I have Billable expenses entered as a Journal Entry (necessary to do negative automotive expense for personal finances to track business miles). I enter the amount as a debit and select “Billable Expenses” and then select my customer named DCS in the line items inside Journal Entry (and do a credit for the expense). Now, when I navigate to “Billable Expense” on left navigation pane, I see these expenses there as “uninvoiced” as they should be. However, when I navigate to “Customers” on the left, the customer DCS uninvoiced total is not including the journal entries. Neither when I click on the uninvoiced total and see each line item, those Journal Entries are not present and cannot be added to a New Sales Invoice.
I was able to work around the problem by “fixing” transactions. I created a sales invoice for the DCS billable expenses. I then updated the Billable Expense line item by marking it from “Uninvoiced” to “Invoiced”. That didn’t update the sales invoice, so I edited the sales invoice to include the amount from the billable expense. This had the added benefit of fixing negative billable expenses that were uninvoiced since I wasn’t issuing sales invoices to pay for the billable expense.
Still, the problem remains of billable entries that are entered as journal entries still don’t show up under the Customer view even though they show up under the Billable Expenses view.
You are misusing the program in several ways.
First, billable expenses should only be entered through the Cash Accounts tab. The account they are posted to is Billable expenses => Customer name. This posts them to an asset account. They are a temporary asset because you can invoice them to the customer. You are crediting them to an expense account. But they are not expenses of your company. Billable expenses are things you purchase on behalf of the customer. They never pass through your expense accounts. And had they been expenses of the company, by crediting them, you are driving your expense account in the wrong direction.[quote=“blitternand, post:1, topic:8983”]
when I navigate to “Customers” on the left, the customer DCS uninvoiced total is not including the journal entries.
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That is because you didn’t record the expenditure of any money. You’ve made bogus, but offsetting entries.
When you have a billable expense, such as a plane ticket, you enter it in Cash Accounts, allocating to Billable expenses. The debit goes to Billable expenses, the credit to the cash account. See this Guide: Record billable expenses | Manager.
The way to handle business miles is as an expense claim. No money actually changes hands, but the transaction is an equivalent contribution of your personal funds for a business purpose. The expense claim credits Expense claims for the company to reimburse you. The debit goes to Billable expenses , assuming the mileage is on behalf of a customer. See this Guide: Use expense claims | Manager.
The mileage will be available under Customers tab for invoicing. It never appears on your company’s expense accounts, because it was incurred on behalf of the customer by you as an individual.
Why can’t they be entered via Purchase Invoices, you may not necessarily have paid cash for the item.
This sentence needs better explaining - have they paid say a service station account and then subsequently adjusting the expense (hence the negative) to reallocate proportions of that expense.
If that is the case, then the original transaction should be edited to reflect those allocations rather then the creation of a Journal.
Good point. I was trying to emphasize handling of actual expenditures. But you’re right; there are several ways those could enter the program. At any rate, journal entries are not appropriate.
I should clarify that I’m expensing my miles for a business that I own and is tracked in a separate Manager company. I file an expense claim in my business books to track what I owe myself for US income tax purposes. But I also keep a set of books for me personally for tax reasons and to track my own net worth. The reason I am making journal entries in my personal company file in Manager is so that I have a “double entry” somewhere to know what I am owed by the business. I am making journal entries because I am not making a billable expense for specific purchases like gasoline, auto repairs, etc. I’m just need a personal reimbursement of $0.54 per mile that I drive per month. To my business, it’s an expense, but to me it’s a reimbursement but not really income. Since that money I pay myself isn’t income but rather a reimbursement, I treat it instead as a negative auto expense.
@Tut I understand that I’m using Manager in perhaps a non-standard way in this case. But my point is that the Journal Entry model allows me to enter billable expenses and assign them to a customer in the exact same way that a Sales Invoice allows it. I would then expect to be able to generate a sales invoice from billable expenses for a customer, but journal entries are not being considered. As stated above, I know the “Spend Money” button is the expected way to do it, but I can’t because I don’t have a single transaction that’s billable, but rather a portion of several expense categories (auto fuel, repairs, insurance). In this case, vehicle mileage.
@blitternand - I understand that you are running two sets of books, one business and one personal, but your commentary continues to blur two different actions - personal finances and customer billable expenses - without sufficient clarity therefore if I can read between the lines I am going to take a stab at this.
Currently the specific purchases such as “gasoline, auto repairs, etc” are being recorded in your personal books. Any mileage incurred for the business gets transferred via a mileage rate from the personal books to the business books. This mileage in the business books can either be an P&L expense or be charged to a customer to be recovered via Billable expenses. How are we travelling so far.
If this is the case then the process should be:
In the personal books - Have a BS Asset account called “Business C/A” (current account). When there is business mileage to be recovered, create a Journal - Debit Bus C/A and Credit Automotive Expenses.
In the business books - you would enter the “reimbursement” via an Expense Claim NOT via a Journal.
Under Settings - Expense Claim Payers set yourself up. Using the Expense Claims tab create the claim using either the P&L Automotive Expenses account or Billable Expenses + Customer as required.
This will resolve your customer and sales invoice issues caused by the inappropriate use of the Journal.
In addition, you could rename within the business books the BS Expense Claims account to Personal C/A.
Now you can clearly see the double entry between the two sets of books.
But if this is all wrong then you will need to provide greater clarity on your actual workflow.
One minor point, @blitternand: The mileage rate went down to 53.5 cents/mile. Check the IRS web site. And don’t forget that in addition to the standard mileage costs, interest and property tax on the car can be deducted on a pro rata basis, comparing business miles driven to total mileage for the year.
@Tut Thanks, you are correct about the 2017 mileage rate. Regarding costs, though, it’s my understanding that I can either take the standard mileage deduction, or use a pro rata basis for all vehicle costs, but not both. At least, that’s what Turbo Tax leads me to believe.
@Brucanna You’ve got it closely figured out, but visa versa. I am using Expense Claims in my business books. I use a P&L expense in the business books. Business books are working fine. It’s in the personal books that I’m using a Journal Entry. Personal books is where I saw the unexpected behavior. That said, I’m willing to adjust my workflow. So would I just use a Special Asset account for “Business C/A”? I’m not clear on what a BS asset is, unless you mean a bull**** account. 
Firstly - BS stands for Balance Sheet, so Balance Sheet Asset account.
Secondly - you are an expert in writing with ambiguity. Why would you be having billable expenses (hence the issues that you first commented on) in your personal books.
@Brucanna Thanks for the clarification. I had thought you were being funny, but were actually serious. My mistake and apologies. I was using the Billable Expenses module in my personal books since I didn’t really know any other way to do it. Your way with an asset account sounds better. Thanks for the help.
@Tut I feel like my point still stands about expecting a journal entry to update information regarding billable expenses. Why allow journal entries into those accounts if they won’t be reflected elsewhere in Manager? That causes confusion for users like myself and lead me to report the unexpected behavior.
Turbo Tax will actually lead you through the steps to include prorated interest and property tax. The reason these are in addition to standard IRS mileage rates is that there are no national averages for these figures that can be used in determining the standard rates. If you follow the Turbo Tax interview process completely, you will end up with those items added. That may already have occurred without your noticing.
There is one wrinkle, however. If you are charging customers mileage through billable expenses, those mileage expenses will not be included in Turbo Tax’s calculation of motor vehicle costs, because they do not appear in Manager’s calculation of your expenses (they were passed through). So, for tax reporting, all business miles–both those billed to customers as billable expenses and those attributable to other business activities–are combined from logs and reported as expenses.
This facilitates proper calculation of prorated tax and insurance costs that do not appear in company records. Add back mileage reimbursements from clients under Other Income on Schedule C (assuming you are a sole proprietor). This must be done through a manual calculation. Thus, net of mileage expenses and mileage reimbursements on Schedule C will match accounting records of mileage expenses incurred on behalf of the company. But it will be obscured by addition of the prorated tax and interest.
The procedure adds one requirement to your maintenance of contemporaneous mileage logs. You must note whether a trip is being billed to a customer or entered as a company expense. You may have already noticed that Turbo Tax asks for total miles traveled for all purposes (giving you an option to enter beginning and ending odometer readings or directly entering the number). This calculation of prorated tax and interest is the reason.
They were reflected, as you saw. But you seem to be expecting it to behave as a negative reimbursement (which would be a payment) in your personal books. Yet no money changed hands. Without mocking this up, I suspect you may have transactions in your Suspense account in your personal “business.”
The reason you are allowed to post to these accounts with journal entries is that there are valid use cases. Yours isn’t. You shouldn’t hammer a nail with a screwdriver. But the designer of the screwdriver can’t prevent you from trying. The fact that you started this topic proves it didn’t work very well.
@Tut Thanks for the additional info, especially regarding taxes.
Sorry for the tone of my question, as well. It just seemed odd that the journal entry worked, and the amount even showed up in the Billable Expenses view. The transaction did not go in Suspense. It seemed to work everywhere except that it wasn’t accounted for in the Customer view and Summary screen.
Anyway, I know my posts have taken your time to respond to. I appreciate it. I’ll be sure to change my workflow to accommodate. Thanks.
No worries at all. Glad I could help. Now you get to pay it forward. 