How do I a bill into quickbooks, I cannot get a billable product/service name to carry over to the product/service column on the client's invoice when I add the item?

Sean68 · ‎February 03, 2021

The problem I have is that QBO only allows an Either/Or scenario when it comes to putting billable items on a client invoice. EITHER....I can put the details in the Category section and properly account for the expense in an expense category [like a Cost of Goods Sold]......OR I can put the billable expense details in the Item Details Section, which allows for me to get the Service/Product name in that column on the client invoice and also allow me to run my own product service reports. My problem is I need BOTH and QBO is designed to not allow BOTH. If I use the category section I can assign the billable expense an expense category - which I need to do. COGS is literally a section on a tax return. I NEED this. However, all my billable items that are also products and services are then uncategorized. The Product/Service does not show up on client invoices and the reports are a gob of junk because nothing has a name. When I use the item details, I get the detqail on the invoices, and I can run reports, but then none of my billable expenses get put in an expense category. How could a business product like this be designed this way Thanks in advance for any help. I have to solev this today or I am ditching QBO for some other product.

katherinejoyceO · ‎February 03, 2021

Hello, @Sean68.

To give you an insight, when creating a billable expense transaction, you'll want to add the product or service first. Then, add the description. You can also add the description to the product/service info.

Here's how:

Go to the Gear icon, then choose Product and Services.
Locate the product or service item you want to add a description.
From the Action column, click Edit.
Enter the item description.
Click Save and Close.

You can read through this article to get acquainted with managing your product and service items: Add product and service items to QuickBooks Online.

I'm also adding articles that you can browse to learn more about recording billable expense in QuickBooks:

Let me know if you have other questions about tracking your billable expense transactions. I'm always here to help.

Sean68 · ‎February 03, 2021

Thanks. That does not solve the problem of putting the billable expense in an expense category.

You cannot use both sections. Both sections have things I need.

The category section has the expense categories.

The item details section has the service/product information

QBO does not allow one to get BOTH.

That means I have to choose between having categorized expenses so I can calculate COGS by using the category section OR using the item details section so the product/service shows on my invoices to clients and allows me to run reports to see how much a client spent by product or service that we offer.

There is apparently no way at all to do both in Quickbooks - which is insanely stupid and frustrating

pca-raj · ‎September 19, 2021

I'm new to QuickBooks and had the same issue, but I believe there might be a solution.

Edit the Product/Service and enable the checkbox "I purchase this product/service from a vendor." That enables a field asking you to specify the expense account/category to which to apply expenses for this product. Now you just add the product to the Items List, leave the Category Details blank, and the account will be updated in the background. Check the Activity Detail report to be sure.

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How do I a bill into quickbooks, I cannot get a billable product/service name to carry over to the product/service column on the client's invoice when I add the item?