Is there a way to change an entry from expense to bill without having to delete expense and re-enter as a bill?

No.  You have to re-enter it.

Lynda

Hello there, @helton137.

Changing the entry from an expense to a bill without deleting the original transaction is unavailable. But you can delete the expense and recreate a bill on your end.

To delete an expense:

1. From the left menu, click the Expenses menu.
2. Choose the Expenses tab.
3. On the Expense Transactions page, find the expense to delete.
4. From the Action ▼drop-down menu, select Delete.
5. Choose Yes to confirm that you want to delete the transaction.

To create a bill:

1. Click the Plus (+) icon.
2. Choose Bill.
3. From the Vendor ▼ drop-down menu, choose your preferred vendor.
4. Enter the necessary information in the fields.
5. Hit Save and close.

Also including this article for a reference about the difference of transactions in QuickBooks: What is the difference between bills, checks, and expenses?

Please get back to me if you have any other questions. I’ll be glad to help. Have a good day.

what if I have already reconciled the bills.  Currently they are just hanging out in the "print check zone"  What is the best way to remedy this ?  thank you so much! Basically a dozen or so expenses were entered as Bills and not as Expenses.  

Hi there, @meggiekate.

I'd be happy to help you with deleting your bill even if it's already reconciled.

You can unreconcile it by going to the Bank register, manually click R until it's blank, and click Save. Then, delete the bank transaction so that it will be available back on the Banking page. I'd also recommend asking for advice from your accountant to know what is the best thing to do with changing your reconciled bills to expenses. Especially that you're going to do this process with multiple reconciled bills.

This is how it looks like to unreconcile the transaction:

Once done, go to the Expenses menu, locate the Bill transaction, and delete it. Then, create an Expense transaction, enter all the details such as the date, vendor's name, and amount that you've got from the bank register so that it will match the bank transaction.

I've also included this article to know more details about unreconciling an account: Undo or remove transactions from reconciliations in QuickBooks Online.

You may consider checking out this reference for this year-end tasks with QuickBooks: QuickBooks Online year-end guide and checklist.

As always, you're very welcome to tag my name in the comment section if you have other questions. I'd be glad to answer them for you. Happy Holidays!

This isn't really good enough. Far too long a process and frustrating! This needs a simpler process. 

Going through learning QB - I find myself over and over realizing how asinine the Online software is. Basic features like changing an expense into a Bill - which are the same thing for many companies (for applying it to an A/P account). When the only solution is to manually delete the records and enter them I find myself wanting to jump off a cliff. This is the sixth issue I've experienced today - with there being no solution other than to spend hours deleting and fixing records. If this was in an SQL database or even an excel spreadsheet I could have done it faster. Makes me wonder if QB is the right solution for me..

Attention all QuickBooks developers and management - get it together, please. These features I'm finding in the forums - which are being requested by many users - are 1, easy to implement from a coding perspective  (in comparison to complex logic) and 2, being neglected as this post is from 2019 and I'm still unable to do this simple task?  And as a daily user, I'm finding using QuickBooks online more mundane to use by the second.

Also, why the heck can't I change the filter from 365 days in the Vendor tab?! What if I wanted to see the Vendor's accounts from 366+days ago (easily) without digging into the chart of accounts?

Why can I do this for the Expenses tab, but not the Vendors tab - which IS in the same sub-menu right next to each other and has the same basic lookup functionality?.

I think that post was from 2 years ago - so please review the forums and actually make an attempt to improve the software. I'm literally about to give up and switch to another software.

An option would to be, take an admin/developer mode so I can access/change any record cell.  I think the community and tons of others would appreciate it.

Sincerely,

A very frustrated User

This isn't the impression we want leave you with, @Pbros.

I know how imperative it is to change an expense into a bill. I'll be taking note of this option, so our developers will know that this is something that they need to consider updating. Rest assured they're working nonstop to enhance the product and deliver the best experience for all QuickBooks users.

Meanwhile, you can send a product request through our website. In this page, you'll also see the recently updated ideas added to the program.

In case you need help with other QuickBooks-related tasks, browse this link to go to the page. It has our general topics with articles: View all help for QuickBooks Online.

Please know that you're always welcome to swing by anytime if you have other questions or concerns with bills. I'm always here to help. Take care and have a good one.

I completely agree. I have found Quickbooks really disappointed. A classic example of software written by people who know nothing about bookkeeping. 

I completely agree. I have found Quickbooks extremely disappointing. A classic example of software written by people who know nothing about bookkeeping. 

And here we are a year later and you still can't change an expense to a bill!

Any updates on this? I wish I could change an expense to a bill with a click of a button...

Let me guide you on sending a request for this function, Jacob.

Converting an expense to a bill automatically with just one click is convenient and a good way for your business needs.  You'll want to let our product team know by sending a request. To do so, you can follow the steps outlined below: 
 

1. Select the Gear icon at the top, then Feedback.
2. Enter your comments or product suggestions. Then click Next to submit feedback.

With this, you can also check out our Customer Feedback page for other requests being submitted. It's a good thing that you'll be able to check them out to add some functions that you think are useful. This will also improve your product experience and lets you keep track of any product updates.

For more information on when to record checks or expenses, learn from this article for your guide: Learn the difference between bills, checks, and expenses In QuickBooks Online.

Additionally, QuickBooks provides an easy way how to record business expenses. You'll want to record bills one at a time or record multiple bills for multiple vendors at once. Check out this article for more information: Enter And Manage Bills And Bill Payments In QuickBooks Online.

If you need anything else with expenses or bills, let us know so we can get back to you. We're here to further assist you all the time.

Yes, old post. Yes, issue still exists

So sick of this incoherent, overhyped mess called QuickBooks.

Not only constantly referred to "community" of other non experts offering advice that may or may not be correct or for your version.

Burden on paying subscribers/users (US!!!!) to manually fix all this crap with constant workarounds and pricey 3rd party apps to compensate for the utter disregard of Intuit. Constantly cutting and pasting invoice numbers and bill numbers and other basic info which DOES NOT APPEAR ON TRANSACTIONS    Comments on reports are long strings, basically ads for QBO or BillPaying with no relevant info for actual transactions. QB Payments even worse   nested reports of deposits which do not include invoice numbers for clients to review OR US? 

Intuit needs a class action lawsuit for their sneaky lazy apps getting worse by the second.    WHO SENDS BILL PAYMENTS THAT DON'T REFERENCE ACCOUNT NUMBER OR INVOICE NUMBERS?  SAME WITH A/R...  INVOICE NUMBERS DO NOT PULL TO REPORTS OR ANYWHERE. THIS IS NOT ACCOUNTING OR EVEN BOOKKEEPING.   

INTUIT SHOULD BE PAYING US

ALMOST LAUGHABLE THAT EVEN IN THIS POST, WE ARE ADVISED TO SUBMIT A PRODUCT REQUEST(S) DIRECTLY ON YET ANOTHER SITE. THEY CAN'T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO COMPILE/RELAY THESE REQUESTS.

THEY NEED TO RENAME QUICKBOOKS TO   SLOW, USELESS BOOKS DIY

Totally with you on that.  I gave up using it in the end due to even worse shortcoming relating to the inability to save a supplier payment on account.  I feel that the creators have never actually done proper bookkeeping in practice.

It would be great to have a feature where you can make the change without having to delete and re-enter.

Thanks for joining the thread and sharing your thoughts about managing expenses and bills in QuickBooks Online (QBO), Lyn. Let me share some insights on how we can address it with our Product Development Team for this feature.

We agree with the convenience of having this feature in our program. As we all know, it's currently unavailable. With that, we recommend sending feedback to our Product Development Team to study this feature and may add this to future enhancements. Also, all recommendations and opinions from our valued customers are greatly appreciated. Let me outline the steps in sending feedback.

1. Go to the Gear icon.
2. Choose Feedback.
3. Enter your comments or product suggestions.
4. Then, click Next to submit feedback.

You can visit our QuickBooks Online Feature Requests website to track the status of your submitted feedback.

We'll be adding these articles for further details on handling expenses in QuickBooks:

• Enter bills and record bill payments in QuickBooks Online
• Enter and manage Expenses in QuickBooks Online

We'll be around here in the Community if you require additional information on managing your sales and expenses in QuickBooks, Lyn. Have a great rest of your day!

No you will have to re-enter the bill after deleting the expense.  You can give feedback about this feature in the Feedback tab by clicking gear icon, then click Feedback.  Write your idea in the box and submit, it goes straight the the developers and engineers of the QuickBooks Online Software.  Now, if you don't want to pay the bill through QuickBooks, you can leave the expense, once the transaction comes through the bank feed for review then you can add/match that transaction to the expense and that will offset it as taken care of.  I hope that makes sense and if you want to pay bills in your product then it has to be entered as a bill for that feature.