I am in the same boat. Small business owner using the Essentials QB because I don't see any sense in paying hundreds of dollars more for the one feature I need. I sure could use the billable expense feature as I am in IT and regularly purchase job materials for jobs/projects that my clients will reimburse me for. I don't carry inventory, so I don't use COGS. I am really trying to figure out how to log these purchases into QBO essentials correctly so they don't count as sales income.