Overview

Billable Expenses let you re-bill costs to customers. A cost captured on an AP Bill line or a Journal line is marked Billable, enters a shared pool of billable expenses, and is later billed onto an AR Invoice with a markup. Each expense tracks its source document, its lifecycle status, and — once billed — the invoice that billed it, so a cost can never be billed to a customer twice. Video overview here:

Billable Expenses must be enabled on your system by the SoftLedger team. If you do not see the Billables section under Accounts Receivable, contact support@softledger.com or reach out through the in-app chat.

Configuration

Customer dimension - To mark lines billable, the Customer dimension must be enabled for Bills and/or Journals under Settings > Dimensions. Every billable line requires a Customer.
Default Billable Expenses Markup % (Settings > System) - The default markup applied to new billable expenses. Defaults to 0.
Billable Expenses Markup % on a Job - When the source line carries a Job with its own markup, the Job's markup overrides the system default.

Note: System and Job markups only set the default. The actual markup can be adjusted when billing each expense to an invoice.

Capturing Billable Expenses

Billable expenses can be captured from Bills, Journals, the Bank Feed, and Bulk Uploads:

From Bills - Each bill line has a Billable switch, enabled once the line has a Customer. Marking the line creates a draft expense carrying the line's customer, job, dimensions, cost, and markup. The expense becomes Pending when the bill is approved. Tax amounts are not captured — tax can be added on the invoice line when billing.
From Journals - Draft manual Financial journals have a Billable column per line, also requiring a Customer. Posting the journal makes the expense Pending. Only manual, non-reversing Financial journals qualify — intercompany/elimination lines and journals created from other documents cannot capture billable expenses.
From the Bank Feed - The bulk journal creation flow includes a Billable Yes/No selection under the Customer field, so imported expense lines can be marked billable in bulk.
From Bulk Upload - Bill and Journal upload templates accept a billable column, with the Customer required (and Job optional) on those lines.

Editing or Adding Billable Lines

While the source document is still draft, billable lines can be edited, added, or unmarked, and the expense stays in sync. Sample Bill edit to add a new billable line:

The Billables Page

Accounts Receivable > Billables shows every expense in the pool — description, customer, job, status, cost, markup %, billed amount, and links to both the source Bill/Journal and the billed Invoice — with filters across all fields.

The Customer and Job detail pages also include a Billables tab showing that customer's or job's expenses.

From any of these lists, use the Create Invoice action on a Pending expense (or select multiple expenses sharing the same customer and currency) to open the invoice form prefilled with those expenses.

Expense Statuses

Draft - Captured, but the source Bill/Journal is not yet approved/posted. Not billable yet.
Pending - The source document is approved/posted. The expense can be billed to an invoice.
Billed - Claimed by an invoice line, with a link to the billing invoice. Voiding that invoice or removing the line releases the expense back to Pending.
Voided - The source Bill/Journal was voided. The expense can no longer be billed.

Billing Expenses to an Invoice

Pending expenses can be billed on a new invoice or added to an existing draft invoice in a variety of places and mechanisms:

Invoice form - Create or edit a draft invoice and add the billable lines directly (see below).
Billables page - Use the Create Invoice row action on a Pending expense, or select multiple expenses and use the bulk action, under Accounts Receivable > Billables.
Customer or Job detail page - Use the same row/bulk actions from the Billables tab on the Customer or Job.
Source Bill or Journal - Once the bill is approved or the journal is posted, each pending billable line shows a Create (Invoice) button on the document's detail view.

Options 2, 3, and 4 open the invoice create form prefilled with the selected expenses.

On the Invoice Form

Once a Customer is selected, the Billables button shows a badge with the number of available expenses and opens a dialog to add them as invoice lines. Each line also has a Billable Expense picker to select an expense directly — including when adding or editing lines on an existing draft invoice.
Selecting an expense fills the line: description, job, and dimensions from the expense, quantity of 1, and a unit amount of cost × (1 + markup %).
A Markup % input appears beside the picker — adjust it and the amount recalculates. The line remains fully editable, and the markup is not enforced.
An attachment icon on each line lets you copy attachments from the expense's source document onto the invoice.

Note: Available expenses are limited to the invoice's Customer and Currency (a USD expense can't be billed on a EUR invoice). The invoice's Customer and Currency can't be changed while billable expenses are attached.

Important Notes

An expense can only be billed to one invoice line at a time. To release a billed expense back to Pending, void the invoice, or (on a draft invoice) delete the line or clear its Billable Expense picker.
Issued invoices can't be edited, so billables can't be added, modified, or removed on them without voiding.
A Bill or Journal can't be voided or deleted while any of its expenses are Billed.
Copying an invoice or converting it to a template never carries the billable expense claim.
Billable expenses have no impact on the Bill or Invoice journals — the accounting entries behave exactly as if the lines were entered manually.

Contact your SoftLedger support team through the in-app chat, or at support@softledger.com via email.