QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online lets you send reviewed employee hours from Clockspot to your QuickBooks company without typing the same time twice.

Clockspot sends approved paid time as Time Activities. It separates regular time, every configured overtime rate, and each paid time-off type so QuickBooks can put the hours in the correct payroll categories. QuickBooks uses its own pay rates and payroll rules to calculate pay, create paychecks, and handle taxes.

Set up QuickBooks Online

1. Open Settings, then choose QuickBooks Online.
2. Press Connect QuickBooks and choose the company you are authorized to connect.
3. Open Settings.
4. Choose the Default service item. This tells QuickBooks what kind of work the time represents.
5. Match each Clockspot employee to the employee or vendor who should own that time in QuickBooks. Clockspot may suggest a match, but you decide whether to use it.
6. For a production connection, open Match payroll pay types. Match regular time, every overtime rate, and each paid time-off type to that employee's QuickBooks pay types.
7. Fix any people marked as needing attention, then press Save QuickBooks settings.

Intuit's sandbox does not provide employee payroll pay types. You can test the connection and time export there, but payroll-category matching appears only with a production QuickBooks company.

Most companies can stop there. Open Advanced accounting only if you use QuickBooks for customer billing, Class or Location reporting, or different accounting choices by job.

Export a payroll period

1. Open Export time.
2. Choose the Pay period you are preparing.
3. Review the total paid time, employee count, and any changes since the last export.
4. If Clockspot finds an approval problem, use Review timesheet approvals and finish the review before returning.
5. If Clockspot finds a QuickBooks setup problem, open Settings and fix the items marked as needing attention.
6. Expand Review time records when you want to inspect the individual records and their QuickBooks destinations.
7. Press Send approved time to QuickBooks.

Clockspot exports the whole reviewed period together. It does not silently skip an employee who should be included. It stops before sending when approvals, employee matches, or required QuickBooks details are incomplete.

Send future pay periods automatically

Automatic export is optional. Open Settings, expand Automatic export, and turn on Send future approved pay periods automatically.

Clockspot considers only approvals completed after you turn the setting on. It sends a pay period after every worked timesheet is approved, every time entry is closed, and every required QuickBooks match is ready. It pauses instead of guessing when the export would remove QuickBooks time, overwrite a change made in QuickBooks, use an incomplete match, or follow an export that still needs attention.

When an automatic export finishes, Clockspot adds an in-app notification for administrators. It also notifies administrators when an automatic export pauses for review. Open the notification to return to QuickBooks Online, review the pay period, and choose the next action.

What QuickBooks receives

Clockspot sends daily Time Activities for approved paid time. Worked time is divided into regular time and the applicable overtime rates according to your Clockspot overtime rules. Paid time off is sent separately for each paid time-off type. Unpaid time off is not sent.

Each record identifies the work date, duration, matched QuickBooks employee or vendor, and service item. For a production employee connection, the record also identifies the employee's matched QuickBooks pay type, such as Regular Pay, Overtime Pay, or Vacation Pay. A record can include a customer, Class, Location, whether the time is billable and taxable, and a description when you choose those details.

Unpaid breaks are already removed from the duration. Clockspot does not send pay rates, calculate payroll dollars, create paychecks, file taxes, or create invoices, bills, or payments. QuickBooks applies the employee's pay rate and payroll rules to each matched pay type after it receives the hours.

Understand the setup choices

Service item

A service item is an entry in QuickBooks Products and Services. It describes the work represented by a Time Activity, such as Installation, Consulting, or General Labor.

QuickBooks requires every exported Time Activity to have a service item. The company choice in Clockspot is the fallback for all work. A job-specific choice can replace it when a particular job represents a different service.

Customer

A customer is the client or project the work belongs to in QuickBooks. Adding one lets QuickBooks group the time for customer reporting and is required when you want the time available for customer billing.

The customer choice is optional when you only need employee time for payroll. The company choice is a fallback; a job can use its own customer.

Class

A Class is an optional QuickBooks reporting category. Companies often use Classes to compare parts of the business, such as departments, divisions, or lines of business.

You only need a Class when Class tracking is enabled in QuickBooks and your accounting reports use it. Clockspot hides this choice when QuickBooks says Class tracking is off.

Billable and not billable

Billable means QuickBooks can make the time available to add to an invoice for the selected customer. Not billable means QuickBooks records the time for payroll or reporting without offering it for customer invoicing.

This setting is about charging a customer. It does not decide whether the employee is paid. If time is billable, Clockspot also lets you choose whether QuickBooks should treat it as taxable when invoiced.

Default

In this setup, default means fallback. Clockspot uses the company default unless a particular job has its own QuickBooks choice. It does not mean Clockspot changes the default settings inside QuickBooks.

See what happened after an export

Open History to see completed, interrupted, and failed exports. Choose an export to see which QuickBooks changes succeeded and which rows need attention.

Use Retry failed rows only when Clockspot offers it. If Clockspot asks you to review the period or setup again, follow that action so the next export uses the current approved time and valid QuickBooks records.

If a QuickBooks request times out, Clockspot retries with the same tracking information. That lets it recognize a request QuickBooks already accepted instead of creating a duplicate Time Activity. Replacing or removing previously exported time always requires a fresh review and confirmation.

Refresh, reconnect, or disconnect

Clockspot refreshes QuickBooks data when the saved catalog is more than 15 minutes old. Use Refresh QuickBooks data when you need a change to employees, vendors, Products and Services, payroll pay types, customers, Classes, Locations, or time-tracking preferences immediately.

Use Reconnect company when the QuickBooks authorization needs to be renewed. Use Disconnect company to revoke Clockspot's access. Disconnecting does not remove Time Activities already accepted by QuickBooks.