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A
Arif3
November 15, 2021
Question

Linking Expenses to Invoices

  • November 15, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 0 views


We have QBO Advanced. We purchase things for customers with our credit card and immediately Invoice them. When the credit card charge comes in a few days later I'd like to mark the charge as an Expense and link it to the previously created Invoice. How do I match the later created Expense to the earlier Invoice so that when the customer pays the Invoice, both Expense and Invoice are resolved?  Thank you.

 

 

1 reply

A
AileneA
November 15, 2021

Hello, Alan5492.

 

Thank you and welcome here in our Community. I'll share steps to ensure that you're able to mark the charge as an Expense and link it to the created Invoice.  

 

I suggest creating a bill to record the billable expenses for existing invoices. From there, you'll have the option to check the billable box and choose the specific customer. 

 

Here's how:

 

  1. Click + New and choose Bill.
  2. Select the Vendor.
  3. From the Category column, select the expense account for the transaction.
  4. Enter the description and amount of the expense and select the Billable checkbox.
  5. In the Customer column, select the customer you want to bill for this expense.
  6. Fill in the necessary field. Then, hit Save and close.

 

For additional information, you can click this article: Enter billable expenses.

 

Once done, you can now add or link the billable expenses to an invoice. To start with, I recommend going to the Sales page and locate the existing entry. Please follow the steps below.

 

  1. Click Sales at the left menu. Then, go to the Invoices section.
  2. Find the invoice and click it to expand the page.
  3. Press Edit invoice button that appears in the right corner.
  4. On the Invoice page, click on the arrow beside the Balance Due.
  5. Tap on Add on the billable expense/s under Add to Invoice to add them.
  6. Hit Save.

Please refer to this article to see steps on how you can Uncheck the box in the Billable column of an entry to delete a billable expense charge: How to remove a billable expense charge. 

 

Leave a comment again here if you have other concerns. Take care!

S
Seretta
November 16, 2021

Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work.

 

First, creating a bill doesn't seem to be appropriate when purchasing with a credit card. Instead of creating a bill, it's much easier to just click the billable box on the credit card charge to create an Expense. Why have a credit card charge and a bill for the same single invoice?

Next, just adding the expense (or bill according to your response) to an existing Invoice seems to only increase the size of the already existing invoice. 

 

For example, let's say I use a credit card to buy a product for a customer for $50.00 and immediately create an invoice and send it to the customer. A day or two later when the credit card charge is processed and sent to me through online banking, I create an expense. If I then find the $50.00 invoice for the customer and add this expense, the invoice increases by $50.00 -- so now the customer has a $100.00 invoice, not at all what was intended. Creating a new invoice and adding the expense also doesn't work since there are now two invoices for the same $50.00 credit card purchase.

 

Help -- what am I missing? 

 

Thanks.

A
AbegailS_
November 16, 2021

Hi there, Seretta. 

 

I'm here to share some information that can help you link your expenses to your invoices. 

 

Linking an existing invoice and expense is not possible. As a workaround, you can delete the existing  invoice and mark the expense as billable to avoid duplicate invoices. Let me guide you how:

  1. Go to the Sales menu.
  2. Choose the Invoices tab.
  3. Select the invoice that you want to delete.
  4. Under the Action column, click the drop-down arrow and select Delete.
  5. Click Yes.

 

Also, here's an article you can read to learn more about how you can delete an invoice: Void or delete transactions in QuickBooks Online.

 

For detailed instructions, check out the Enter billable expenses article and go straight to the Add billable expenses to the invoices section.

 

Also, I'll be adding this article as your reference in receiving and categorizing invoice payments in QuickBooks Online: Record invoice payments in QuickBooks Online.

 

Please feel free to get back to me here for any additional questions. I always have your back. Thanks for dropping in, and cheers for more success!

 

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