PST paid on billable expense

It's great to have you join us, Jen45. Allow me to help you with this.

The awesome thing about billable expenses is that QuickBooks Desktop knows to calculate these charges for you. As soon as you mark an expense as billable and then add it to an invoice, you'll see the amount of the charge plus provincial rate included in the rate to the customer.

Here's an example.

Say my expense is $500 + the GST/PST tax for British Columbia. That works out to $560. I've marked it as billable and chosen a customer I'm going to invoice it to.

When I add the billable expense to my customer invoice, I see an amount of $535 as the rate to the customer. This is the $500 + the 7% PST. There were no extra steps I had to take in order for this to calculate in.

Give it a try and see if that works for you! Having these sorts of intuitive features is one of the many way QuickBooks Desktop keeps things as simple as possible for you. You can learn more about billable expenses right in your QuickBooks Desktop program by following these steps.

1. Click the Help menu in the top toolbar.
2. Choose QuickBooks Desktop Help.
3. Select the Help tab on the Have a Question? window.
4. Click Search.
5. Type keywords such as "billable expenses" in the search bar and hit enter.

You'll find related articles and helpful tips to help you with your transactions.

I'm here if you need anything else. Have a great day!

Hi Laura,

Thanks for your reply.  This is exactly what I was hoping for, but unfortunately I cannot get the results that you describe.  I have created bills and added expenses with both taxes and made them billable and I have added items with both taxes and made them billable, but when I go to create the invoice for the customer and select the billable expenses or items, it is the subtotal (the price without either tax) that is added to the customer invoice.  The PST I paid is simply not there.

Is there a setting that I need to check?

Hello again Jen45. I want to make sure things are working properly for you. One of the important things to make sure of when you're doing billable expenses is that when you check off billable on the bill/expense that you also choose a customer it applies to. The program shouldn't let you have the billable checkbox without the customer name, but it doesn't hurt to check.

The next thing to ensure is that when you're creating the invoice that you're choosing the billable expense from the window that pops up, not simply adding the items to the transaction from the item drop-down.

If you've got these things covered and you're still not seeing the program calculate it the way it should be, I recommend reaching out to support. An agent will be able to review your setup and the steps you're taking in a way that I can't quite do in the community platform. Check out the following article for information on how to get in touch, support hours, and other support policy information: Intuit QuickBooks Desktop software support policies

I'm here if you need clarification about this. Have a great day!

Jen

Cost of goods

line one - 1 ea 100.00 with GST

line 2 - 1 ea PST with Tax Exempt status

total as follows

$100 plus $7.00 = $ 107.00 = cost of Goods

GST $ 5.00

Total $112.00

Ian, if you're still around, I would love for you to explain this in more detail.  Line 1 of what?  The vendor bill? The invoice?  How are you creating a tax exempt status on a tax item while still putting a percentage on it?  Any additional explanation would be appreciated!

Vendor - Construction materials - supplier Invoice

line 1 - Quantity 10 Description 2x12  Price $10.00 Each total $100.00 Tax GST

line 2 - Quantity 1 Description PST    Price 7% Lump sum Total 7.00 Tax Exempt

Subtotal invoice $107.00

GST 5.00

Total invoice $112.00

Ah, thank you, Ian.  So you're just manually adding another item  And is that correct that even though the PST becomes part of the price of the invoiced item, GST isn't charged on it?  I would think that once it was passed on to the customer as part of the base cost of the sale, the whole $107 would be taxed.

Hi Laura,

Following your note here, as I'm trying to do the same with a billable expense. What do you then do with the GST? If I add GST to the billable expense (which is the base cost and the PST together), the total amount is then higher than the original cost paid out. Does it matter since the client would then claim back the GST paid?

Thanks,

Hi there Sylvie44,

Thanks for reaching out about tax on your transactions. QuickBooks Desktop is a great tool able to keep track of tax on sales and expense transactions so you know the amounts for your next filing. I can point you in the right direction for assistance with entering tax on billable expenses.

For assistance with how your transactions should be entered so that the tax is affected correctly. I recommend reaching out to the QuickBooks Desktop support team. They'll be able to view how you've created this transaction so that both the part for your supplier and the one for your customer are taxed correctly. You can reach them using the methods outlined in the QuickBooks Desktop Support Policies.

If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out here.