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Prostang
January 21, 2025
Question

Charging employee time against an estimate in an invoice

  • January 21, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 0 views

I tried going to QB help and the person quit the help session w/o any notice. So....
We are a consulting firm.  We give customers estimates.  They accept.  Employees enter time and select the Customer:Project when reporting their time.

The issue happens when we go to create the invoice.  We need the employees time (which already includes a billable rate) to be subtracted from the estimate.  We need this for tracking how much is left on the estimate each month.

I add the employees' entries to the invoice because it has a description of work performed, which is mandatory to ensure the time we are billing is legitimate.  But adding the time by line doesn't impact the estimate remaining amounts.

We are on Quickbooks Plus - Subscription.

2 replies

R
rvrfrf
January 21, 2025

Thanks for reaching out to the Community, Prostang. I appreciate your detailed information.

 

With a Plus subscription, you can track billable time by job by setting up jobs as sub-customers. This enables you to invoice billable time and keep billable expenses organized.

 

Initially, you'll need to add the job as a sub-customer of your customer you're doing the work for.

 

Here's how:
 

  1. In your left navigation bar, go to Sales, then Customers.
  2. Click New customer.
  3. Enter all of the appropriate details for your sub-customer.
  4. Turn on the Is sub-customer option.
  5. From your Enter parent customer ▼ drop-down list, choose a parent customer.
  6. Pick Bill with parent.
  7. Select Save.

 

Next, you can turn on and record billable time. Once you've entered billable timesheets, you'll see them available to add to new invoices.

 

Please feel welcome to send a reply if there's any questions. Have a great Tuesday!

P
ProstangAuthor
January 21, 2025

I have all that setup.

 

My issue is that the time entered by the employee is not being billed against the Estimate.

A
AbegailS_
January 22, 2025

We're glad to have you again, Prostang. Thank you for ensuring that everything is set up correctly.

 

I'm here to assist you further with the issue of time not being billed against estimates in QBO.  Let's ensure that your tracking preferences are properly configured by allowing time to be billable. Here are the necessary steps. 

 

  1. Go to Settings ⚙ and select Account and settings.
  2. Select the Time tab.
  3. Edit the General and Timesheet sections to set your time tracking preferences:
    • Who tracks time: Select team members to choose who tracks time.
      • Turn the switch on for any team members who need time tracked.
      • To allow 1099 contractors to track time, select Show contractors, and turn the setting on. Select Save.
    • First day of work week: This affects how employees and contractors view weekly timesheets.
    • Show service field: When on, team members who fill out timesheets can specify if activities should be billed to a customer.
    • Allow time to be billable: Adds a checkbox on timesheets to specify whether activities should be billed to the customer. Check Show billing rate to users entering time if you want your team members to see the billable rates.

I've got this article for reference: Turn on and set up time tracking in QuickBooks Online.

 

To learn about the project feature and invoices, please check out these articles: 

 

Please let me know in your reply if you require additional information about the process or other concerns. I'll be right here to help. Take care!

G
GenmarieM
January 22, 2025

Thanks for getting back here in the thread, Prostang. I appreciate the screenshot you've provided to understand the process better. In QuickBooks, deducting the billable amount from your estimate is unavailable. Let’s discuss the details below.

 

Deducting the billable time from your estimates is not possible since billable entries are used to charge expenses to your customers and estimates are only used to create a bid, proposal, or quote. The estimate can later be turned into a sales order or an invoice.

 

Based on the screenshot you provided, QuickBooks calculates the amount based on the dollar value rather than the rate. Since the current amount is zero, it will continue to display as $10,000 unless you adjust the billable entry to a negative value; however, making the billable amount negative is not possible.

 

Moreover, you can check out this article for detailed information about adding billable hours to an invoice: Enter billable time by job in QuickBooks Online.

 

Additionally, I've added this article if you want to get a quick overview of your business performance in QuickBooks, here's an article you can check: Run a report in QuickBooks Online.

 

Keep us posted if you have further concerns or questions about deducting the billable time amount from your estimates. The Community is always here to lend a hand.

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