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schmergenheimer
Level 1

Bulk Billable Expenses and Invoicing

We've been using QuickBooks for about three months now, and my conclusion at this point is that it tries too hard to be smart.  We're a firm of three people, all of whom we want to have full access to QB.  We've gone on several trips, incurring about 15 billable expenses each (meals, flights, hotels, etc.).  The problem we have is getting them entered in a way that makes it easy to

  • Track the expenses to our credit card (i.e. put them on the books)
  • Generate a single document containing all of the receipts to send to the client with the invoice

 

So far, we've tried two different workflows:

  1. Enter each expense (flight, hotel, etc.) as a separate expense
  2. Attach receipt to this expense
  3. Generate invoice
  4. Download all receipts from the invoice page
  5. Combine into a single document in a separate program
  6. Upload that document back into invoice.

The problem with this workflow is that entering all of the expenses is cumbersome and error-prone.  Using the receipt snap makes it way too easy to miss the "billable" checkbox because of how buried it is.  Downloading and combining the receipts is also cumbersome, and the filenames make it hard to tell what item is what.

The other workflow is:

  1. Enter all of the expenses as a single "expense" with separate line items for flight, hotel, etc.
  2. Scan in a combined receipt document associated with that expense.
  3. Create invoice.
  4. Send the single-document receipts with invoice

The problem with this workflow is that the linked transactions won't associate with the line-items.  I can't match to them for some reason - it only lets me match to bills, not expenses.  Now I have a million excluded transactions.  At the same time, there's no way to reconcile without using the suspense account in case I bought a flight before the trip and it showed up on a different statement than the other expenses.

 

Is there a simple workflow I'm missing?  I thought I'd figure out an easy way to invoice expenses by now, but after about ten of these I'm still at a loss.

7 Comments 7
ShiellaGraceA
QuickBooks Team

Bulk Billable Expenses and Invoicing

Thanks for the details, @schmergenheimer.

 

I have some information about recording bulk billable expenses. In QBO, you can record your billable expense as a single expense transaction like your second workflow. Just make sure to mark the billable box so you can bill your expenses to your customer.

 

Here's how it looks like.

 

 

 

 

When you're ready to reconcile, just choose the Find match radio button to match the downloaded transactions to the expense. See the images below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learn more about the billable expense and matching transactions at these articles below.

 

 

If you need help with other vendor tasks, feel free to browse this link here to go to our general vendor topics with articles.

 

Drop your comment anytime below if you still have questions or concerns with expenses. I'm always here for you. Take care and have a good one.

 

 

 

 

schmergenheimer
Level 1

Bulk Billable Expenses and Invoicing

I would have expected the steps you showed to work.  I tried those before I posted.  However, it simply doesn't work.  In your last screenshot, you'll notice how it says "We could not find QBO transactions for the date and search criteria above."  I see the exact same thing when I attempt to follow those steps.  One of my multi-line expenses has a line containing a $12.62 lunch.  I see a $12.62 credit card transaction on the Banking Overview page.  However, when I go to "Find Match", there are no expenses available to match it to.

 

I'd also like to provide some general feedback that the quality of your screenshots make it very difficult to see what's going on.  I was able to figure it out by zooming in very far, but if you can, posting in a higher resolution would make it a lot easier to follow your steps.

Angelyn_T
QuickBooks Team

Bulk Billable Expenses and Invoicing

I'll take note of your feedback about the screenshots provided, @schmergenheimer. I'm also here to help you with matching your bulk expenses in QuickBooks Online.

 

To get a clear view of the images attached by my colleague ShiellaGraceA, you can hover your mouse on the screenshot, right-click, then tap on the Open image in a new tab. 

 

When matching your expenses from the Banking page, please make sure to select the correct transaction type and the date range from the Match transactions window to get the correct result.

 

Here's how:

 

  1. Sign in to QuickBooks Online.
  2. Click on Banking at the left pane, then go to the Banking section.
  3. Choose your account, then select the transaction from the For Review column.
  4. Tap on Find match.
  5. From the Match transactions window, select the transaction type you want to display or select All.
  6. Set the date range from the From and To section.
  7. Review your transactions from there.

If you're getting the same result, I recommend checking out the billable transactions recorded in QuickBooks. Let's make sure that the correct amounts and accounts are selected from there.

 

For more tips about handling your banking transactions, I recommend checking out this article: Categorize and match online bank transactions in QuickBooks Online.

 

If you need to change or move a transaction to a different account before your monthly reconciliation, use this link as your reference: Unmatch downloaded bank transactions or move them to another account.

 

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!

schmergenheimer
Level 1

Bulk Billable Expenses and Invoicing

I've performed those exact steps, but I still don't see expenses to match to.  My date range is for a month before the expense date (both the entry and the credit card transaction date) and a month after.  I have tried both the "All" filter and the "Expenses" filter.  I do not see any expenses to match to.  I've double-checked that the amount in the line-item matches the credit card transaction amount.

I read the article and watched the video you linked.  They do not provide any information about how to match a credit card transaction to a multi-line expense.

MariaSoledadG
QuickBooks Team

Bulk Billable Expenses and Invoicing

I have an easier way on how you can fix this instead of matching the transactions and I'm here to guide you how, schmergenheimer.

 

Indeed, the entries and credit card transaction dates aren't the issue if the previous dates of these transactions starting January 1, 2021, were already reconciled. You'll want to manually reconcile the transactions in the register to match the opening balance. To do this, follow the steps below.

  1. Click Accounting, select Chart of Accounts.
  2. Select the account, then click View register.
  3. Under the check column, click the box until it will show the letter R.
  4. Click Save.

Here's a handy article to know if everything matches with the transactions: Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online. After your reconciliation, QuickBooks Online automatically generates a report for the session. Learn how to view the report from this article: How do I view, print, or export a reconciliation report?

 

Let me know if you have any other queries with reconciliation. Don't forget, we're here to make sure you'll be able to finish everything without any issue. 

schmergenheimer
Level 1

Bulk Billable Expenses and Invoicing

As I said in my original post, the issue is with reconciling a split, not a whole transaction.  Going through the chart of accounts doesn't allow me to reconcile a split.

JenoP
Moderator

Bulk Billable Expenses and Invoicing

Jumping in to share details about your banking concerns, schmergenheimer.

 

One of the major factors that QBO uses when looking for a match is the amount. If the downloaded transaction or receipt has a different amount compared to the one in your bank register, the program won't be able to find a match. 

 

You mentioned that some of the transactions are part of a multi-line expense transaction in QBO. This is the reason why you're unable to match especially if the downloaded transactions are done individually. If that happens, you need to exclude transactions and manually clear the ones in your bank register. More details about this are discussed here:

 

 

I would also recommend reaching out to our chat and phone support teams. They can take a closer look at the transactions to determine why you're unable to see transactions when looking for a match. Here's how:

 

  1. Click the Help menu in the upper-right hand corner of your QBO account.
  2. Type in "Talk to a human" in the chatbox, then press Enter.
  3. Select Get help from a human.
  4. Click Chat with us or Have us call you

 

We're just around the corner here to help you again if you need anything else. Just reply below or post new questions and we'll be glad to answer them for you. 

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