Recently a contractor asked Insightful Accountant, "How can I find a QuickBooks Desktop report that includes all my unpaid vendor bills and know whether they have been 'assigned to a Job' or not, and 'marked billable' or not?"
You might think an Unpaid Bills by Job Report would give you the information, but it won't because it looks at those vendor bills only assigned to a job.
But if you are using the Contractor version of QuickBooks Desktop, there is a report that will get you almost where you want to be and, with a simple modification, produce precisely the report you need.
- First, select Reports, then select Contractor Reports
- Next, choose Unpaid Job Bills by Vendor
[Note: I'm using the Contractor version of QuickBooks Enterprise v22 via the Accountant version, but your Contractor of either Premier of Enterprise should look very similar to the image shown above.]
When the Unpaid Job Bills by Vendor Report opens, it should look very similar to the one shown below.
But we need to add an additional column and remove a couple of unnecessary columns, so:
- Select Customize Report
- Scroll down the Columns list and uncheck the Number (Num) and Aging columns
- Continue down the columns field and when you find it, check Billing Status
- Now check OK
While your Unpaid Job Bills by Vendor Report should look similar to the one below, be aware I have repositioned the Billing Status column from its default location on mine.
Now let's look at how easy it is to interpret this report.
Look at the first Vendor Bill to All Start Truck Service highlighted in the Red Box below.
You can see this Vendor Bill was not posted to any Customer:Job. If it had been, the name of that Customer:Job would be listed under the Name Column, even if the Vendor Bill was not marked Billable.
Suppose this specific Vendor Bill was improperly coded. In that case, you can simply double-click on the Bill to open it, add the appropriate Customer:Job and mark the Bill as Billable (if applicable) before you save it to correct the posting error(s).
Now, let's drop down a few Vendor Bills to the Bill from Color-Brite Paint Company [highlighted in a new Red Box below].
This time, we can see that this Vendor's Bill was assigned to a Customer:Job (Cruz, Albert:Cottag…); however, the bill was not marked Billable. Therefore, the billing status reports this Vendor Bill as "Not billable."
If you double-click on the Bill, you can easily change the billable status, if appropriate.
Let's look at one more example from the report. In this case, look at the Vendor Bill for Office Mart [again highlighted in a new Red Box in the report below].
In this case, the Vendor Bill from Office Mart shows it was posted to a Customer:Job, and it was marked Billable. But the vendor bill has yet to be billed to the Customer:Job, which is why the Billing Status still reports as "Unbilled." It can only be "unbilled" if a billable expense has not been billed; otherwise, it would be blank.
But this is an instance where you would want to review the Vendor Bill, questioning why an office expense is billed to a Customer:Job. It might very well be appropriate, like in the duplication of a set of construction drawings, specifications or other similar documents, but it could be erroneous.
At the very least, it warrants a closer look before billing the Customer.
We have identified a Report within QuickBooks that fits the requirements of the inquiry posed by our reader. We showed you how to customize the report to provide all the details needed to let you determine if the Vendor Bills had been posted to a Customer:Job and marked Billable or not.
We also showed you how to interpret the report and make corrections to Vendor Bills when you need to adjust information.
Hopefully, this report will meet your requirements or those of your clients, whether they are in the construction business or many other small businesses.
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