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Why are Invoiced Items shown as Unbilled Expenses?

I am confused as to why parts (items) purchased for a particular job and billed and paid through an invoice later show up as unbilled in reports.

I run a service business and frequently buy parts for a job. When I order a part, I create an item checking the box that this is bought for a specific customer job. I use an Expense account "Hardware for Client" (which I attribute to COGS for taxes) and the income account Sales (which usually includes some markup). I then enter the credit card (most often) cost as a check and select the item and enter the customer:Job . I create an invoice and place the item on the invoice by selecting it from the Item dropdown. When the customer pays I enter the Customer payment via Customers / Receive Payments.

I'm baffled as to why many, though I think not all, of these items show up later on the Unbilled Costs by Job. Isn't the invoice the bill? Thanks.

Reply to
GTS
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QuickBooks refers to those charges as Reimbursable Expenses - "Expenses that your business incurs on behalf of customers. You can charge a customer for reimbursable expenses by assigning the expense to the customer when you incur it and then transferring the expense to an invoice."

Which is NOT the way to bill reimbursable expenses. In order for the items you purchased for specific customer:jobs to be marked as billed, you must use the time/costs button on the invoice creation screen to enter the costs. The procedure is explained in the QB helpfile. Look under the heading reimbursable expenses.

Reply to
L

Thanks. The time/costs button is definitely the solution. It's interesting that directly selecting an item, which puts exactly the same information on the invoice, is handled so differently by QB.

Reply to
GTS

Ahh, but you can invoice items that were not ordered specifically for a customer. QB has no idea whether you are attempting to select an item (either parts or services) that you had 'on-hand' or that was bought and purchased (and expensed/billed) to a specific customer:job.

Reply to
L

Good point! Thanks.

Reply to
GTS

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