In the other company file, go to Lists > Templates, click Templates > Import, select the file, and name it.

Intuit notes one limit: you cannot import a template created in a newer version of QuickBooks into an older version. Export from the oldest version you need to support, or rebuild in that version.

Exporting is also a cheap backup. After an hour in Layout Designer, export the result somewhere safe. Company files get rebuilt and upgraded, and re-importing takes seconds.

What changed for QuickBooks Desktop in 2026

Two facts matter if you are building templates in Desktop this year.

• New Desktop subscriptions are limited. Intuit stopped selling QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus, Premier Plus, and Mac Plus to new US subscribers after July 31, 2024. Existing subscribers can renew, and QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise is still sold to new customers.
• Desktop 2023 lost its connected services after May 31, 2026. According to Intuit's discontinuation policy, that includes emailing forms and reports, online banking, payment processing, payroll services, and live support. If you email invoices straight from QuickBooks and you are still on 2023, that step has stopped working, and Intuit's fix is an upgrade to a supported version.

Your templates survive an upgrade because they live in the company file. QuickBooks Online uses a completely different template system, so a Desktop template does not carry over if you move there.

FAQ

Can I have different templates for different customers? Yes, but the choice is manual. You pick the template per invoice from the dropdown, and QuickBooks remembers the last one used. Memorized transactions keep their assigned template, which is the closest thing to automation here.

Can I use a Word or Excel invoice template in QuickBooks Desktop? Not directly. QuickBooks Desktop builds templates in its own editor, and Import expects a template file exported from QuickBooks Desktop. Rebuild the design with the three layers above.

Why does my logo have a white or black box around it? The image file has a background. Edit the source image so the background is removed or matches your invoice, then attach it again in Basic Customization.

Should I delete an old template? Usually not. Rename it (for example, start the name with OLD) and stop selecting it, so old invoices can still be reprinted with the layout they went out with.

Can I edit the emailed PDF layout separately from the printed one? No. The emailed PDF is a rendering of the same template. The Screen and Print checkboxes are the only distinction between what you see and what the customer gets.

My fields overlap after adding a column. What now? Open Layout Designer and resize the neighboring fields. Additional Customization adds and removes content with rough automatic placement; precise geometry is always Layout Designer's job.

Sources

• Intuit: Use and customize form templates in QuickBooks Desktop, last updated August 4, 2026
• Intuit: Use custom fields in QuickBooks Desktop
• Intuit: QuickBooks Desktop service discontinuation policy, last updated August 5, 2026
• QuickBooks Community: importing a .DES template file
• UHY: QuickBooks Desktop products no longer available to new US subscribers after July 31

Build the template once, carefully, export it, and invoicing becomes the boring five minute task it should be.