Setting up time tracking

If you charge customers for time, QuickBooks can keep track of the minutes and hours everyone works and then drop those hours into invoices for you. There is a little upfront setup to gain this convenience though, which is explained in the chapter, Managing Your Company File. Then you tell QuickBooks whose time you want to track and who can track their own time in the program. To turn on time tracking, on the Edit menu, choose Preferences. In the Preferences dialog box, click Time & Expenses.

Click the Company Preferences tab, because time tracking applies to everyone who uses the company file. In the Do you track time? section, select the Yes option and click OK. You can track time for anyone you add to the QuickBooks vendor list, which you learned about in the chapter, Setting Up Customers, Jobs and Vendors. Also, people on the employee list, those are the people you pay through QuickBooks Payroll features, or the Other Names List, which is usually reserved for owners, partners or people paid outside the QuickBooks payroll process.

If you want to add someone to the Other Names list, on the List menu, choose Other Names List. In the window, click Other Names and choose New. Fill in the Name box and any other contact information you want and click OK. I'll cancel in this example. In addition, people have to have permission to track their own time in QuickBooks. If you have administrator privileges, on the Company menu, choose Set Up Users and Passwords and then choose Set Up Users.

Select the user who will track their own time and click Edit User. Click Next and on this screen make sure that Selected areas of QuickBooks is selected. Then click Next until you get to Time Tracking. Select the Full Access option and then click Finish. Now Ted Timer is set up to track his own time using QuickBooks. QuickBooks also has a stand-alone timer program you can send to people, so they can track their time outside of the program.

Intuit also offers an online time tracker. The cost for one user is $10 per month. You can learn more on the Intuit QuickBooks site. Choose QuickBooks > Products & Services, and then click More Products & Services. Click the Learn More button under QuickBooks Time Tracker to find out what it can do for you. There is no additional setup for items, because QuickBooks can track time for any service item you create.

Once you have Time Tracking turned on and users set up to track their time, you're ready to track the time that people work and add it to invoices in QuickBooks.