How do I track vehicle mileage with quickbooks simple start?

Thank you for reaching out to us, jbstuch,

Tracking mileage in QBO is the ability to enter a vendor bill and making the employee who is to be reimbursed a vendor/supplier.

This option, however, is not available in QuickBooks Simple Start.  If you need this feature, I recommend you upgrade to QBO Essentials.

You will need to enter a vendor bill until you pay/reimburse, a vendor/supplier, because there is no automated way to track mileage.

In doing so, make sure to set up an expense account for mileage, here’s how:

1. Click the Gear icon at the top and choose Chart of Accounts.
2. Click New on the top-right corner.
3. Follow the new account interview and click Finish once complete.

Then you’d have to set up a Product/Service for mileage. After doing so, you can start to enter and pay the bill.
That should do it. If you need more information about tracking mileage, please click the link below:
https://community.intuit.com/articles/1146022.

Stay in touch if you have any other concerns. Have a great day!

Hello...Once the mileage is tracked, how does one go about invoicing a client for this mileage?

Hello...I am trying to find out how one then invoices a client for the tracked and recorded mileage.

Hey there, @KCE.

Thanks for joining the conversation here in the Community. Allow me to offer some assistance in invoicing your customers for tracked milage. In QuickBooks Online, this is called a billable expense. A billable expense is anything that is incurred by you on your client's behalf when performing work for said client, and for which you can be reimbursed by them. Here's how to turn on, enter, and invoice them:

Turn on billable expenses:

• Select the Gear icon at the top, then Account and Settings (or Company Settings).
• Click Expenses from the left.
• In the Bills and expenses section, select the edit (pencil) icon.
• Ensure that the following items are checked:
  • Show Items table on expense and purchase forms
  • Track expenses and items by customer
  • Make expenses and items billable
• (Optional) Set the markup rate.
• (Optional) Change the income account you wish Billable Expenses to affect. By default, Billable Expense Income is selected.
• Select Save, then Done.

To enter a billable expense:

• Create an expense transaction on the Bill, Expense, or Check window as usual.
• Select the Billable checkbox.
  Note: If the Billable checkbox does not appear, you have not yet set up billable expense tracking properly.
• Save the transaction.
• Now, open an invoice and select the customer you made the expense billable for.
• A screen should pop up on the right-hand side with billable expenses.
• Select all expenses you would like to invoice the customer for.
• Enter any other information you'd like to see on the invoice.
• Save the transaction. 

Should you need it, I've included a link to an article that can help with billable expenses: How to enter billable expenses.

Now you should have an invoice billing your client for the expenses. Be sure to let me know if you have any questions about this. I'm always here in the Community to help.

Hi there, iamluvinlife.

I have some clarification to provide on your question regarding the mileage module.

QuickBooks Online (QBO) currently tracks mileage mainly for reimbursement purposes. Meanwhile, QuickBooks Self-Employed (QBSE) is designed for Independent Contractors, who tracks mileage for estimated tax calculations.

I can see how adding this module in QBO could help your business, I'll be sure to submit feedback to our Product Development Team. They place a lot of value in the ideas provided by users, like yourself, when deciding on how best to improve QuickBooks.

Please know that I'm only a post away if you need additional assistance. I'm always here to provide help and answer any questions that you may have. Wishing you and your business all the best.

Any updates if the Self Employed milage tracker will be added?  I could really use this feature

Hi there, @kdub718.

Thanks for joining this thread. Allow me to help provide some additional information about the mileage feature.

Right now, the QuickBooks Self-Employed mileage tracker for estimated tax calculations is not available in QBO. However, if you'd likely need to track mileage in order to reimburse, you can follow the detailed steps in this article on how to track mileage in QBO. 

If you need further assistance with the steps, I encourage you to contact our QuickBooks Online Support Team. They have the tools to pull up your account and do a remote session. 

Here's how you can contact our live support:

1. Sign in to your QuickBooks Online company.
2. Select Help (question mark icon) at the top right.
3. Click Contact us to connect with a live support agent.

Don't hesitate to click the Reply button if you have any other questions about the mileage tracker. Have a good day ahead. 

I'm on the bandwagon of wanting the QBSE mileage tracking added to QB Online. I'll stay with QBSE a little longer.

Hi, dmiddleb,

Thanks for joining the thread. I know how this feature would be useful in QuickBooks Online.

To stay updated about the new features in QuickBooks Online you can check out our QuickBooks Product Updates on the Firm of the Future Blog.

For future reference, I'm attaching some helpful articles with detailed troubleshooting steps when encountering problems with tracking miles:

• Android Mileage tracking troubleshooting guide
• Fix Mileage tracker for your iPhone

If you have any other concerns about mileage, please feel free to reach back out. I'd be happy to help. Have a great day!

OK, I'm a QBO user also self-employed and I need to track my mileage. I kept a log last year, but I don't know where to put this. There must be a correct way to enter this expense... without having to actually pay out a dollar amount. Maybe there isn't a way to do this without the special feature you're talking about. If so, then I want to add my vote for adding this to QBO.

Thanks

Brighton

Hello there, Brighton.

The mileage tracking in QuickBooks Online is solely for reimbursement purposes. Then, if you want to mark the items as billable, this is only available in the Plus and Advanced versions. The feature to track mileage for estimated tax calculations is available in QuickBooks Self-Employed only.

I will help you by passing this idea to our management team. We always appreciate customers who take their time to share us their ideas/preferences. This will help us improve QuickBooks Online's services and features. 

If you have other questions, please don't hesitate to get back to this thread. 

Me too! I have qbo, but really need to be able to track my mileage for my own expense purposes as is allowed in the self employed version. 

Me too! I pay monthly for qbo, but really need the mileage feature that is in the qbse app. I don’t want to have to pay for both.

I appreciate how you wanting this feature in QBO, Jaimesgold.

As mentioned above by my colleague, this feature is unavailable for QuickBooks Simple Start. I'd recommend you upgrade to QBO Essentials for you to have this feature.

I'll personally share this request to our developers. This way, they'll know your sentiments and experiences while working your task in managing your business. Most of our product enhancements are based on all opinions shared by or customers like you.

In addition, you can check our QuickBooks Blog so you'll be updated with the new feature released in our software.

I'll be always around to help if you need anything else.

Like some others that have written in, I have a small business and have mileage for 2019 entered, but will have to add it to my P&L for the accountant. It would be great if Simple Start could accommodate this feature because I really don't a lot of the bells and whistles; I barely use some of the features on SS.

Thanks!!