Mileage Rate calculation problem in Quick Books Premier

The billable rate has nothing to do with the Federal Government milage rate. It is determined by the item code being used to bill customers.

I am a consultant with contracts that allow me to bill travel expenses (including mileage charges) with no markup. I am using QuickBooks Premier Professional Services Edition 2004. For some reason the mileage allowances entered as described in my original post are not updating item code 4940 Car Mileage Reimbursement. I discovered that I can manually change the rate in Lists/Item Lists/Mileage so I was able to fix the problem so that when I generate an invoice I can use Billable Time and Costs/Mileage to add in the reimbursable mileage costs calculated correctly using $0.485 per mile. The Company/Enter Vehicle Mileage/Enter Mileage Rate capability is supposed to be a feature of the version of QuickBooks that does not operate properly based on my experience.

There are many users that charge their customers less than or more than the prevailing Federal mileage allowance. That is why the rate is determined by the item code and not the current Federal Rate. The fact the the item rate does not automaticly change when the Federal rate changes is not a flaw.