Entering Time in QuickBooks

In QuickBooks, you can enter and view time for a single activity or for whole weeks. If you record time after the fact, a weekly timesheet is the fastest way to enter time. If you already have one timesheet filled out, you can copy it to speed up your data entry. To time work as you perform it, the Time/ Enter Single Activity dialog box is the way to go.

Filling in Weekly Timesheets

QuickBooks’ weekly timesheet is the fastest way to enter time for several activities or work that spans several days. Here’s what you do:

1. Choose Employees➝Enter Time➝Use Weekly Timesheet. QuickBooks opens the Weekly Timesheet dialog box.

. 2. In the Name drop-down list, choose the person who performed the work. Because time tracking is rarely limited to only the people with permission to run QuickBooks, you can enter time for yourself or anyone else. After you choose a name, the program displays a timesheet for the current week and shows any time already entered for the week, as shown in Figure 8-3.     Entering Time in QuickBooks Figure 8-3:╇ The weekly timesheet doesn’t provide much room to display customer names, job names, or more than a few letters of the Service item for the task performed. To see the full contents of a cell in a pop-up tooltip like the one shown here, position your cursor over the cell. You can also drag a corner of the window to resize it.

3. If you want to enter time for a different week, in the window’s toolbar, click Previous or Next until the week you want appears. To choose a week further in the past, click the calendar icon to the right of the week’s date range. In the Set Date window that appears, click the arrows to the left or right of the month heading to move to a past or future month. Click any date during the week to choose that work week. For example, choosing 22 in the July 2011 calendar switches the timesheet to the week beginning July 18, 2011.

4. In the first blank Customer:Job cell (the first column of the timesheet table), choose the customer or job associated with the work that was performed. If the work is billable, choose the customer or job that pays for it. If the time isn’t billable, you can leave the customer field blank or choose the customer you created to track non-billable time. Depending on whether you keep your hands on the keyboard or the mouse, you can move to the Service Item cell by pressing Tab or clicking the Service Item cell.

5. In the Service Item cell, choose the item that represents the work the person performed.

 If you use QuickBooks’ payroll service and pay employees by the hours they work, in the Payroll Item that appears to the right of the Service Item column, you also fill in the payroll-related item that applies to the time worked. For example, for billable work, choose a payroll item such as Salary or Employee Income. If the hours are for vacation or sick time, choose the payroll item you’ve created for that kind of time.   chapter 8: tracking time and mileage Time in QuickBooks

 6. In the Notes cell, type any additional information about the work. If your customers require details about the work performed, store that info in the Notes cell, which then appears on the invoices you create.

Tip: To see the entire contents of Notes cells, turn on the “Wrap text in Notes field” checkbox at the bottom of the Weekly Timesheet window. With this setting turned on, each row in the Timesheet table takes up more space, but you won’t have to position your cursor over every Notes cell to see what it contains.

7. If you use classes to track income, in the Class column, choose one for the work. For example, if you track income by partner, choose the class for the partner who handles that customer. If you use classes to track office branches, choose the class for the branch where the person works.

8. To enter time for a day during the week, click the cell for that day or press Tab until you reach the right day. You can enter time in several ways. If you know the number of hours, type the hours as a decimal or as hours and minutes. For example, for seven and a half hours, type either 7.5 or 7:30. QuickBooks displays the hours in the timesheet based on the time preference you set. If you know the starting and ending time, QuickBooks can calculate the hours for you.

For example, if you type 9-5 in a cell, the program transforms it into eight hours when you move to a different cell (by pressing Tab or clicking another cell). As you enter time for each day of the week, the Total column on the right side of the table shows the total hours for each activity. The numbers in the Totals row below the table show the total hours for each day and for the entire week.

Note: Each row in a weekly timesheet represents one service item, one customer or job, and one note. If you perform the same type of work for two different customers, you have to enter that time in two separate rows. You also have to create another row if you want to record a different note for the same customer and the same service item. You might do this if, for example, you did web-development work for a customer, but want to differentiate the work you did on their online store web page and their marketing web pages.

9. If you aren’t billing the customer for the work, in the “Billable?” column, click the checkmark to turn it off. QuickBooks adds a checkmark to the “Billable?” column automatically. When you click the billable cell, the checkmark disappears to indicate that the time isn’t billable.

Entering Time in QuickBooks

10. To save the timesheet, click Save & Close or Save & New.

 If you enter time for a number of people, click Save & New to save the current timesheet and open a new blank one. Clicking Save & Close saves the timesheet and closes the Weekly Timesheet dialog box. UP TO SPEED

Entering Time for One Activity

Entering time in a weekly timesheet is quick, but the width of the columns makes it hard to see which customer and service item you’re tracking. If you prefer readability to speed, the Time/Enter Single Activity window is a better choice. This window also includes a stopwatch you can use to time your work.

 One drawback to the Time/Enter Single Activity window is that you have to fill in every field for every activity. If you grow tired of this form of time entry, in the window’s toolbar, click Timesheet to switch to the Weekly Timesheet window. The weekly timesheet that appears is for the person you selected in the Time/Enter Single Activity window and the week that includes the selected day.

Here’s how you enter time for one activity at a time:

1. Choose Employees➝Enter Time➝Time/Enter Single Activity. The Time/Enter Single Activity window opens to today’s date.

2. If you want to record time for another day, in the Date field, click the Calendar icon and choose the date when the work took place. When you first open the Time/Enter Single Activity window, QuickBooks selects all the text in the Date box. You can replace the date by simply typing the new date, like 6/07/11.   

3. In the Name drop-down list, select the person who performed the work. This drop-down list includes vendors, employees, and names from the Other Names List. Employees and Other Names are near the end of the list. If you choose an employee who isn’t set up for sending time data to payroll, Quick- Books asks whether you want to change the employee’s setup. If you want to use the time entered to generate paycheck data—for instance, when employees are paid by the hour—click Yes, which links the employee’s time records to paycheck data.

4. In the Customer:Job drop-down list, choose a customer or job. If someone performs work for a real customer or job, choose that customer or job whether or not you bill the time. To track overhead time, choose the customer you created for non-billable work .

5. If the hours aren’t billable to a customer, turn off the Billable checkbox. QuickBooks automatically turns on this checkbox (which is in the upper-right corner of the window), so you have to worry about it only if the hours aren’t billable.

6. In the Service Item drop-down list, choose the item that represents the work performed. Choose this item whether it’s one you use to invoice customers or a non-billable item you created to track overhead activities.

7. Press Tab to move to the Duration box. QuickBooks automatically selects the contents of the box, so you can simply type the hours worked. If you click the Duration box instead, drag to select its contents. Enter hours as a decimal or as hours and minutes, such as 5.5 or 5:30. Or, if you know the starting and ending time, type the time range to have QuickBooks calculate the hours. For example, if you type 11-5 in a cell, the program fills in the box with 6:00 when you tab or click away from it. If you work in QuickBooks almost all the time, you can also use the Time/Enter Single Activity window to time tasks, as shown in Figure 8-4.

╉╉Running Time Reports

Figure 8-4:╇ To time your current activity, the Date field has to be set to today’s date. (Unless you have special time-travel powers, you can’t run a stopwatch for work performed on a different day.) To start the stopwatch, click the Start button, which is grayed out here. You’ll see the seconds that are passing to the right of the Duration box (where it says “13” here) to show that it’s timing your work. If you want to pause the stopwatch to take a break or a phone call, click Pause; simply click Start to start timing again. When you finish the task, click Stop. To edit the time, click Stop and then type the time you want.

8. If you track classes, in the Class field, choose the appropriate one. To add notes about the activity, type text in the Notes box. These notes appear in the Notes column of the Weekly Timesheet window and, for billable work, appear on invoices you generate from time worked.

9. To save the transaction, click Save & New or Save & Close. When you click Save & New, the saved activity represents time for only one day. To record time for another day’s work even if it’s for the same worker, customer, and Service item, you have to create a new activity. 

Running Time Reports

Customers don’t like being charged for too many hours, and workers are quick to complain if they’re paid for too few. Before you use time records either for billing customers or feeding your payroll records, it’s a good idea to generate reports to make sure your time data is correct. To generate a time report in QuickBooks, choose Reports➝“Jobs, Time & Mileage”, and then select the report you want. Here are the ones you can choose from and what they’re useful for:   

                        

• Time by Job Summary. If you bill by the job, this handy report shows hours by customer or job, summarized by Service items. Overly high or low hours—or Service items that don’t belong on a job—are red flags for data entry errors. This report helps you review the total hours worked on a job during a period. Because of the high-level view in this report, it’s perfect for spotting time charged to inappropriate Service items or hours that exceed job limits. If hours seem too high or low, you can drill down with the “Time by Job Detail” report to investigate.

• Time by Job Detail. Use this report to verify that hours were correctly set as billable or non-billable. It’s grouped first by customer/job and then by Service item, but each time entry shows the date the hours were worked, who performed the work, and whether the work is billable (the billing status is Unbilled for billable hours not yet invoiced, Billed for invoiced billable hours, or Not Billable).

• Time by Name. This report shows the hours people have worked on each customer or job, as shown in Figure 8-5. QuickBooks sets the date range to This Fiscal Year-to-Date, but if you want to check timesheets for accuracy, you can change it to Last Week or Last Month. If a person reports too many or too few hours for a period, use the Weekly Timesheet window to look for signs of inaccurate or missing time reports.

• Time by Item. This report groups hours by Service item and then by customer or job. You can use this report to analyze how your billable and non-billable time is spent, either to cut unproductive activities or to determine staffing needs.  â•‰Tracking Mileage

 Figure 8-5:╇ The “Time by Name” report summarizes the hours someone works for each customer or job. To see the dates and times of the work, hover your cursor over an hourly total. When the magnifying glass icon shown here appears, double-click the time to open a “Time by Name Detail” report.

 

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