Invoicing for actual costs

If you have been tracking billable hours or expenses for a particular job, you can invoice your customer for your costs.

How to track hours and costs

To invoice for actual costs:

  1. Choose Customers > Create Invoices.
  2. Choose the name of the job from the Customer:Job list.
  3. Click Time/Costs at the top of the window.
  4. Click the tab for the kind of cost you want to include on the invoice.
    • Items: Items you purchased for this job. These include inventory parts, non-inventory parts, subcontracted services, and other charge items.
    • Expenses: Other costs and expenses you incurred for this job.
    • Time: Time billable to this job.
  5. In the Use column, click next to each cost you want to include on the invoice.

    A check mark next to an item indicates that the cost will appear on the invoice or statement charge.

    image If you see this symbol in the Use column, it means that you have included the cost on the invoice, but you have not yet recorded the invoice.

    • Items: For inventory parts, resale non-inventory parts, subcontracted services, and reimbursable other charge items, QuickBooks uses your sales price, not your purchase cost. If you want, you can change the price on the invoice.
    • Time: QuickBooks uses the hourly rate for the service item you assigned to the task. If you want, you can change the rate on the invoice.
  6. If a particular item is an overhead cost that you are not going to pass on to the customer, make sure that no check mark appears next to that cost in the Use column.

    Tip: If you know that you are NEVER going to invoice a customer for a cost, you can remove the cost so that it no longer appears in the list. Simply click in the Hide column next to the cost. Hiding the cost won't remove its association with the job — you'll still see the cost along with other job-related expenses on job reports.

  7. (Optional, for expenses only) Add a markup to the expenses you selected.
    1. Click the Expenses tab to bring it to the front.
    2. If necessary, change the markup shown in the “Markup amount or %” field.

      QuickBooks fills in this field with the markup you set (choose QuickBooks > Preferences and click Sales & Invoicing). If you decide to change the markup here, it applies only to this invoice. You can enter the markup either as a flat amount (for example, 10.00 — which QuickBooks would interpret as ten dollars) or as a percentage (for example, 10% — which QuickBooks would interpret as ten percent). If you enter a percentage, be sure to include the % sign.

    3. In the Markup Account field, enter the name of the account you use to track markup income.
    4. If you don't want your customer to see the markup amount on the invoice, select the “Print selected time and costs as one invoice item” checkbox.

      When you print the invoice, it shows one amount (the sum of all the expenses plus the markup). The Description column lists the amount as “Total reimbursable expenses.” If you want, you can change this description by editing the onscreen version of the invoice.

      The onscreen version of the invoice also shows the “Total reimbursable expenses” line item. In addition, it lists the individual expenses and amounts that make up the total.

  8. (Optional) If you want the costs you select to appear as a single line item when you print the invoice, select the “Print selected time and costs as one invoice item” checkbox.

    When you view the invoice on your screen, you'll see a separate line for each cost; when you print the invoice, only the total for the entire group of costs appears.

    Important: Do this only if you are certain you want the printed invoice to show only the total of the costs (and not a line by line listing of each cost). Once you record the invoice, you will not be able to print the costs separately.

    What if you want more than one summary?

  9. If you have other kinds of costs to add to the invoice, click the appropriate tab and repeat Steps 5 through 8.
  10. Click OK to add the costs you selected to the invoice.
  11. Before recording the invoice, press imageP, and then click Preview to see what will appear on the printed invoice.

    If you see any job costs that should not be on the invoice, close the Print Preview window. On the invoice, select the cost and choose Edit > Delete Line.

    Why you need to do this: You can use a job cost only once on an invoice. When you record the job cost on an invoice, QuickBooks automatically removes the cost from the Choose Billable Time and Costs window. This is a precaution against double billing your customer for the cost. The original record for the cost (timesheet, single activity entry, bill, check, or credit card charge) still remains in your financial records — it's just that you'll no longer see the cost listed in the Choose Billable Time and Costs window.

What if you record the invoice by mistake?

To reinstate a cost after you record the invoice, edit the original record of the cost. For time entries, click the Billable field and click OK to re-record the entry. For bills, checks, and credit card charges, change something on the form, change it back, and click OK. Doing this restores the cost to the Choose Billable Time and Costs window.