Process on Business Expenses, downloaded transactions, and payments

ScottT18

I am trying to figure out the correct order of operations for entering transactions and such to make it work correctly. Background: Windows (PC) Business and I have a business set up with an AR account where I enter invoices. I also have a separate business account (offline) labeled Reimbursable Expenses where I enter in certain things as needed for another business account (plus a savings and checking which is online). Then a credit card that is multi-purpose (Home Depot).

Here is the conundrum. I created an estimate for a client and I have to provide a list of items that I am going to use to build the project. I don't upcharge items so it's just straight costs from Home Depot but, because I have to list the items, they are all itemized and the category I made is "Incidental Client Materials" that is a business category . Then I have labor which is "Other Business Income". I purchase the materials on my HD Credit Card and Quicken downloads the transactions to that account and there are 6 different charges based on the one HD purchase that all total the amount of items on the invoice. Would I then put those into the category (or really a transfer) to the Business offline Reimbursable Expenses account.

Should I actually be listing within the invoice the category to be a (transfer technically) to the "Reimbursable Expenses" account so when I get a payments of "other business income" it all will balance out and during tax time to report the correct Schedule C "Other business expenses" there isn't a doubling of the cost of items?

This is the first time I'm using the invoice for something that I am buying to use on a job and not just for jobs that have only labor so I haven't encountered this before to get things to be listing correctly when it's all said and done.

Quicken Kristina

Hello @ScottT18,

To answer your question, Quicken has a built in process for reimbursable expenses.

If you haven't already done so, in the account register(s) that you use to pay for the expenses, you would want to add the Expensed column. To do this, click the gear icon in the upper right of the register and click on Register columns…

Then, select Expensed (so there is a checkmark by it) and click the Done button.

Once you have that column added to your register(s), you will be able to mark reimbursable expenses by clicking in the Expensed column. An "E" will display in that column. Enter the description of the expense that you want the customer to see in the memo field (since it will show up in the description field on the invoice).

Once you have reimbursable expenses marked in your register(s), when filling out the invoice, you'll be able to click Expenses and select any of the transactions you marked which are not already part of a different invoice.

When selecting the expense, click the Use column next to the expenses you want to select. A green checkmark will appear by the ones you have selected.

For more information on handling reimbursable expenses, please review this help article on identifying and charging reimbursable expenses.

I hope this helps!

ScottT18

Yes I have used that but for this particular situation, doing it as the built in expense then renders my created invoice useless because if I just do the built in reimbursed expenses, it happens after I create an estimate (since I am not purchasing anything until the contract is awarded), convert it to an invoice, then have to go and select the reimbursed (downloaded transactions marked) expenses and then delete the line items from the converted estimate, otherwise it would log what I had already AND the reimbursed expense. I hope I'm explaining that well enough.

I created a separate reimbursable account because of the other business I bill for parking, tolls, and mileage and I don't care enough to track cash so those either have EZPass account bulk transactions from whenever my account was loaded with $100 but I'm only getting reimbursed for $5.86 or whatever, I'd have to go back to the EZPass transaction and create a split and all that. More work. Mileage I record in the tracker but, there isn't any "transaction" that is created from the log so I just add whatever is owed into the created reimbursable account since there isn't a transaction to click "expense" for.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

I can understand why EZPass and mileage wouldn't work well with the existing process in Quicken. They don't really have individual register transactions that you'd be able to mark as reimbursable expenses.

Assuming I'm understanding correctly, for the other transactions, you could put the estimated amount in your register as the reimbursable expense, then, once you know the actual cost, match the downloaded transaction to the estimate in your register and update the amount for that expense line item in the invoice to reflect the real cost.

Thank you!

ScottT18

I'm trying not to duplicate the work but it appears I will have to. The estimate has 24 items (some with multiples of each item). All of those items were 6 downloaded transactions. So even if I put the individual items as a split transaction in the account (credit card) that I will use to purchase them during the estimate stage and mark them as a reimbursable expense (built-in), I'd still have to shuffle things around in situations where the store breaks that one online order into several transactions that are downloaded (as was this case). I suppose that is less than fully entering everything back in again… I'll give it a go

ScottT18

Ok so doing it that way, you cannot use the actual "Estimate" item because that does not have a button to add in anything marked as an expense. I'll try it out just using the invoice/accounts receivable but then I'm never using the estimate because it is literally doubling the work.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

That is true; the Estimate form doesn't have the Expenses button until you convert it to an Invoice. Based on the help article on the topic, it seems the Estimate form is intended to be similar, but less complete, since it's intended to show goods or services you might provide, prior to any formal agreement, purchase of materials, etc. If it's necessary to itemize all estimated expenses when providing an estimate to customers, then using the Invoice form would be the simplest way to do it. If you don't need to itemize everything when providing an estimate, then using the Estimate form with a single line item showing a lump sum estimate for expenses may be a viable option.

Thank you!