how does this answer that question if we were able to do this before. was this something that was taken away by quickbooks essentials?

Hello, is this a feature that was taken away. Mine also does not allow me to do this anymore when before it did. i have quickbooks essential. I can no longer go through my bank records and tie out an expense to a payee, category & customer. I can only now tie my expense to the payee and category

Hi there, Mark Schulte.

I'm here to provide some additional clarification on your question regarding adding customers to expense transactions.

Entering billable expenses is currently available in the Plus version of QuickBooks Online. Since you've mentioned that you're able to do it before, I recommend contacting our Phone Support Specialists.

One of them will be able to pull up your account and review the list of subscriptions. They also have the tools to assist you further with adding a customer on an expense.

For the information on how you can reach them, please see this article: Get help with QuickBooks Online.

Please let me know if there's anything else I can do for you. The Community is here to help.

Hi,

We need to be able to track our expenses allocated to specific customers. This affects all our reports, profit and loss/ sales/commision.

I refuse to accept that Quickbooks online is unable to facilitate this otherwise what is the point of QB online??

Please assist urgently

Hi,

We have managed to figure it out!

Thank you so much!!

Hi... is it doable with QB Premier 2019 desktop version. QB is not cheap and I believe it should be available.

Thank you

Hello Fadil!

The QuickBooks Desktop versions have more features actually than the online versions. I'll show you how to do billable expenses in QuickBooks Premier version.

Let's enable the option to make the time entries and expenses as billable.

1. From the Edit menu, select Preferences.
2. Go to Time & Expenses.
3. Click on Company Preferences.
4. Place a check in the Make all time entries billable and Mark all expenses as billable checkboxes. Please note that these options will not automatically mark the existing entries as billable. You still have to enable it on the transaction pages.
5. Click OK.

After enabling the feature, you will see a CUSTOMER and a BILLABLE column when you enter time entries and expense transactions. All you need to do is select whom you want to bill an item to and put a check in the BILLABLE field. Example in the screenshot.

When you're ready to invoice the customer, just add the billable entries as shown below.

That will do it. You can read more about this feature by searching for "billable" in the Help (press F1) window.

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

SashaCoopper

Can you share with the rest of us?

is there a way to assign an expense to an invoice?

Yes, there's away to assign an expense to an invoice, support-jlchapju.

In QuickBooks Desktop, you need to enter a billable expense and incur it to your customers. 

We'll begin by setting up the preferences that'll allow us to mark expenses as billable and enter a markup percentage. Let me walk you through the steps on how to do it:

1. From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.
2. Select Time & Expenses.
3. Go to the Company Preferences tab.
4. In the Invoicing Options section, check the Mark all expenses as billable option.
5. Enter the Default Markup Percentage.
   - You can leave this blank if there isn't a default percentage for the markup.
6. From the Default Markup Account drop-down menu, choose the correct account.
   - If you don't have one yet, you can always scroll up and select Add New to quickly create a markup account.
7. Click OK.
   
   

After we've set it up, allow me to guide you on how to enter an expense:

1. From the Vendors menu, select Enter bills.
2. Choose the Vendor.
3. Enter the Date.
4. Fill in the appropriate details in the following fields:
   - Account: Make sure to choose the correct account.
   - Amount: Enter the total amount of the bill.
   - Memo: You can leave this field blank if necessary.
   - Customer:Job: Choose the customer billable for this expense. Choosing the customer will automatically mark this expense as Billable.
5. Click Save & Close.
   
   

We're almost done. Now, we just need to create the invoice for the customer with the marked up amount. Here's how:

1. Click the Customers menu, then select Create Invoices.
2. Enter the customer that you entered on the bill.
3. On the Billable Time/Costs pop-up window, choose Select the outstanding billable time and costs to add to this invoice.
4. Go to the Expenses tab.
5. Select the right expense.
6. In the Markup Amount or % field, make sure the correct amount or percentage is entered.
7. In the Markup Account field, make sure the right account is selected.
8. Click OK, then Save & Close.
   
   

If you're using QuickBooks Online, check out this link for instructions and detailed steps: Enter billable expenses.

Keep me posted if there's anything else you need about this  by commenting below. I'm always around to help you.

My challenge with expenses is I give my customer a flat rate with the estimated expenses included.  So I don't pass the expense on to the customer, but I do want to track which invoice the expense was due to.  How can I do that? 

Hello there, @support-jlchapju.

QuickBooks has an array of reports that you can generate and customize to suit your business needs. However, the ability to run a billable expense report that shows the due date for both invoice and expense transactions. You need not to worry, you can run the Uninvoiced charges report.

1. Click the Reports tab.
2. Enter and select Uninvoiced charges in the Find report by name search box.
3. Click Customize.
4. In the Rows/Column drop-down, select Customer.
5. Go to the Filter drop-down.
6. Tick Transaction Type and select Billable Expense Charge.
7. Select a customer in the Customer drop-down.
8. Click Run report.

I've got these articles to learn more about managing reports in QuickBooks Online (QBO):

• Memorize reports
• Customize Reports and Email

Stay in touch if you have any other questions about billable expense, I'm always here to help. Have a wonderful day!

Hi!

I managed to turn on the option "mark expenses and items billable" but I couldn't move past that step. What I need is to filter all expenses to specific customers. How can I do that? We have far too many expenses to open each one individually. 

We pay for the online version because desktop is not available anymore.

Any procedures or hacks are welcome! I will need to do that for most of our customers and it feels like it will take forever to do manually.

Thanks!

Hello there, @vventura.

I'm here to share some information on how you can filter all your billable expenses to specific customers in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

If the expenses assigned are Billable to your customers, we can add the Billable Expense Charge option from the Filters section to include them in the report. Follow these steps to proceed:

1. Go to report from the left menu.
2. Find and open Transaction List by Customer.
3. Click the Customize option in the upper-right corner.
4. Filter the transaction types and include Billable Expense Charge.
5. Select the specific customer you want in the Customer section. 
6. Make the necessary changes and hit Run report.
   

If the expenses aren't billable to your customers, you can run the Transaction Detail by Account report instead. This report lets you view expense transactions and the customers linked to them. Here's how:

1. Open the Transaction Detail by Account report.
2. Click the small gear icon within the report.
3. Add the Customer column. 
4. Make the necessary changes to the filters.
5. Hit Run report.
   

Moreover, check out this article to learn more about how you can focus on the details that matter the most to you when you pull up reports in QBO: Customize reports in QuickBooks Online.

I've also included this resource for your reference in case you want to export your reports to Excel: Export your reports to Excel from QuickBooks Online.

I'll be around if you have other concerns related to running reports or managing expenses. The Community and I will be around to help you. Keep safe!

Need to look for some other software. They have removed most basic accounting functions from QBO simple and now are forcing you to pay 1000.00 a year for something that others do for only 30-40 a month. This is a piece of junk accounting package now. Would never have moved but lost my Desktop program and QB does not offer it anymore forcing you to pay. Oh and the double check the Desktop version they have $800 yr. It is really only Simple functionality. Just a scam to get you to QBO Plus $1020.00yr

Have to have Essential just to enter Bills and Pay in a Check run.  $55   $660 year

Have to have Plus to track customer expense and job costing.     $85 $1020 year. 

all for simple account practices. Oh and you can bet that pricing will only go high every year.

Finding something else. 

This is unreal. I'm definitely jumping ship while I'm still early in my self-employed business. Can't stomach giving QBO this much money per year for BASIC accounting features. I'm done.