How do I remove a mass amount of unbilled expenses?

cpense · ‎December 10, 2018

When we buy an item from a vendor we mark the "customer" field in the bill with our customer's name. Doing so checks the box next to it saying "Billable." We didn't know what this meant, but it was automatic so we didn't think much of it. 3 years later and I have over $1,000,000 in "unbilled expense".

I know I can turn this feature off now since we don't need it, but how do I get rid of all of these unbilled expenses? Apart from clicking through every old bill and unchecking the billable box I don't know how to fix this.

The closest thread I could find is here https://community.intuit.com/questions/776246-every-bill-is-not-a-billable-expense

In it someone suggests creating an invoice for all unbilled expenses and then deleting it. Would that be okay? Would it work when the expenses are all under several hundred different customer names?

Does anyone know of a way to remove these unbilled expenses? Thank you for reading!

I am running QuickBooks: Premier Mfg + Wholesale 2013

qbteachmt · ‎December 10, 2018

Don't "create an invoice and delete it." That's never necessary. Do it like this: Run the Unbilled Costs by Job report, and your Time by Job report for Unbilled, as well. Now, for each customer:job name, start with an Invoice. Use the Add Time & Costs icon. Here you see the pop up with likely 4 tabs. Click on Each to see all the Unbilled entries waiting. Notice the far right column = Hide? That is not really Hide. That is you, checkmarking here and that tells the Program, "Please go back to that originating transaction and Remove the billable mark for me; I didn't mean to leave it that way." Once you Hide everything on all of the tabs for this name (don't forget to Scroll), Click OK. Now, hit Clear. Now, top left, put in the Next Customer:Job and use the Add Time & Costs button. Keep doing this, and each time, that Report refreshes with fewer entries listed on it.

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qbteachmt · ‎December 10, 2018

Don't "create an invoice and delete it." That's never necessary. Do it like this: Run the Unbilled Costs by Job report, and your Time by Job report for Unbilled, as well. Now, for each customer:job name, start with an Invoice. Use the Add Time & Costs icon. Here you see the pop up with likely 4 tabs. Click on Each to see all the Unbilled entries waiting. Notice the far right column = Hide? That is not really Hide. That is you, checkmarking here and that tells the Program, "Please go back to that originating transaction and Remove the billable mark for me; I didn't mean to leave it that way." Once you Hide everything on all of the tabs for this name (don't forget to Scroll), Click OK. Now, hit Clear. Now, top left, put in the Next Customer:Job and use the Add Time & Costs button. Keep doing this, and each time, that Report refreshes with fewer entries listed on it.

cpense · ‎December 10, 2018

Thank you. This will go a lot faster. I was not able to find a "Time by Job report for Unbilled" But I was able to generate the Unbilled Costs by Job. That one shows me bills, but it also shows me customer names. Then if I go and start the process of creating an invoice by typing in one of those customers I was able to find the "Add Time/Costs" icon and check the boxes to hide. This did remove the customer entirely from the Unbilled Costs report. Much faster than clicking through every bill. Thanks again.

cornerstonemgmtg · ‎December 10, 2018

I've been trying to do this also as we have many years worth of unbilled charges. The problem I have is that when I go to uncheck the "Billable" on the check, it gives me the its already been reconciled and proceeding could put you out of balance message. I accepted this message once before when doing something else and it did mess things up...what are the chances it will for this? If I'm only making it unbillable......

qbteachmt · ‎December 10, 2018

"it gives me the its already been reconciled"

That doesn't matter; you are changing the Status of Billable or not. That never changes the Financial reporting of that data.

"I accepted this message once before when doing something else and it did mess things up..."

Even if that Did apply, you can re-reconcile any account. When you are not changing amounts that post to accounts, there typically is no effect on the Cleared status of the Transaction itself. The Billable status is not That Transaction; it is that transaction's Detail or Splits, on the Items tab (and the expenses tab, which really should be done using items, for job reporting purposes).

"If I'm only making it unbillable......" <== Make the changes that Matter to you

cornerstonemgmtg · ‎December 10, 2018

Thanks! That was my thinking but after the fiasco before, I was a little paranoid. Thanks so much for confirming!

qbteachmt · ‎December 10, 2018

Timesheets are used for tracking Tasks; they can be used for making the tasks Billable or not, as well. They can be passed to Payroll to "pay from time data" for Job Tracked Costing purposes, or not. Timesheets are Not Payroll; they are simply a place to make the data entry, making that data available to Other Steps that might come later.

cpense · ‎December 10, 2018

Thank you! That is very helpful. I just didn't want to change anything that my bookkeeper would need to use in the future.

staceyakulla · ‎December 10, 2018

How about fixing this in the QBO?

qbteachmt · ‎December 10, 2018

@skulla You are in a Desktop topic. This is not a QB Online topic. You didn't even describe what you think needs to be fixed.

For reference, you control how you use timesheets in QB Online to track tasks, the same as desktop. The only difference is that, if you use them to Run Payroll, there is no job costing in your reporting.

qbteachmt · ‎December 10, 2018

If you don't use timesheets, then you don't have to worry about finding the Unbilled Time :)

cpense · ‎December 10, 2018

We currently have ADP doing our payroll, but we plan to start doing it in house next year. If I turn off the billable time and expenses preference will that interfere with us wanting to do payroll in-house?

dhanie-scott · ‎December 10, 2018

Update - As of today, 6/29/18, the report for Unbilled costs by job is called "Uninvoiced Charges".

qbteachmt · ‎December 10, 2018

In Desktop this still is Unbilled Costs by Job. Or, Unbilled time from a "Time By XX" report. I believe QB Online considers the Time to be Uninvoiced Charges. This is a Desktop topic. So, different products entirely.

dhanie-scott · ‎December 10, 2018

Indeed, it is. You're very right, qbteachmt. Thank you for making this distinction and helpful clarification. If another QBO user is also in a rush, we've made this a multi-product answer so they can keep it moving.

qbteachmt · ‎December 10, 2018

Time by Job report is in Reports menu > Jobs, Time & Mileage reports. Unbilled is a Status that you need to show or filter on, to see it.

cpense · ‎December 10, 2018

Hmm.. Yeah, I don't have that one. In fact, under the Jobs, Time & Mileage reports none of them say Time... Could be a preference that we had turned off because we don't bill by time.
I tried to get a screen shot of it, but I am not sure how to load one and photobucket is down right now. It's okay though, The Unibilled Costs report helped me well enough.

Baehrsden · ‎December 20, 2018

I'm having this same problem. How or where do you change this setting?

AlcaeusF · ‎December 20, 2018

Hello @Baehrsden, @cpense,

Thanks for posting here in the Community. I'm here to assist you with running the Time by Job report in QuickBooks Desktop.

You need to enable the Time Tracking feature through the Preferences window for these reports to show.

Here's how:

Click the Edit tab at the top menu bar.
Select Preferences.
Click Time & Expenses.
Go to the Company Preferences tab.
Below Do you track time?, click Yes.
Click OK.

Once done, the Time by Job reports will now show on the Jobs, Time & Mileage section.

Here's how:

Click the Reports tab at the top menu.
Select Jobs, Time & Mileage.
Click Time by Job Summary or Time by Job Detail.

I'm here anytime you have questions concerning the report. The Community team is always around whenever you need assistance.

sevans · ‎January 10, 2019

I do want to point out (to the powers that be) that indication of Quickbooks types (QBD vs QBO) on the forum page can be hard to find or notice. This makes learning and participating confusing when arriving from a google search. Intuit has done a sub-par job of labeling their Help articles, too. No need to reply. Just airing frustration.

*EDIT: I finally found the tag for desktop. Organizational approach differs from prior version of forum. I would be so much more helpful if the tag/label was more visible, and just above the post title, instead of at the end of the post. That's the first and most crucial thing I need to know.

AlcaeusF · ‎January 10, 2019

Hello there, sevans.

I appreciate you for posting in the Community about what you notice on the new forum and the product tagging for the help articles.

I believe the more visibility the products have, the more it will appeal to the audience. I will be sending this request to our internal enhancement list that we'll be sending to our product developers.

Please know you can always come to the Community for all your QuickBooks needs. Wishing you all the best.

PattiThielen · ‎January 14, 2019

Remind me again how to turn off the Billable checkbox? I'm drawing a blank...been a LONG TIME since I've done that.

HoneyLynn_G · ‎January 14, 2019

Greetings, @PattiThielen.

Thank you for joining this thread. I can help you turn off the Billable checkbox.

Click Edit.
Choose Preferences.
Select the Time & Expenses tab.
Choose the Company Preferences.
Uncheck the Mark all expenses as billable box.
Click OK to save changes.

That's it. Let me know if you have other questions about preferences in QuickBooks. Just click the "Reply" button. Wishing you all the best!

IntuitHeidi · ‎January 30, 2019

Hi,

If you have a lot of unbilled expenses, the best way to remove them is to go to your Dashboard. On the top of your screen where the URL is, remove "homepage", and put this in your URL after "/app/" managebillableexpense So your URL will say: c__.qbo.intuit.com/app/managebillableexpense

Then you can choose the date that you want these unbilled charges to be removed!

qbteachmt · ‎January 30, 2019

To Clarify:

@IntuitHeidi Answered for QB Online.

This originally was a topic for Desktop. In Desktop, if you are asking about Billable, that is when you run one of the Time reports. If you have billable Items and Expenses, you see that my running the Unbilled Costs by Job report. If you have billable Mileage, these reports are in the Mileage tool and in the Jobs, Time & Mileage reports in the Reports menu.

And for All 4 tabs of Unbilled charges seen in Add Time & Costs, you simply use the HIDE column, to checkmark that you want the program to go to that source entry and remove the Billable checkmark for you. That is counter-intuitive: you checking the HIDE, which tells the program to Deselect the Billable box in the originating entry.

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How do I remove a mass amount of unbilled expenses?