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Expenses to invoice

drumsdb

Why, when I add expenses to an invoice, do no details transfer over? I have to use a separate invoicing program because of this, or manually retype all the details. Is this a problem or expected functionality? Why would this function this way? [Edited - Readability]

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MontanaKarl

I thought this was fixed a long time ago, but apparently not from testing just now. Nothing about the original Payee or Memo/Notes field transfers. Agree… makes it nearly unusable.

drumsdb

I use another solution for invoicing because of it, but I still keep most of my books in Quicken. I haven't seen it work since I moved to home/business almost 2 years ago. (I've used Quicken for nearly 25 years myself).

It baffles me why this would be a top priority fix.

drumsdb

@Quicken Kristina @Quicken Carlos @Quicken Laura @Quicken Anja

Can anyone please comment or address my concern here as it has been over 3 weeks. This is a known issue the team is trying to correct? IS there a timeline? It's been well over a year since I first noticed it, but now I really want to stop using other systems and I would like to determine if I can stay with Quicken Home & business or need to move to alternatives.

Quicken Kristina

Hello @drumsdb,

Thank you for reaching out! When I tested, I saw the same behavior. I reached out internally for more information.

Thank you!

Quicken James

Hello @drumsdb,

I just wanted to follow up on this and let you know that, after reaching out internally, we have been informed that it is working as intended. I understand the inconvenience of the information not transferring to the invoice.

To request this feature to be added in the future, what you can do is create an idea post. This way, other users who have the same or a similar request can vote on your idea.

Our Development and Product teams frequently use our idea posts in order to improve Quicken and implement new features requested by customers.

I hope this helps!

drumsdb

Could you explain why this is considered working as intended? I can't determine a reason why a user would be satisfied to bring transactions over to an invoice, but ONLY the amounts and no other details.

What is the user story or use case(s) that makes this an acceptable, useful functionality?

Quicken James

Hi @drumsdb,

I would like to follow up on your question.

We do not have an explanation as to why our product development team implemented the feature the way they did. I do understand the inconvenience of the feature not bringing over all the information for the expenses into the invoice.

I did notice that you have created an idea post for others to vote on. That will be the best way for our product development team to notice and implement the feature.

Thank you again.

jacobs

Unfortunately, starting over with a new Idea thread even though this issue has been raised in past years, means it will take months or years to gather enough votes just to be sent to the developers for consideration, and then likely many months or years to work up the priority list if they agree the implement it. It's just kind of discouraging to face that long future path to fix a flaw/omission in the way the budget category selection works.

Quicken James

Hello @drumsdb and @jacobs,

Thank you for the information.

I have reached out to see if there is any information we can share about the status of the idea.

Thanks for your patience. [QMAC-28517]

Quicken Victoria

Hello @drumsdb! Thank you for your feedback. Could you please share a bit more detail about how you would expect it to work? When adding billable expenses to an invoice, what specific information would you expect to be transferred, and where should that information come from?

Also, you mentioned that you use a separate invoicing program. Which program do you use, and what details from the original expense does it transfer to the invoice?

Any additional information would be very helpful!

Thank you!

Victoria

MontanaKarl

Hi @Quicken Victoria - I believe @drumsdb is wishing for the same thing that I asked for when this feature was introduced: simply for the Memo/Note field to be copied from the billable item register or split entry onto the invoice line. Typically it will describe what the billable item is for. If it isn't quite right for sharing with the client, it can at least be edited after being copied… 😊

drumsdb

Victoria,
What I'm asking for is fairly simple. When the expenses transfer over, the vendor name (Payee) and category. The expectation is as simple as my picture. The date would be a bonus to have as it helps me (and I imagine anyone who tracks expenses) to make sure everything is captured from a specific day on a trip.

I currently use the online program Paymo for time tracking and invoicing. It does include several similar reporting functions for clients and projects which are simple to read and understand. However, other than the calendar based time management functions, I don't think it is anything Quicken doesn't already do. I wanted to try using just Quicken since I pay for the Home & Business. Paymo does not download anything directly or transfer anything directly. I have to manually type the required fields which is duplication of effort. I am sharing this example as to the minimum requirements. Minimally, you'll see that the "item" is the vendor and the description has the category. (this is an older example so it's not completely filled out).

#INV-20260311-52.pdf

drumsdb

I completely agree with @MontanaKarl's statement here. Minimally, just this change would be a huge improvement.

Quicken Victoria

@drumsdb, thank you for the additional details.

When we worked on billable expenses functionality, we spoke with business owners and conducted a customer study to better understand customers expectations. We learned that preferences vary: some business owners want to include billable expense details on invoices to share with their clients, while others prefer to keep that information private.

Not all business owners want to disclose internal expense details, such as the payee, category, transaction date, or memo, to their clients. These details are primarily used for accounting and may be irrelevant or inappropriate for client-facing invoices. Transferring only the billable rate and amount (current behavior) allows users to maintain control over what information they share with clients and customize the invoice description as needed. Although users could manually remove unwanted expense details from the invoice, doing so would increase the risk of accidentally sharing internal financial information with their clients.

Because preferences are pretty evenly split, do you think it would make sense to add a setting that lets users choose whether to include expense details on invoices? Please share your thoughts.

Thank you!

-victoria

drumsdb

Victoria,
First off, yes I believe at minimum a setting would be extremely beneficial and would allow everyone to find some kind of use.

I am a member of several consulting and fractional networking groups and we discuss what tools everyone uses and why pretty frequently. I completely agree that the functionality use can be variable and I understand that some fields may be inappropriate for some clients or more accurately, how a user USES the fields may dictate if a client should see details on an invoice. However, I would push back that your survey would have found that ANY user would be ok with having no details on a line on an invoice that was only an amount. This is why I mentioned earlier I was curious to the user story behind this functionality.

I am confident in saying that in 98% or more of cases, a client would not be ok with me invoicing for a line with an amount and NO details. This just doesn't make sense at all. At minimum, a user would have to write in something for every line. Let's be honest, it is a lot less user effort to delete a line of text data than to populate it. This effort is compounded because now a user has to look up each amount on a bank statement or in the original register to know WHAT each value is which transaction. While this may be manageable if you add one expense at a time, it's a huge effort if you use the "add all" function thereby negating it's usefulness.

I'm confident in my position here, but I'm not the only user. I'd love for people watching the thread to weigh in as a few already have.

jacobs

I agree 100% with @drumsdb. I am not currently using the invoicing feature, but I have done invoicing for personal and small businesses in the past, and there is no way I could ever send someone an invoice with a line item that just shows an amount and no description. Nor would I, as a recipient of an invoice, ever pay one which has a line with an amount and no description or explanation.