What a Billable Item is
An amount waiting to be placed on an Invoice — from labor, or from a cost passed on. It carries retail, which need not equal what you paid.
Before you start
A Billable Item is one amount your Org will charge one Client, waiting for an Invoice to put it on.
It has exactly three sources:
| Source | Becomes an Item when |
|---|---|
| A Time Entry | It is billable and names a Service. |
| An Expense line | It names a Client and is marked to charge on. |
| A Bill line | The same. |
Labor sold and costs passed on are deliberately one concept. They differ only in where they came from, and treating them as one is what lets a single Invoice be built from a month’s work without anybody sorting it into piles first.
Cost and retail are different numbers
An Item carries retail — what the Client pays — and it need not equal what the thing cost you.
Keeping the two apart is the point. A part bought at $80 and charged at $120 records both figures, so the margin on that Client is a fact rather than an estimate. A cost recorded against a Client and not charged on still shows up against them, which is how an expensive Client becomes visible before the year-end numbers say so.
What stops double billing
Each Item records the Invoice it went onto and when. Once it is on one, it is no longer waiting, and it stops being offered. There is no list to clear by hand, and no way to bill the same hour twice by raising a second Invoice.
Steps
- Open Expenses › Billable Items to see everything waiting, across every Client.
- Raise an Invoice for a Client. Their open Items are already selected on it.
- Untick anything that should wait. It stays waiting, and appears on the next one.
- Billable Items are pre-selected in the new-Invoice sheet.
- Choose the Client on a new Invoice; the open Items are pre-selected.
- The same on a new Invoice — choose the Client and review what is already ticked.
Good to know
An Item that never gets invoiced stays waiting indefinitely. It is worth opening Billable Items every month or so — the list is the honest answer to “what have we not charged for?”