When to use Billable Expenses
Billable expenses are a handy way to keep track of costs you have paid that need to be passed on to a customer. By marking specific expenses as billable, you can quickly include them when issuing an invoice to the customer in Xero, ensuring accurate cost recovery.
A typical example is a consultant who pays for travel, software, or materials on behalf of a client and then recharges those costs on the next sales invoice.
Before you start
A few things need to be in place before the customer dropdown will appear on your documents:
The folder must be connected to Xero. Billable expenses are a Xero-specific feature in Datamolino and the dropdown is only available on folders with an active Xero connection.
The expense must be on a purchase document (a bill or receipt). Billable expenses are a purchase-side concept in Xero - they tag a cost so it can be recharged on a future sales invoice.
The customer you want to bill must exist as a contact in Xero. Datamolino reads the customer list from your connected Xero organisation, so any new customer needs to be added in Xero first.
If you cannot see the Customer dropdown on a document, check that the folder is connected to Xero and that you are looking at a purchase document.
Assign a billable expense in Datamolino
In Datamolino, you can assign billable expenses in all three export views: Invoice Total, Tax Summary, and Line Items. Open the document and select a customer from the dropdown when coding the expense details.
👉 Does the customer dropdown work the same in all three views?
Yes. The customer assignment is stored on the line and travels with the export to Xero, regardless of which view you used to enter it. Pick whichever view matches the level of detail you are coding.
Mark billable expenses at line item level
If you are working with line items in Datamolino, you can assign all items to a single customer or allocate individual line items to different customers as needed. This is useful when one bill contains expenses for several clients.
In the Fullscreen view, you can also bulk-edit items, making it easy to mark multiple line items as billable to a specific customer in one step.
What happens after you export to Xero
Once you export the document to Xero, you will be able to see which items have been assigned to which customer directly on the bill in Xero.
When you next create an invoice for that customer in Xero, Xero will automatically suggest any billable expenses you have marked for them, so you can add them to the invoice in one click.
👉 Do I need to approve the bill in Xero before the billable expenses appear?
Yes. To include billable expenses on a customer's invoice, the bill must be approved in Xero. You can either export from Datamolino as Awaiting Payment (which approves the bill on export) or export as Draft and approve it in Xero later. Learn more about Xero export statuses.
👉 What if I assigned the wrong customer?
If you spot the mistake before exporting, change the customer in the Datamolino coding panel and export again. If the bill is already in Xero, edit the line in Xero (or in Datamolino and re-export) to update the customer assignment.