Calculated Rate

In a detail line of an order QuickBooks uses the standard calculation of Quantity X Rate = Amount. Changes to either the quantity or the rate will alter the amount for that line. QuickBooks provides ways of altering the rate in some cases (price levels), but this doesn’t cover every situation that you might need for your business.

The Calculated Rate feature of CCRQInvoice allows you to modify the rate by multiplying it by the value in a custom field (another column).

For example, you could have a standard rate of $2.50 for a pound of material. The material comes in bags of different sizes – such as a 100 lb bag. However, you want the quantity to show as 2 – for 2 100 lb bags. The amount should then be calculated as 2 X 100 X 2.50 = amount. QuickBooks can’t perform this calculation for you.

In this screen shot we’ve added a custom field to hold the weight of a bag. Note that the amount doesn’t include the custom field in the calculation.

What we would like to see is the following:

There are two problems here. First, QuickBooks won’t do this calculation for you. Second, if you try to manually change the Amount field to 500.00 (from the original 5.00) it will modify the rate column to 250.00 to keep the calculation the same.

To support this with CCRQInvoice we need to add a second custom field. The first one is your bag weight field, to hold the number you want to include in the calculation. The second is an original rate field to hold the rate that you want to display. Internally we are going to recalculate the rate to be 250.00, as QuickBooks needs it to be. We won’t display this on the printed invoice, instead we’ll display the original rate.

In the setup wizard you will set up the two fields – the multiply by field to hold your new value (the weight in our example), and a field to hold the original rate.

You need to modify your invoice form to show the following columns:

•      Add the quantity column (screen and print).

•      Add the custom weight field (screen and print).

•      Add the custom original rate field (screen and print), titled as rate.

•      Have the rate field only on the screen, not the print, and title it calculated rate.

•      Have the item field be shown before the custom fields, because when you select an item the values in the custom fields will be cleared.

When you process the invoice in CCRQInvoice the application will:

•      Copy the rate that you enter into the original rate.

•      Multiply the weight custom field by the original rate and store this in the rate (or calculated rate) column. QuickBooks will take the quantity and multiply it by this calculated rate to come up with the new amount.

On the screen you will see the following:

In the printed form we see the following:

 

As with other calculations in CCRQInvoice the calculated rate feature will only work with the item types that you select in the Preferences. You can work with the following item types:

•      Inventory Part.

•      Non-Inventory Part.

•      Inventory Assembly.

•      Service

•      Other Charge

When you initially install the program it will be set to work with just Inventory Part, Non-Inventory Part and Inventory Assembly items.