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In QBO, time entries can be added to an invoice using the Add to Invoice pane on the right side of the screen.
Time entries that have already been added to an invoice should obviously not show up here. To accomplish this, the TimeActivity object has a field named BillableStatus. Here's the QBO API documentation explaining how this object works...
The description of the BillableStatus field states:
Billable status of the time recorded. Valid values: Billable, NotBillable, HasBeenBilled. You cannot directly update the status to HasBeenBilled. To set the status to HasBeenBilled, create an Invoice object and attach this TimeActivity object as a linked transaction to that Invoice.
Any time entry that has been added to an invoice therefore should have a BillableStatus of HasBeenBilled. Therein lies the problem.
I'm getting several time entries, from multiple customers, that were added to invoices months or years ago, that have long since been paid, showing up in the Add to Invoice pane. I always use the Group time by service option when adding time entries to an invoice, which results in a single line item for all time entries for the given time period.
Let's say I have 10 separate time entries for a given month. I add them to the invoice (grouped together), send to the customer and move on. At later, and random, dates, when I go to create a new invoice for the same customer, some of the 10 entries from the old invoice will show in the Add to Invoice pane. It's usually just a few, maybe 1 - 3. Meanwhile the original invoice still has the 10 entries (as a group) applied to it with the original total remaining unchanged.
Using the Query a timeactivity object tool on the API documentation page noted above, I can retrieve the details for any TimeActivity items in question. An output example would be
{
"QueryResponse": {
"TimeActivity": [
{
"TxnDate": "2020-05-05",
"NameOf": "Employee",
"EmployeeRef": {
"value": "10",
"name": "John Doe"
},
"CustomerRef": {
"value": "2",
"name": "Acme"
},
"ItemRef": {
"value": "3",
"name": "IT Managed Services"
},
"BillableStatus": "Billable",
"Taxable": false,
"HourlyRate": 100,
"CostRate": 0,
"Hours": 0,
"Minutes": 15,
"Seconds": 0,
"Description": "Set up accounts",
"domain": "QBO",
"sparse": false,
"Id": "2009",
"SyncToken": "1",
"MetaData": {
"CreateTime": "2023-08-16T12:06:14-07:00",
"LastUpdatedTime": "2023-08-16T12:09:20-07:00"
}
}
],
"startPosition": 1,
"maxResults": 4
},
"time": "2023-08-16T12:26:45.551-07:00"
}
In each case this confirms that the time entries that are already assigned to an invoice and should have a BillableStatus of HasBeenBilled, instead have a billable status of Billable. This should no be occurring as a time entry should not be allowed to be assigned to an invoice and have a BillableStatus of Billable at the same time. This is a bug.
I spent an hour on a screen sharing session with QBO support trying to explain this but didn't accomplish anything. I do have a case # though and would encourage anyone with the same problem to reference case # 15103880626. This is an issue that requires developer level troubleshooting, not just workaround suggestions from tier 1 support.
Aside from all of that, there is a separate, but probably related, issue where time entries are simply disappearing from invoices. I've noticed this a couple of times now. Using the workflow noted above, I'll add time entries to an invoice and then send to the customer via email through the QBO back end. The customer receives a PDF version of the invoice as well as link to view the invoice online, pretty standard for most QBO users I assume. I noticed however that some of my past invoice amounts had changed. It turns out that, with no action from me (and I'm the only one using QBO for my company), all time entries on some invoices were removed and the invoice total was changed accordingly, all without my knowledge. I just happened to notice this. Looking at the PDF invoices that were originally sent to the customers, the time entries were absolutely there. This is also a bug.
I've now spent a couple of days going through old invoices fixing things and confirming amounts are correct. At this point I have very little confidence in QBO's ability to properly track time and associated charges.
