This article walks you through how to sync expenses and bills from QuickBooks to LeanLaw, which affects how expenses are accounted for in your books. You may need to involve your accountant to ensure this is the right thing to do for your firm.
LeanLaw deals with two types of expenses, both of which end up on your client invoices:
Expenses created in QuickBooks (“hard” expenses): This is an actual expense that you paid or will pay to a vendor. Examples can include filing fees, expert witnesses, or court reports.
Expenses created in LeanLaw (“soft” expenses): This is an expense that you want to be reimbursed for by your client, but you did not pay to a vendor. Examples can include general overhead charges, photocopies, or mileage.
It is important to decide if you want hard expenses and soft expenses to go into different accounts or the same account. We recommend using different accounts for hard and soft expenses for clear reporting and accounting purposes.
To begin, navigate to Settings, then QuickBooks. From the QuickBooks Integration menu, click on Edit Expense Settings to open the Expense Configuration menu.
From the Expense Configuration menu, you will see the current settings and definitions. The example below shows an Account and Product/Service for expenses created in LeanLaw have already been set up, but QuickBooks expenses are not sync’ed.
To sync expenses created in QuickBooks, click on the Change Settings button and follow the below steps.
Step 1 - Sync Expenses
Select Enable QuickBooks Sync, then click Next.
Step 2 - Account
In this step, you can set up the QuickBooks account that LeanLaw will sync to. You can pick an existing account in the drop down menu. Expense accounts are typically called “Prepaid Expenses,” “Reimbursable Expenses,” or “Advanced Client Cost.”
You can also select the “Create a new account in Quickbooks” checkbox to have LeanLaw set up an account for you.
Once you have picked an existing account, or checked the box to create a new account, click Next.
Step 3 - Product/Service
Next, select or create a Product/Service for the account. This will be used for expense line items on invoices.
The example below shows a new Product/Service being created by clicking the “Create a Product/Service for the account” check box.
Step 4 - Date Range
If an existing account was selected in Step 2, you will see the option to only sync expenses from a given date.
We recommend picking a date far enough in the past to include unbilled items, but not so far back that too many already billed expenses come over. When too many already billed expenses are included, it can clutter your workspace and result in extra cleanup work for you.
Step 5 - LeanLaw Expenses
Next, pick whether expenses created in LeanLaw should go into a different account as expenses created in QuickBooks, or if they should go into the same account. We recommend using a different account for reporting and accounting purposes.
If you choose to have soft expenses entered in LeanLaw to go to the same account as hard expenses entered in QuickBooks, select the Same option, then click Save Changes and you’re done!
If you’d prefer to have a different account for soft expenses entered in LeanLaw (recommended), select the Different option, then click Next.
Step 6 - Account
Select an existing account for soft expenses entered in LeanLaw from the drop-down menu, or create a new income expense account in QuickBooks, then click Next.
The below example shows an existing account being selected from the drop-down menu. To create a new account in QuickBooks for soft expenses to be recorded, click the “Create a new account in QuickBooks” checkbox.
Step 7 - Product/Service
Select an existing Product/Service for soft expenses entered in LeanLaw from the drop-down menu, or create a new Product/Service for the account, then click Save Changes.
The below example shows an existing account being selected from the drop-down menu. To create a new Product/Service for soft expenses to be recorded, click the “Create a Product Service for the account” checkbox.
Step 8 - Expense Configuration
You can now see your expense setup - the Account and Product/Service settings for the two types of expenses.
You have the option to add the vendor name for the expense description. When the “Include vendor/payee names in descriptions” box is checked, the vendor (or payee name) will be prepended to the description.
If you have a LeanLaw Pro subscription, you can also check the “Sync attachments from QuickBooks to LeanLaw” box if you’d like to sync attachments as well. Click here for details on this and other features, such as enabling expense attachments on all invoice emails!
After reviewing the Expense Configuration to make sure everything is entered correctly, click Done.
Now that you’ve synced your QuickBooks Expense Settings, the next time you go to the Expense tab of the product, the expenses synced from the “Prepaid Expenses” account will appear and be ready to be billed to clients!