How to put billable time on an invoice if using QuickBooks Time.

Thanks for coming here with your concern, @SMHDTX. Let me show you how we can invoice customers in QuickBooks Online (QBO) for billable hours using QuickBooks Time (QBT).

After you've created Projects, you can bill customers for specific project-related expenses, including timesheets. 

First, let's turn on the billable expenses feature to enter billable time by job in QBO. Here's how: 

1. Go to the Gear icon and select Account and settings.
2. Click the Expenses tab.
3. Select the Bills and expenses section to expand it, and turn on the switch for Make expenses and items billable.
4. Please click Save and then Done.

Once done, your employees can track their time directly to the project we set up. Ensure to approve and export those timesheets to show them in your projects. 

Now that we've made the timesheets billable, let's create an invoice for them. To do that:

1. Go to Projects and select the project.
2. Click Add to project, then select Invoice. 
3. Select the Customer.
4. The billable timesheets will appear in the Add to Invoice pane. Click Add to all the billable time you want to include in the invoice.
5. Fill out all other necessary information and click Save and close.

Moreover, we can enter an employee's billable hourly rate by clicking the Add to Project and selecting Time.

For more detailed information, I'll be providing you with this article: Invoice customers for project expenses in QuickBooks Online.

In QB Time, we can generate project reports to assist job costing by displaying the total hours tracked against each job or customer, as well as which team members worked on each one. 

Please let us know in the comment section below if you have further clarifications about entering a billable time on a project. This way, we can address your concerns right away so you can get back to business seamlessly. Take care, and have a good day!

JaeAnnC,

Thanks for the response. However, as described in my question, this process doesn't work. The setting "Make expenses and items billable" was already enabled. As shown in the second screenshot in my question, whenever I import billable time to my invoices, the "Rate" field and total cost for that line item is $00.00. Furthermore, I can't find where I would need to go in settings or employee information to ensure that each employee has a correct "billable rate" set.

Glad to have you here in the Community again, @SMHDTX. Let's work this out so you can get through this situation and ensure each employee has a correct billable rate in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

In QuickBooks Online, you can set the rate of your employee in the project ahead of time. This way, when they begin to work on the project, you won't have to worry about having zero amount when creating the invoice for the work. I'll input the steps below so you can proceed. Here's how:

1. Access your QuickBooks Online company.
2. On the left navigational bar, go to the Projects tab.
3. In the Projects page, click the Hourly cost rate at the top-right corner.
4. Select the employees that you'd like enter the rate, and then click the Pencil icon beside it.
5. Enter the cost rate, and then click Save.
6. Once its set, press Done.

If the issue persists, I'd recommend reaching out to our QuickBooks Customer Care Team. This way, they can assign a representative to check your account and determine the root cause of the issue. See this article for further guidelines: QuickBooks Online Support.

In addition, please see this article to help you handle your projects in QBO: Set up and create projects in QuickBooks Online.

You can also check this page to learn how you can track a project's profitability in QuickBooks: Track hourly labor costs and profitability by project in QuickBooks Online.

Feel free to get back to me anytime if you need further assistance with this, @SMHDTX. I'll be more than happy to help you out again. Take care, and have a nice day!

While I accept that using the cost rate as you suggested could be a work around, it isn't actually a billable rate. I mean, QuickBooks own help documentation talks about the difference. [What are pay rates, cost rates, and billable rates?] A cost rate is how much an employee costs the business per employee hour worked. I am talking about how much I CHARGE THE CLIENT per employee hour worked.

There should be a way to do billable rates and there apparently used to be. See the following help article from QuickBooks. [Employee billable rates - QuickBooks Q&A]

The only clear answer I've gotten is that you have to do this manually for each entry which is utterly absurd.

Thank you for always updating us, SMHDTX.

I guess it would be best if one of our agents can have a screen-sharing with you. That way, they'll be able to guide you through adding billable time to invoices using QuickBooks Time entries.

1. Click on Help and click the Search tab.
2. Click Contact Us at the bottom.
3. Enter a sentence to describe your goal and click Continue.
4. Choose Start a chat or Get a callback.

Let me know if you have other questions in mind. Take care and have a good one!

I have spoken with the support team multiple times via both chat and phone with screen sharing enabled. The representatives either don't understand what I'm asking or are helpful but don't know the answer themselves. In at least one case, it was pretty clear that the representative didn't have any more information than I did and was clearly reading from the same help forum post included in my previous reply which is out of date and references menus that don't exist anymore.

After hours sitting on hold, the consensus seems to be that there is no way to apply a blanket billable rate for an employee that will auto populate if importing hours from QB Time. You have to go into the time report and manually adjust the billable rate for each time entry after it's imported into QB online.

Since the QB team doesn't seem to know, I was hoping that someone in the community would know.

Hello there, @SMHDTX.

I value your thorough explanation of your problem and the screenshots you supplied. Permit me to provide you with some information regarding the Billable Rate column to aid you even more with this.

The Billable rate in the invoice screen depends on the service item you've chosen on the Time entry details page. Since you've mentioned that the rate appeared to be zero, you might not select a service item. And might as well, the zero billable rates will be reflected in your report. 

Also, another reason is that even if you choose a service item, the service item has no sales rate. To edit the rate for the service item:

1. Go to the Sales menu.
2. Click Product and Services.
3. Look for the service item you need to edit.
4. Select the Edit button.
5. Enter an amount on the Sale price/rate field.

      6. Once done, click Save and close.

Furthermore, I'd like to clarify that the billable rates from the employee profile are for reference only. This is the reason why you'll have to add a sales rate on your service item when adding it to sales, expenses, or payroll. Also, please note that you won't see the costs in projects until after payroll is processed.

Lastly, you can examine instructions on how remembering a report enables you to save it with its existing personalization options on this page: Memorize reports in QuickBooks Online.

Please don't hesitate to ping me in the comment section if you have additional questions about managing your employees' time in QBO. It's always my pleasure to assist you further. Have a great day!

QuennieC,

Thanks for your reply. I've seen discussion of sales rates for product/services in some other threads. I've hesitated to use it though. The way we operate, we charge different rate for different employees/consultants but not different "services". Until now I've been using services for things like "client consultation" or "client site inspection" that we do a lot, but leaving their rate at zero. Mostly as a way to collect data on how we are spending time.

If I'm understanding you correctly, to reflect how we operate correctly in QB Online I would basically need to create a service item for each employee/consultant with the hourly rate for that employee set as the sales rate/price for their service item. In QB time, they would need to select "themselves" as the service item when doing their time sheets, rather than "site inspection" or whatever they are working on.

Then when importing their time, their name would show up as the "product" and the rate would be correctly populated.

Does that sound like a correct assessment based on your understanding?

I don't have an answer to your question but I'd love to see a response as we're currently working through this same situation.

I would like to know this solution also, since we charge different billable rates by employee and client. Thanks!

Hi there, SMDScoot.

Thank you for visiting the QuickBooks Community. Please know that we aim to deliver customer satisfaction at all times and fix an issue as soon as possible. With this, may I ask for additional information on what specific concern you're having or specific error you've encountered while managing billable rates by employee and client? I appreciate any further details so I can present an accurate solution.

Don't hesitate to click the Reply button below and add extra details about your concern, I'm always around to help, SMDScoot. Have a good one!

Thank you for following up.  My team needs to use the new QB Time (because the regular QB Weekly Timesheets no longer allow new time tracking employees to be added - which according to QB support is a known issue).  

Each employee needs to charge a different billable hourly rate to each client (ideally, automatically), but this appears to not be allowed by QuickBooks. We use the products and services list to identify the types of work we are billing to clients (for example, Communication with client, Forensic accounting services, etc.) and cannot use that as a solution to have a different billable hourly rate for each employee.  

We will have to migrate away from using QB for time tracking and invoicing because of this, but I'd prefer to stay with QB if there was a solution. 

Thank you!

Let me join the thread and share some insights about charging different billable rates by employee and customer @SMDScoot. 

Currently, the functionality mentioned above is unavailable in QuickBooks Online. I recommend sending us feedback about it. Your helpful suggestion goes to our Product Engineers to help enhance your QBO experience. Here's how:

1. Click on the Gear icon.
2. Select Feedback.
3. Fill in your comments or product suggestions. 
4. Then click on Next to submit feedback.

You can also keep track of any feature updates by browsing our QuickBooks Online Feature Requests webpage.

For future reference, feel free to check out our QBO Help page. It contains troubleshooting steps and video tutorials regarding QBO topics.

Just leave a comment if you have other concerns about handling employees, clients, or QuickBooks. We'll make sure to respond as soon as we can. Keep safe.

Yeah I'm now having the same issue. I used to use the weekly timesheets, but as of today, May 10, 2023, there is a new message that states, "Go to QuickBooks Time to enter a timesheet! Your time won't be tracked correctly if you enter it here."

What is this all about? I used to be able to enter an entire weeks worth of time and check the billable feature with a rate. I notice that Quickbooks Time now has a similar weekly sheet but there is no place for a rate. If this is going to be the case I don't think Quickbooks is going to work for my business anymore. Repetitive tasks are the biggest money waster of any business when things can’t be automated. Can someone please explain why this change took place and why such a necessary feature has been eliminated?

I can’t imagine a company with hundreds of employees having to have the admin support to go into every single time entry to enter the billable rate.

Yeah I'm now having the same issue. I used to use the weekly timesheets, but as of today, May 10, 2023, there is a new message that states, "Go to QuickBooks Time to enter a timesheet! Your time won't be tracked correctly if you enter it here."

What is this all about? I used to be able to enter an entire weeks worth of time and check the billable feature with a rate. I notice that Quickbooks Time now has a similar weekly sheet but there is no place for a rate. If this is going to be the case I don't think Quickbooks is going to work for my business anymore. Repetitive tasks are the biggest money waster of any business when things can’t be automated. Can someone please explain why this change took place and why such a necessary feature has been eliminated?

I can’t imagine a company with hundreds of employees having to have the admin support to go into every single time entry to enter the billable rate.

This is not a scenario we want you to be in, moneybaggins.

Let's make sure your Online account and QuickBooks Time are integrated. Then, enter the timesheet in QuickBooks Time. If the same thing happens, I’d suggest contacting our QuickBooks Support Team. They'll pull up your account in a secure environment and investigate what's causing this issue. You can check our support hours to ensure you’ll be assisted immediately. Here’s how:

1. Go to the Help (?) menu.
2. Click Contact Us.
3. Enter your brief concern at the field and hit Let’s talk.
4. Choose to Start messaging or Get a callback.

Feel free to browse these articles to learn more about QuickBooks Time and its features:

• Get started with QuickBooks Time
• About QuickBooks Time Company Settings

You know where to go if you have follow-up questions or other concerns about QuickBooks Time. I'm always here to help. Take care always.

I appreciate you trying to help us here, but unfortunately you should be aware that hourly cost rate and billable rate are two separate items. 

I used to use the weekly timesheets, but as of today, May 10, 2023, there is a new message that states, "Go to QuickBooks Time to enter a timesheet! Your time won't be tracked correctly if you enter it here."

What is this all about? I used to be able to enter an entire weeks worth of time and check the billable feature with a rate. I notice that Quickbooks Time now has a similar weekly sheet but there is no place for a rate. If this is going to be the case I don't think Quickbooks is going to work for my business anymore. Repetitive tasks are the biggest money waster of any business when things can’t be automated. Can someone please explain why this change took place and why such a necessary feature has been eliminated?

I can’t imagine a company with hundreds of employees having to have the admin support to go into every single time entry to enter the billable rate.

I like several of the people in this forum use both quickbooks time and quickbooks online. It's rather useless if I have to go through every single time submission to add a billable rate for my employees. Also, every employee doesn't necessarily have the same billable rate but they are often performing the same service.