Billable Expenses

lynndoesit · ‎March 15, 2024

I manage all administration for a general contractor.

When I say all admin, I mean I do every single thing related to the operation of this business.

I do the AP, AR, PR, Taxes, Banking, Human Resources, and Project Management.

We have 5 on PR, 7 who are Subcontracted via 1099.

I am having a really hard time trying to figure out to use this program. Billable expenses is just the top of the list of things I do not do correctly. Perhaps its because I have never had any training, time is a big issue for me here. But now I am wasting more time not learning this the right way. HELP!

My vendors bill me throughout the month for jobs we do for customers.

When I am invoicing my customers to be reimbursed for those bills plus markup, the list appears on the right side of the screen to "ADD" those bills.

For example, I receive 30 bills from Vendor A for customer XX

10 of those bills are for Framing Materials

5 are for Deck & Porch Materials

10 are for Windows

5 are for Siding Materials

I would think since they were all entered as individual items of that type, ie Framing Materials, Deck & Porch Materials etc, they would consolidate the 10 bills from Framing Materials and only enter one line entry for Framing materials totaling all 10 bills.

And so on

One line entry for Deck & Porch Materials totaling those 5 bills

One line entry for Windows totaling the 10 bills I received

One line entry for Siding Materials totaling the 5 bills I entered.

Instead they appear on the customers invoice separately if I use that "add" option.

This causes my customers invoice to be 20 pages long when it relatively could fit on one page.

So, I have been consolidating those expenses by hand and entering the total which then causes the "billable" expense to remain "unbilled". Now I have 2 billion unbilled billable expenses on my hands!!

My reports are useless at this point because nothing is accurate between what has been invoiced and what has not.

This is causing me so much extra work, actually having to run a spreadsheet along side these projects to keep track of where I leave off with invoicing expenses each month so that I don't reinvoice the customer for the same bill by accident.

HELP ME PLEASE!! There has to be a better way !!

Thanks in advance to anyone who can shed some light in my dark little corner office!

Bryan_M · ‎March 15, 2024

I'm glad you posted here, @lynndoesit.

Currently, the option to consolidate the billable expense in the invoice to avoid making it long isn't available in QuickBooks Online (QBO). I see how challenging is on your end to perform this in QBO. With that in mind, I recommend submitting direct feedback for this. Our Product Engineers might add this to future product updates. Here's how:

Go to Settings, then Feedback.
Enter your comments or product suggestions. Then select Next to submit feedback.

Please know that to make billable expenses work in QBO, you'll need to add it per line item before linking to the invoice. Since you manually consolidate the billable expenses in your invoice, it won't link and will remain unbilled.

To have accurate reporting, you'll need to add the billable expense to the invoice. We can edit the invoice you created and add the billable expense there. You can follow the steps below:

In the Sales tab, select Invoices.
Look for the invoice.
Click the Edit icon, below the Action tab. Then, add the billable expense.
Once done, click Save and close.

You might want to personalize your sales form. Check out this article: Customize invoices, estimates, and sales receipts in QuickBooks Online.

Leave a comment below if you have additional questions about adding billable expenses to an invoice. I'll be willing to lend a hand. Keep safe always.

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