Linking Expenses to Invoices

Hello, Alan5492.

Thank you and welcome here in our Community. I'll share steps to ensure that you're able to mark the charge as an Expense and link it to the created Invoice.  

I suggest creating a bill to record the billable expenses for existing invoices. From there, you'll have the option to check the billable box and choose the specific customer. 

Here's how:

1. Click + New and choose Bill.
2. Select the Vendor.
3. From the Category column, select the expense account for the transaction.
4. Enter the description and amount of the expense and select the Billable checkbox.
5. In the Customer column, select the customer you want to bill for this expense.
6. Fill in the necessary field. Then, hit Save and close.

For additional information, you can click this article: Enter billable expenses.

Once done, you can now add or link the billable expenses to an invoice. To start with, I recommend going to the Sales page and locate the existing entry. Please follow the steps below.

1. Click Sales at the left menu. Then, go to the Invoices section.
2. Find the invoice and click it to expand the page.
3. Press Edit invoice button that appears in the right corner.
4. On the Invoice page, click on the arrow beside the Balance Due.
5. Tap on Add on the billable expense/s under Add to Invoice to add them.
6. Hit Save.

Please refer to this article to see steps on how you can Uncheck the box in the Billable column of an entry to delete a billable expense charge: How to remove a billable expense charge. 

Leave a comment again here if you have other concerns. Take care!

Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work.

First, creating a bill doesn't seem to be appropriate when purchasing with a credit card. Instead of creating a bill, it's much easier to just click the billable box on the credit card charge to create an Expense. Why have a credit card charge and a bill for the same single invoice?

Next, just adding the expense (or bill according to your response) to an existing Invoice seems to only increase the size of the already existing invoice. 

For example, let's say I use a credit card to buy a product for a customer for $50.00 and immediately create an invoice and send it to the customer. A day or two later when the credit card charge is processed and sent to me through online banking, I create an expense. If I then find the $50.00 invoice for the customer and add this expense, the invoice increases by $50.00 -- so now the customer has a $100.00 invoice, not at all what was intended. Creating a new invoice and adding the expense also doesn't work since there are now two invoices for the same $50.00 credit card purchase.

Help -- what am I missing? 

Thanks.

Hi there, Seretta. 

I'm here to share some information that can help you link your expenses to your invoices. 

Linking an existing invoice and expense is not possible. As a workaround, you can delete the existing  invoice and mark the expense as billable to avoid duplicate invoices. Let me guide you how:

1. Go to the Sales menu.
2. Choose the Invoices tab.
3. Select the invoice that you want to delete.
4. Under the Action column, click the drop-down arrow and select Delete.
5. Click Yes.

Also, here's an article you can read to learn more about how you can delete an invoice: Void or delete transactions in QuickBooks Online.

For detailed instructions, check out the Enter billable expenses article and go straight to the Add billable expenses to the invoices section.

Also, I'll be adding this article as your reference in receiving and categorizing invoice payments in QuickBooks Online: Record invoice payments in QuickBooks Online.

Please feel free to get back to me here for any additional questions. I always have your back. Thanks for dropping in, and cheers for more success!

WOW. You're actually saying that linking an expense to an existing invoice is not possible? That's preposterous for a bookkeeping program to not be able to do that. Please fix this.

Need help linking invoices to bills in Quickbooks Desktop.

How is this possible.

We are getting really frustrated and need help.

I acknowledge that you're having challenges finding a way to link an invoice to your bill in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT), Aline. Allow me to relay details about this and share an alternative you can consider to handle this situation.
 
To clarify, we can't directly link an invoice with a bill because each transaction has different financial purposes. Alternatively, you can mark the bill as billable instead and link it to an invoice afterward. This works as a reimbursement request or charging your customer for the costs you've accumulated for specific expenses.

To proceed, let's enable the billable feature from the Preferences page first:

1. Go to the Edit menu.
2. Scroll down and select the Time & Expenses tab.
3. Navigate to the Company Preferences, then enable all the Invoicing Options that suit your needs.
4. Once done, hit OK.
   

Next, you'll have to select a Customer:Job when creating a bill to mark it as Billable. It ensures you can add the bill when generating an invoice. Utilize this image as your visual reference in doing so:

After that, you can apply the billable transaction (bill) when creating an invoice:

1. Open the Create Invoices page from the Customers menu.
2. Select the Customer:Job. Then, when prompted, Select the outstanding billable time and costs to add to this invoice.
3. Click OK.
   
4. Choose the billable data that applies to this invoice.
5. Once done, hit OK.
   
6. Double-check everything, then Save & Close.

Finally, you may customize your templates in QBDT. This function lets you personalize each detail and appearance of your invoices, sales receipts, estimates, statements, purchase orders, and bill payment stubs.

If you have further questions about the billable transaction process, add a reply to this thread. We're always ready to help you promptly.

Late in coming to this but the answer would be to record the credit card charge expense immediately (before you invoice the client), mark it as billable and then you can create an invoice and link the billable expense like normal.  When the charge processes and comes through your bank account you can then match it to the expense you previously entered.  The other option would be to wait until the charge comes through your online banking into QBO and mark that as a billable expense and then invoice your customer (since it's now be reconciled).  Hope that helps.

Welcome to the Community, ExpatAccountant25.

Thanks so much for sharing your answer on this thread. This is one example of what makes the Community so great; fellow QuickBooks users helping others with firsthand knowledge and experience. 

You know where to come if you ever need a hand in the future. Take care!