How To Use Timesheets In Quickbooks Online

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Using the Timesheet feature in Quickbooks Online can be a great way to keep track of your time and your employees’ time at work. Timesheets is an easy way for you to quickly assess how much time you’re spending on a particular project or how much you’re going to need to pay each employee.

The feature also makes it easy to invoice clients for billable hours. We’ll show you how to utilize Quickbooks Online Timesheets in order to best track your company’s time.

Setting Up Employees To Use Timesheets

The first step to using Timesheets effectively is to set up your team members to use the feature.

When you set up an employee to use Timesheets in Quickbooks Online, you start by accessing the Gear button in the upper right hand corner of the home page. From there, you take the following steps.

1. Click on Manage Users under Your Company
2. Click the Add User button on the right
3. Select Time Tracking Only (unless you want the user to have additional access)
4. Click Next
5. Press the drop down box arrow and click on the employee name you want to add, or click Add New
6. If you select New you’ll have to fill out information to add the new employee; if you select an existing employee, you’ll need to ensure you’ve included their email address and click Finish
7. From there, the employee will be sent an email link that they need to click on to finish the setup process. Once they finish the setup process they can begin using Timesheets.

Note that there are several choices for accesses you can give each team member: Standard User, Company Admin, Reports Only, Time Tracking Only.

The Standard User and Company Admin designations count toward your Quickbooks user limit while Reports Only and Time Tracking Only designations do not. If you simply want your team member to be able to track their time, click on the Time Tracking Only designation and then hit the Next button to proceed.

Related Article: The Keys To Successfully Managing Remote Teams

Changing User Access Rights In Timesheets

If you decide later that you want to change a user’s access rights so that they can do more than just track time, here are the steps you need to take.

As usual, you will click on the Gear icon in the upper right-hand corner. From there, you will:

1. Click on Your Company
2. Go to Manage Users from the dropdown box
3. Find the team member you want to change access rights for and click the Edit button
4. Click on the User Type dropdown and choose the new user type
5. Hit Save to save your changes

Note that the user you change permissions for may have to sign out and sign in again in order for them to be able to access the data that comes with the new user type designation.

Deleting Users From Timesheets

If you decide you want to delete a user from Timesheets, the process is quite simple. Follow the prompts below.

1. Click on the Gear button in the upper right hand corner of your screen
2. Click on Manage Users under Your Company
3. When you see the name of the employee you want to delete, click on the down arrow to the very right
4. Click Delete

At that point you’ll be asked if you want to delete, and then you’ll click Delete again. After that, you’ll see a pop-up box verifying  that the user was deleted

Using Timesheets To Track Time

Now that you’ve ensured you have the correct users in your Quickbooks database, let’s go over how to use Timesheets to track time. You’ll start by turning on the Time Tracking preference. Here’s how to do that.

1. Click on the Gear icon and click Your Company
2. Click on the Account and Settings tab in the dropdown box
3. From there, click the Advanced tab in the left side column
4. Tap the Off/On button in the Add Service Field To Time Tracking field
5. Tap the Off/On button in the Make Single Activity Time Billable field
6. Hit the Done button in the lower right-hand corner

How To Add Time To Users

Now that you’re set up correctly, you and your team members will need to know how to add time to their timesheets. This is a fairly simple process. Team members can add their own hours or people with the Admin designation can do it for them.

1. From the left sidebar click Time and Time Entries
2. Click the green Add Time button
3. Use the box on the right to add time
4. Click on the Add Work Details link to tie the billable hours to a customer if necessary
5. Change the Billable Hours button to green
6. Hit the Done button to save your work

Now that you know how to set team members up on Timesheets and have them use it, let’s talk about how to invoice customers from Timesheets.

How To Invoice Customers From Timesheets

Follow the steps below in order to invoice customers using Timesheets information.

1. From your dashboard, click Invoicing and then Invoices from the left sidebar
2. Click the Create Invoice button
3. Select the customer you want to invoice from the Customer dropdown box
4. Go to the Add to Invoice column on the right side
5. Scroll down and click Add to any relevant billable hours for the client
6. Hit Save or Save and Send to save your information and/or send the invoice to the client

That’s all there is to it!

Related Article: How To Invoice Like A Professional

Summary

As you can see, the Timesheets feature in Quickbooks Online is an easy-to-use and effective way to help your business run smoothly and effectively.

When used properly, this feature can help you see how employees are managing time, know how to profitably charge clients, make invoicing easier, and more. And knowing the details of expenses for each project and invoicing clients accordingly goes a long way in ensuring your business is profitable.

If you’re a Quickbooks Online user we highly recommend using this feature.