What can I use billable expense account for?

Hello again tonjunee,

Knowing what accounts to use when is key, so having a sense of what each account is for is helpful. I'd be glad to go over this with you so you know how to use the billable expense account in QuickBooks Online.

Billable expenses are costs taken on by the business that you're then going to charge to your customer. This is common when doing jobs or projects for a customer where you might have to buy material for the work that you'll later want the customer to pay you for. In these situations, you would pay on the initial cost, but you can mark the expense as billable so that you can add it to an invoice to later charge your customer for it. You can learn more about that here: Enter billable expenses

With that in mind, knowing if this is the account to use for your incorporation costs is going to depend on the transaction you're entering. If you're simply hoping to record the cost that you paid to incorporate the business, it may be as simple as entering it as an expense and noting that the Payment account was the credit card rather than trying to figure out which accounts to debit and credit on a journal entry. Here's our article about entering expenses: Enter, edit, or delete expenses in QuickBooks Online

As always, it's best to check in with a bookkeeping professional or accountant when you're not sure how something should be recorded. I'll refer you back to the My Accountant tab as I have before. To briefly go over it again, this tab allows you to invite an accountant to your account or find one to work with via the Find a pro to help button.

I hope you enjoy your weekend!

Hi Laura, 

Thanks for getting back to me.

How do I know the accountants on the "find a pro help" are good accountants? 

So far I've met with a few of them but I seem to get different answers and approaches to my one situation. Do the accountants have to go through a screening process to be able to land on those pages?

You're welcome. I'm glad to hear that you've been browsing the Find a pro to help list to get assistance with your books. To be listed in that database, accountants and bookkeepers have a few requirements to meet, including passing the in-product QuickBooks certification exam for accountants and providing certain documents to our back-end team.

I can see how getting different recommendations from different accountants might cause confusion. Like all business relationships, it's a matter of finding someone that you work well with and who gives you confidence in your books. I encourage you to keep looking if you're not finding the right fit.