How to Create a Sales Order in QuickBooks Online

If you’re a QuickBooks user, you already know that QuickBooks Online doesn’t have a built-in sales order feature. When QuickBooks Desktop started phasing out, many wholesalers and small business owners moved to the online version, only to discover this gap.

For businesses that depend on clear order tracking, this can be frustrating. Managing new invoices, estimates, and open sales orders manually can lead to confusion and missed opportunities. The good news? There are reliable workarounds to create a sales order in QuickBooks Online and streamline your order-to-invoice process using the sales order app.

What is a sales order, and why do you need it in QuickBooks Online?

A sales order is an internal document that confirms a customer’s intent to purchase goods or services. When a buyer places an order, the seller creates a sales order to capture the relevant information such as products, quantities, pricing, and delivery information before invoicing. Essentially, it acts as a bridge between a purchase order and an invoice, giving your business a clear record of what needs to be fulfilled.

For wholesalers or businesses managing multiple orders, a sales order ensures you don’t overcommit inventory, miss shipment dates, or lose track of pending orders. It’s a crucial part of keeping operations organized and avoiding confusion in your sales workflow.

How is a sales order different from an invoice?

An invoice, on the other hand, is a billing document sent to the customer requesting payment for goods or services already provided. Unlike a sales order, an invoice is not about confirming intent; it’s about recording the sale officially and tracking revenue.

Invoices are fully supported in QuickBooks Online and integrate directly with your accounting, ensuring your financial records are accurate.

Why creating sales orders in QuickBooks Online matters?

For any business, especially wholesalers or companies managing multiple customers and products, sales orders are more than just paperwork; they are a vital tool to keep operations running smoothly.

Without a proper sales order system in QuickBooks Online, it’s easy to lose track of pending orders. You might forget to reserve inventory for a customer, miss promised shipping dates, or accidentally double-sell products. This can cause confusion, disrupt your workflow, and ultimately affect your revenue.

Think of a sales order as your roadmap for fulfilling customer requests. It provides a clear record of what’s expected, when it should be delivered, and who it’s for. Having this organized structure helps you:

• Ensure inventory is managed efficiently
• Track orders before they become invoices
• Reduce errors in order fulfillment
• Maintain accurate customer and sales records

Unfortunately, QuickBooks Online doesn’t natively support sales orders, which is why finding the right workaround or integration is essential for businesses that rely on accurate order management.

Not being able to create QuickBooks Online sales orders can be a significant challenge for your business. A testament to the importance of sales orders in Quickbooks Online is the discontent among QuickBooks Online users:

But don’t worry, there are workarounds to the missing QuickBooks Online sales orders. We are here to guide you through these fixes.

Before jumping into QuickBooks, make sure you have these settings and details confirmed and ready. It’ll save you time later and prevent mistakes that could mess up your reports.

Pro tip: Before sending your first sales order, double-check your “Products & Services” list. Incorrect pricing or missing SKUs can throw off your order totals later.

How to create a sales order in QuickBooks Online: Workarounds

Since QuickBooks Online doesn’t provide a built-in sales order feature, businesses need practical workarounds to manage customer orders efficiently. Here are the main methods you can use:

1. Using QuickBooks estimates as a sales order

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One of the simplest solutions is to use QuickBooks Estimates. Estimates can act as a placeholder for a sales order, bridging the gap between a purchase order and an invoice.

With an estimate, you can include all the necessary details: customer information, shipping and billing addresses, products or services, quantities, and total costs. It helps you track what the customer intends to buy without affecting your accounting records immediately.

Steps to create an estimate in QuickBooks Online:

1. Log in to QuickBooks Online.

2. Click the “+ New” button and select “Estimate”.

3. Add or select a customer, and input the estimate number and date.

4. Add products or services, adjust quantities or amounts, and customize the form if needed.

5. Save, review, and email the estimate to your customer.

6. When the customer responds to the estimate, the status is automatically updated, or you can manually update it as well. To do this, go to Sales>All Sales and edit the order in which you want to update the estimate status.

7. Once the customer approves, the status can be updated to ‘Pending’, ‘Accepted’, ‘Converted’, or ‘Declined’. 

8. When ready, the estimate can be converted into an invoice, ensuring the sale is recorded in your financial reports.

Limitations of using QuickBooks Estimates instead of QuickBooks Online Sales Orders:

• Estimates do not hold or reserve inventory: another sale may grab the same stock.
• Tracking partial shipments or delivery schedules isn’t built in.
• The workflow blurs between quoting and actual order management. Your team may get confused whether the estimate equals the quote or the estimate equals the order.
• They lack order management features like tracking partial shipments or delivery schedules.

2. Create delayed charges as QuickBooks sales orders

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Delayed charges in QuickBooks Online allow you to record goods or services that a customer has requested but that you don’t want to invoice immediately. Think of it as a flexible way to track pending orders, essentially a temporary sales order.

Using delayed charges ensures that you have all the order details recorded, so nothing falls through the cracks. You can track what the customer requested, prepare inventory, and bill at the right time.

If you prefer to track goods or services you plan to bill for later, delayed charges work well.

Steps to create delayed charges in QuickBooks Online:

1. Go to + New → Customers → Delayed Charge.

2. Choose your customer.

3. Add product or service details, line items, and descriptions.

4. Save and close.

5. When ready to bill, return to +New → Invoice, select the customer, and click Add all to pull in the delayed charges.

6. Finish invoice creation and send.

Limitations of using delayed charges in place of QuickBooks Online sales orders

• The process is manual: linking delayed charges into an invoice requires extra clicks and oversight.
• It’s inadequate for complex orders (multiple line-items, partial fulfilments, back orders) because it lacks proper order tracking logic.
• Inventory reservation is still missing; you’re essentially tracking a future billing event, not an order fulfillment event.

3. Use invoices as temporary QuickBooks Online sales orders

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Some businesses adopt a workaround where they create invoices immediately, but mark them as unpaid until the order is shipped. This method can act as a sales order substitute for simpler workflows.

With this approach, every customer request is recorded in QuickBooks Online, providing a clear audit trail. You can track the items ordered, quantities, and expected billing, all in one place.

Why it’s used:

• It uses the native invoice function, so no new workflow is required.
• You can track the order via the “unpaid invoices” list.

Limitations of using invoices in place of QuickBooks Online sales orders

• Because invoices are designed to record completed sales, using them prematurely can distort your financial reporting (revenue recognition, cash flow, tax tracking) in QuickBooks.
• There’s no dedicated status tracking for “pending”, “partially fulfilled”, or “shipped but not invoiced”, so order visibility suffers.
• Warehouse or fulfilment teams may lack clarity on what’s ordered vs what’s billed.

Here’s a simple table comparing Sales Orders, Invoices, and Estimates in QuickBooks Online

Since QuickBooks Online lacks native sales order functionality, you can use Estimates, Delayed Charges, or unpaid Invoices as workarounds, and later integrate with a third-party tool like WizCommerce to streamline real sales order tracking, inventory management, and fulfillment.

Using third-party inventory management tools to solve missing QuickBooks Online sales orders

If you’ve tried using estimates, delayed charges, or invoices as sales order workarounds, you’ve likely noticed that these solutions only cover part of the problem. For wholesalers and small businesses dealing with multiple orders, partial shipments, or complex inventory, these methods can quickly become cumbersome.

This is where third-party inventory management tools come in. Platforms like SOS Inventory, Fishbowl, and especially WizCommerce integrate with QuickBooks Online to provide full-fledged sales order management, bridging the gap left by the missing QuickBooks Online sales order feature.

Here’s what these Inventory management tools offer:

• Comprehensive Sales Order Features: Create, manage, and track all sales orders from one dashboard. Unlike QuickBooks Online estimates or invoices, these tools allow you to manage partial shipments, backorders, and even automatically update the status of each order.
• Advanced Inventory Management: Keep real-time inventory levels across multiple locations, preventing overselling or stockouts. Forecast demand and adjust inventory proactively to match sales orders.
• Seamless Order-to-Invoice Workflow: These tools link sales orders directly to invoicing, ensuring that every step from customer order to fulfillment is tracked and accounted for, reducing manual errors.

Learn More: How To Effectively Use Wholesale Sales Software For Inventory Management?

How WizCommerce helps amplify your sales processes?

Once you integrate WizCommerce with QuickBooks Online, managing sales orders becomes far more efficient and streamlined. Instead of juggling estimates, delayed charges, or invoices, your team gains a centralized platform to manage every step of the sales process from order creation to fulfillment without losing visibility or control.

Here’s how WizCommerce enhances your QuickBooks Online sales workflow:

1. Order-taking

With our order-taking app WizOrder, you can automate manual, repetitive tasks so you can sell better and sell more.

• Empower sales reps to sell from anywhere with complete visibility of products and real-time inventory
• Create quotes and orders on the go with just a few clicks
• Download and share product presentations, order copies, and invoices in Excel or PDF.
• Identify upsell opportunities, find out-of-stock alternatives, and increase average order value with AI-powered recommendations
• Get detailed reports on customers, sales, and products to make data-driven decisions

Learn More: B2B Order Management with QuickBooks Solutions

2. Trade shows

Transform your trade show operations by ditching pen and paper and achieve streamlined operations with our one-of-a-kind trade show app, WizOrder:

• Capture leads at trade shows and share product presentations from the app
• Generate labels with multiple formats and scan them via scanners or device cameras to take orders quickly.
• Take orders without internet connectivity

3. B2B ecommerce platform

WizCommerce provides a 24/7 B2B ecommerce platform that integrates with QuickBooks Online, enabling:

• Real-time access to product catalogs, stock levels, and pricing for your customers.
• Historical data access, including past orders, open invoices, and order statuses.
• Flexible customer-specific pricing, shipping options, and payment terms.

4. AI-powered recommendations

WizCommerce’s AI-driven recommendation engine gives you suggestions to increase selling opportunities. Let’s look at these:

• View similar: This feature suggests alternative products for out-of-stock items, so you can quickly suggest products and never lose a sale!
• Frequently bought together: You can suggest complementary products to increase your average order value, boosting sales and revenue.
• Recommended for you: You can suggest products most relevant to your customers based on their purchase history, boosting sales and enhancing customer experience.

By integrating WizCommerce with QuickBooks Online, your team can automate repetitive tasks like order confirmations, invoicing, and follow-ups, while maintaining a full view of all orders, inventory, and customer activity.

When you integrate WizCommerce with QuickBooks Online, you get:

• A clear sales order workflow (from order to fulfilment to invoice)
• Better open sales orders visibility (what’s ordered but not yet invoiced)
• Less manual entry and fewer errors, since your financial records stay aligned
• A better customer experience that allows your buyers can place orders online 24/7, check status, and gives your sales reps better tools.

Streamline your sales orders today

Managing sales orders in QuickBooks Online doesn’t have to be frustrating. While workarounds like estimates, delayed charges, or invoices can help temporarily, they often leave gaps in inventory tracking, order management, and customer experience.

For businesses ready to scale and streamline operations, integrating a solution like WizCommerce can transform your workflow. 

Book a demo today and see how your sales process can transform effortlessly and help your team stay on top of every order, ensuring a smooth customer experience.

FAQs

How do you create a sales order in QuickBooks Online?

While there is no direct option to create a sales order in QuickBooks Online, there are certain workarounds that you can use, such as using QuickBooks estimates to serve as a bridge between a purchase order and invoice, or creating delayed charges to act as sales orders until they are paid against, or using invoices and marking them as unpaid in place of sales orders.

How to process a sales order?

Processing a sales order involves confirming the customer’s request, checking inventory, and preparing for delivery or invoicing. In QuickBooks Online, you can track this using estimates, delayed charges, or through integrations that manage the fulfillment flow. Once items are shipped, convert the order into an invoice to finalize the sale and record the revenue.

How to convert a sales order to an invoice in QuickBooks Online?

If you’re using Estimates as your sales order workaround, simply open the approved estimate, click Convert to Invoice, review the details, and send it to your customer. The conversion keeps all order data intact, helping you avoid re-entry errors and ensuring the sale is properly recorded in your accounting.

When to create a sales order?

You should create a sales order as soon as a customer confirms a purchase, but before you deliver the goods or services. It acts as an internal record of the transaction, ensuring your inventory, production, and fulfillment teams know what to prepare. This step keeps operations organized and avoids overselling or missed deliveries.

Who prepares a sales order?

Typically, the sales or customer service team prepares a sales order after receiving confirmation from a customer. They record product details, pricing, quantities, and delivery terms in the system. In integrated setups like WizCommerce + QuickBooks, the order can be generated automatically by sales reps or even by customers through a B2B eCommerce portal.

Can a sales order be used as an invoice?

Not directly. A sales order confirms a customer’s intent to buy, while an invoice is the official billing document. Using a sales order as an invoice can lead to accounting inaccuracies since the payment isn’t due yet. It’s best to keep them separate, use the sales order to track fulfillment, and convert it to an invoice once the order is delivered.

Which comes first: sales order or purchase order?

The buyer sends the purchase order first, and the seller responds by issuing a sales order to confirm the sale. A sales order comes from the seller after a customer places an order, while a purchase order comes from the buyer to request goods or services.

Can I customize my sales orders in QuickBooks Online with my company branding?

Yes, you can customize your sales orders in QuickBooks Online with your company branding. QuickBooks allows you to add your logo, choose custom colors and fonts, and adjust layout elements like headers and footers. You can also edit the form style to include personalized messages, contact details, and other branding elements—ensuring your sales orders, invoices, and estimates all reflect your company’s professional identity.