Enter billable time by job in QuickBooks Online

In QuickBooks Online Plus and Essentials, you can track billable time by job by setting up jobs as sub-customers. Then you can track and invoice your billable time, and keep all your billable expenses organized.

In this article, you'll learn how to:

• Add a sub-customer
• Turn on billable time
• Record billable time
  • Using Single time activity
  • Using Weekly timesheet
• Add billable time to an invoice

Step 1: Add a sub-customer

To track your billable time by job, you can enter the job as a sub-customer of the customer you’re doing the work for.

1. Go to Sales and select Customers (Take me there).
2. Select New customer.
3. Enter all the appropriate info for the sub-customer.
4. Select the Is sub-customer check box.
5. From the Parent customer dropdown ▼, select the parent customer.
6. Select Bill parent customer.
7. Select Save.

Step 2: Turn on billable time

If you want to bill your customer directly from tracked time, you’ll need to turn on the billable time setting. Here’s how:

1. Select Settings ⚙, then Account and settings.
2. Select the Time tab.
3. In the Timesheet section, select Edit ✎.
4. Turn on the Allow time to be billable setting. 
5. If you want your users to see their billable rate when they enter their time, select the Show billing rate to users entering time checkbox. You may want to leave this unchecked if you bill customers at a different hourly rate than you pay your employees and subcontractors.
6. Select Save, then select Done.

Step 3: Record billable time

You can enter billable time in either of the two ways:

Using Single time activity

1. Select + New, then select Single time activity.
2. Select a Date.
3. From the Name dropdown ▼, select the employee or the subcontractor whose time you are tracking.
4. Enter Cost rate (/hr).
5. Select a Customer/Project you are tracking the time for.
6. Select Billable (/hr) if you want to bill your customer/project and enter the billable rate.
7. Enter the Time. Or select Enter Start and End Times, then select a Start time, an End time, and the time taken for a Break, if any.
8. Enter a Description.
9. Select any other applicable options.
10. Select Save and new to record another time entry or Save and close to exit.

Using Weekly timesheet

1. Select + New, then select Weekly timesheet.
2. Select the employee or subcontractor whose time you are tracking.
3. Select a date range.
4. Select a Customer/Project you are tracking the time for.
5. Select a Service.
6. Enter a Description.
7. Select Billable (/hr) if you want to bill your customer/project and enter the billable rate.
8. Select any other applicable options.
9. Enter the daily Time.
10. You may add multiple entries if the employee or the subcontractor has worked for multiple customers/projects or has provided multiple services to a customer/project.
11. Select Save and new to record another time entry or Save and close to exit.

Step 4: Add billable time to an invoice

Once you’ve entered billable timesheets, you’ll see them available to add to new invoices. Find out more about how to invoice your customers for billable expenses and timesheets.