QuickBooks Online
Send approved employee and contractor time to QuickBooks for time tracking, job costing, reports, and customer billing.
Guided tour 2:45
Send approved hours to QuickBooks without retyping
Connect your QuickBooks company, match your employees, send one approved pay period, and turn on automatic sending.
Transcript
- 0:00Send approved hours to QuickBooks Online
- If your business uses QuickBooks Online, Clockspot can send the hours you approve straight into QuickBooks, so you never type the same hours twice. Each approved shift becomes a time activity in QuickBooks, with the employee, the date, and the hours already filled in, ready for payroll, job costing, or customer billing. In this video, we will connect your QuickBooks company, match your employees, send one pay period, and turn on automatic sending for the pay periods after that.
- 0:30Connect once, then send without retyping
- To connect QuickBooks, open Settings from the menu on the left, then choose QuickBooks Online. Select Connect QuickBooks. Clockspot takes you to Intuit, where you sign in to QuickBooks and choose the company you want to connect. When you confirm, you come back to Clockspot, and the page shows the connected company name.
- 0:51Each person’s hours reach the right QuickBooks record
- Next, tell Clockspot how the time should appear in QuickBooks. Open the Settings tab. Under Default service item, choose the service from your QuickBooks products and services that best describes the work, for example Cleaning services. Under Match employees, Clockspot pairs each Clockspot employee with the employee or contractor in QuickBooks who should receive their hours, and suggests a match when the names line up. Select Use all suggestions to accept them. If someone still needs attention, choose the right QuickBooks name from the list. Then select Save QuickBooks settings.
- 1:27Approved hours arrive in QuickBooks in one step
- Now send a pay period. Open the Export time tab. Under Pay period, choose the period you are ready to send. Clockspot lists only periods with approved timesheets, and it counts only time you have approved. It shows the approved hours, the number of employees, and how many records QuickBooks will receive. Select Review time records to see each day’s record, with the QuickBooks employee and service item it will use. When everything looks right, select Send approved time to QuickBooks.
- 1:58Every record is confirmed before you move on
- Clockspot sends the records, showing its progress as QuickBooks accepts them. When the History tab says Completed, every record is in QuickBooks.
- 2:09Approved periods go out without a click
- You can also let Clockspot send future pay periods on its own. Open the Settings tab, expand Automatic export, and turn on Send future approved pay periods automatically. From then on, once every timesheet in a pay period is approved and every time entry is closed, Clockspot sends that period for you, and it pauses to ask you whenever a change needs your review.
- 2:33Connect once, match once, done
- That is the QuickBooks Online connection: connect once, match your employees, and your approved hours arrive in QuickBooks without retyping.
QuickBooks Online lets you send reviewed employee and contractor hours from Clockspot to your QuickBooks company without typing the same time twice.
Clockspot sends approved paid time as Time Activities for time tracking, job costing, reports, and customer billing. Clockspot keeps its regular, overtime, and paid time-off breakdown visible for your review, but this connection does not assign QuickBooks payroll pay types or calculate payroll.
Set up QuickBooks Online
- Open Settings, then choose QuickBooks Online.
- Press Connect QuickBooks and choose the company you are authorized to connect.
- Open Settings.
- Choose the Default service item. This tells QuickBooks what kind of work the time represents.
- Match each Clockspot employee to the employee or contractor who should own that time in QuickBooks. Clockspot may suggest a match, but you decide whether to use it.
- Fix any people marked as needing attention, then press Save QuickBooks settings.
The connection does not send QuickBooks payroll pay types. Review the exported time in QuickBooks before running payroll.
Most companies can stop there. Open Optional accounting only if you use QuickBooks for customer billing, Class or Location reporting, or different accounting choices by job.
Export a payroll period
- Open Export time.
- Choose the Pay period you are preparing.
- Review the total paid time, employee count, and any changes since the last export.
- If Clockspot finds an approval problem, use Review timesheet approvals and finish the final timesheet approval before returning.
- If Clockspot finds a QuickBooks setup problem, open Settings and fix the items marked as needing attention.
- Expand the time-record review when you want to inspect the individual records and their QuickBooks destinations.
- Press Send approved time to QuickBooks.
Final timesheet approval confirms the worked time, breaks, and paid time off used for the export. Approving a time-off request authorizes the absence; the final timesheet approval confirms its paid hours for payroll. If an older approval has no saved payroll facts, review and approve the timesheet again before exporting.
If time, approvals, payroll settings, or QuickBooks matches change after your review, Clockspot asks you to review the period again before sending.
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 or contractor 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 final timesheet approval covers all worked time, breaks, and paid time off, 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. Unpaid breaks are removed from worked time, paid time off is sent, and unpaid time off is not sent. The export review keeps Clockspot's regular, overtime, and paid time-off categories visible so you can check the period before sending it.
Each record identifies the work date, duration, matched QuickBooks employee or contractor, and service item. A record can include a customer, Class, Location, whether the time is billable and taxable, and a description when you choose those details.
This QuickBooks Online connection does not send payroll pay types or pay rates, calculate payroll dollars, create paychecks, file taxes, or create invoices, bills, or payments. Review the Time Activities in QuickBooks and make any payroll-specific choices there before processing payroll.
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. Clockspot first uses the work type match when the time has one, then the job's service item, then the company default. This lets a reusable service such as Installation map consistently across several jobs while job-only time still exports correctly.
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 time tracking, job costing, or general reports. Clockspot first uses the job's QuickBooks customer choice, then the client assigned to the job, then the company default. A work site's client does not decide the customer for exported time.
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 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 more specific matches first, such as a work type's service item, a job's accounting choice, or the job's client match. 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. Saved payroll basis shows the payroll facts and final approvals saved when that export was queued. Older exports without a saved basis say so; Clockspot does not recreate their historical facts from today’s timesheets or settings.
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 the same saved request 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, contractors, Products and Services, customers, Classes, or Locations immediately.
Use Reconnect QuickBooks when the QuickBooks authorization needs to be renewed. Use Disconnect QuickBooks to revoke Clockspot's access. Disconnecting does not remove Time Activities already accepted by QuickBooks.
If you disconnect Clockspot from inside QuickBooks or your Intuit account instead, Clockspot finds out the next time it contacts QuickBooks, stops sending time, and asks you to reconnect. Your employee and job matches and your export history stay saved. To reconnect, open Settings, choose QuickBooks Online, and press Reconnect QuickBooks.
Common questions
- Does Clockspot run payroll in QuickBooks?
No. This QuickBooks Online connection sends approved time as QuickBooks Time Activities, but it does not assign payroll pay types, send pay rates, calculate pay, create paychecks, handle taxes, or file payroll forms. Review the exported time in QuickBooks before processing payroll.
- Does billable mean the employee gets paid?
No. Billable controls whether the time can be added to a customer invoice. Employee pay is separate.
- Why is a service item required?
QuickBooks requires every Time Activity to identify the Product or Service that describes the work. Clockspot uses the work type's match when time has one, then the job's match, then your company default.
- Why does exported time not appear in QuickBooks payroll?
Clockspot sends Time Activities but does not assign QuickBooks payroll pay types. Review the employee and exported time in QuickBooks, then make the payroll-specific choices required by your QuickBooks setup.
- Will automatic export send a pay period that needs review?
No. Clockspot pauses automatic export when approvals, open time entries, QuickBooks matches, removals, QuickBooks-side changes, or an earlier export need attention. An administrator receives an in-app notification and decides what to do next.
Clockspot keeps clock-ins, corrections, approvals, and payroll-ready hours connected so owners and managers can review the workweek before payroll.
Want to simplify how your employees track time? See how Clockspot works.