Quickbooks online is really retard in terms of variables. 

Inserting variables should be VERY easy in recurring transaction. 

%%Year-current%%

%%Year-next%%

%%Year-previous%%

%%Month-current%%

%%Month-next%%

%%Month-previous%%

%%Customer-Hourly-Rate%% ... another thing missing - Can't believe it.

In fact, simpler would be to allow us to create those variables ourselves.