I appreciate you for the complete details about your concern, @guzanc.
If the three companies are considered as three separate business entities, record the transaction as a journal entry. We'd suggest confirming with an accountant the best way to record this and then we can advice how to do that in Quickbooks. They will likely suggest a journal entry which can then be used for the invoice and the payment made. We can't advice on what chart of accounts to use however. We have included a help article on contra payments here
Projects may be another way to do this, you can add each company as Customer and enable the Project feature. Let me guide you on how it works.
First, let's add each company as a customer.
- Go to the Sales menu.
- Choose Customers tab.
- Click the New Customer button.
- Enter customer information.
- Click Save.
Once completed, let's create a project. Here's how:
- Go to the Projects menu.
- Click the New Project method.
- Enter the Project name.
- Associate it with the specific customer.
- Click Save.
Lastly, let's enable your billable expense feature. Here's how:
- Click the Gear Icon.
- Choose Account and Settings.
- Select the Expenses tab.
- In the Bills and expenses section, mark the following:
- Track expenses and items by the customer.
- Make expenses and items billable.
- Track billable expenses and items as income
- Click Save.
- Hit Done.
Now, you can record your expenses and labor fees and assign them to a specific customer or project.
Here's a short video clip for visual reference:
Also, you can refer these articles to learn more about managing your income and expense transactions:
Always feel free to drop your comments below if you have other questions. I'm just a few clicks away.
