You can track employees’ time with QuickBooks time tracking, which helps with payroll processing and managing project costs. In this blog, you will learn how QB time tracking is necessary for businesses and how it can help you in QuickBooks. You can track employee time in different QuickBooks versions, like QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, and Online Payroll.
What is QuickBooks Time Tracking?
QuickBooks Time Tracking is a feature that enables companies to monitor employee working hours, breaks, overtime, and billable hours within QuickBooks. The time-tracking feature assists companies in simplifying payroll, controlling labor costs, and providing accurate billing for services.
Both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online provide manual and automatic options to track time, and both products support integration with QuickBooks Payroll to automate the payroll process.
Advantages of Setting up QuickBooks Time Tracking
- Verify employee timesheets.
- Grab all billable time on any track with a browser or phone.
- Get back lost revenue, save time, and get paid faster so you can spend money.
- One-click QuickBooks Time Tracking integration.
- Accuracy in handling projects and customer reports.
- Real-time monitoring of GPS and Accounts.
- It can customize your employee reports.
Time Tracking Invoice in QuickBooks
The time-tracking feature simplifies your invoices. Follow these steps for time-tracking invoices in QuickBooks:
- Firstly, you need to track the time you work for customers.
- Select which times you are tracking when you open a QuickBooks timesheet. If you have not yet added this customer to QuickBooks, add the first.
- You can save the customer’s name and then go to their page later to enter their contact information.
- Then, make a new line for every customer you worked for this week and fill in the hours you worked on those days.
- Save your timesheet when you’re done.
- An interesting part is that as the month is ending, it’s time to send invoices to your clients. Now, your billable time is available.
- To add each block of billable time to the invoice, click Add.
- Send the finalized invoice to your client to collect payment for your work. To get QuickBooks working for you, now it’s your turn to start tracking your billable time.
How to Set up QuickBooks Time Tracking in QuickBooks Desktop?
In this section, we will describe the process of time tracking in QB Desktop. The process is very easy, so without wasting any time, let’s move to the steps:
Steps to Set Up Time Tracking
- Firstly, you have to log in as the administrator.
- Ensure that you use Single-User Mode while logging in.
- Now locate the Edit menu.
- Then choose the Preferences option.
- Find the Company Preferences tab after choosing Time & Expenses in the Preferences box.
- Click on Yes for Do You Track Time?
- Choose the day you start recording time every week from the First Day of Work Week drop-down list. (Note: All time sheets for every week are affected by the day you choose.
- Select the day you begin tracking time for the week from the drop-down menu at the beginning of the work week. (Note: All weekly time sheets are modified by the day you choose.
- Click OK.
Set Up Employees for Time Tracking
- Go to the Employee Center.
- Then, double-click on the employee’s name.
- Select Use Time Data for creating paychecks after clicking on the Payroll Info tab.
- Now, select OK.
- Adjust the beginning date of the workweek.
Steps to Change the Day the Workweek Starts
- Firstly, you have to click Edit from the top menu bar.
- Then, choose Preferences.
- After that, select Time & Expenses or Time Tracking from the left menu options.
- Later, choose the Company Preferences option.
- Choose the starting day of your workweek by selecting the drop-down list beside the beginning day of your workweek.
- At last, hit the OK button.
Set Up Time
- First, click on Preferences after choosing the Edit option.
- Go to the icons on the left-hand side of the screen and choose General.
- Click on Company Preferences.
- You have to select Decimals or Minutes.
- Then, choose OK.
- Use a colon between minutes and hours on the entering payroll information screen if you have to enter minutes. The system uses what was recorded for calculation.
How to Set Up Time Tracking in QuickBooks Online?
In QuickBooks Online Essentials, Plus, and Advanced, create time tracking. Use this feature to track and bill clients for the time spent on a project or activity. Let’s move to steps:
Turn On Time Tracking
- Choose Account & Settings after choosing the Settings gear icon.
- Click the Time tab.
- Click Edit in the General or Timesheet section.
- Set your time tracking options:
- The dropdown menu on the first day of the workweek affects the way contractors and workers view weekly timesheets.
- Show service field: While this toggle is enabled, contractors and employees can indicate the services they have performed while filling out timesheets.
- Employees and contractors can specify whether activities should be billed to a customer when this switch is on.
- It is optional, but you can use this to show the billing rate to users when entering their time.
- Click Done after selecting Save.
Steps to Add a Time Tracking User
- Navigate to the Settings icon and select Manage Users.
- Click Add User.
- Then, select Track time.
- Select Sync team member from the View All rights menu.
- Now, choose a team member after selecting the team member and select Sync.
- Click Send invite.
Note: The time-tracking users can be changed by user type. Remove the user and add back again with the new user type if the time tracker requires separate business access.
Time Details
Time information will appear automatically on customer invoices according to the rates you set and if the time is billable. You can include:
- Employee name
- Hourly rate charged
- Hours charged
You can also modify the invoice to include the following:
- Text from the timesheet’s Description field
- The default service name that you are using
- You can personalize the text for time-tracking fees.
Steps to Make Time Billable
- Click on the New tab.
- Select a single weekly timesheet or weekly activity.
- Enter all necessary information.
- The Billable (/hr) checkbox must be checked.
- Close after clicking the Save button.
Set Time Always Billable
- Navigate to the Employees option.
- Find the target employee, click Employment Details, and select Edit.
- Check the option named Billable by default.
- Click on the Save option.
View Reports on Time Tracking
- Navigate to the Report.,
- Enter any of the following into the Find report by name field: Time Activities by Customer Detail, Time Activities by Employee Detail, Recent/Edited Time Activities, and Unbilled Time.
Conclusion
QuickBooks time tracking is available for QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop. Companies need to set up time tracking to manage client billing and payroll reports. You can make your business operation easy and effective with this feature. If you have questions about QB time tracking, don’t hesitate to contact QuickBooks ProAdvisor.
Read these articles:
