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October 17, 2025
Question

Billable Expenses and items for desktop MAC

  • October 17, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 16 views

Hello Community,

I have selected Make Expenses Billable in settings.  When I choose the expense I can indeed associate a customer with it.  But when I go to an extant invoice the time/costs at top of invoice is greyed out and in right panel Unbilled time/expenses  has zero amount - unclickable.  My question is how to get those reimbursable expenses included on the invoice and is there a way to associate a markup for them if one so chose?

Many thanks.

 

PS Although I'm in the MAC Q&A when I describe what I want to know about such as billing expenses the answers come up for QB Online and nothing for MACs.

1 reply

Tori B
QuickBooks Team
October 17, 2025

Good afternoon, @Susan607.

 

How are you doing today? I hope all is well. 

 

It sounds like your invoices aren't linked properly to the expenses. Which can cause the billable time option to be greyed out. Let's try a few steps to clear this issue. 

 

  1. Ensure the customer name:job has the exact same name as your customer listed on the Invoice. Be sure the Billable box is checked. 
  2. If the option is still greyed out on the Invoice, try creating a new invoice to link to the expense. 
  3. If you're still having issues, let's go ahead and run the Rebuild and Verify tools. 

For more information about this process check out: Track job cost and profitablity in QuickBooks Desktop for Mac

 

That should do the trick. Please let me know how it goes. I'm here if you have any additional questions or concerns. Take care! 

Susan607Author
October 17, 2025

Verify was done and no issues. Billable was checked.

It may be that the billable expense needs to be created before an invoice.  Can you verify this?

This would make it cumbersome since a running total invoice wouldn't be able to add billable expenses as they come in.

When I created a new invoice the item was available to add for a new invoice.

(FYI check for it through the tabs on the window that opens.  All say zero until you find and select what you're looking for under its tab.)

BUT if you select the reimbursable item it plops down as a line item for said amount.  The line item requires an Item from the items list.  If you select one the amount entered from time/costs gets zeroed out.

How can this be resolved?  Thank you.

Morgan_B
QuickBooks Team
October 17, 2025

Thanks for following up on this thread with those additional details, Susan607.

 

You're on the right track. The billable expense will need to be created beforehand. This will ensure the option appears when you go to create an invoice. 

 

Please give this a try and let me know how things look afterward. The Community always has your back if you need additional assistance,