Tracking and Billing Employee Time

Time for employees can be recorded in QuickBooks timesheets, either by week within QuickBooks from paper documents, by individual time records using the timekeeping applet, or by using QuickBooks online timekeeping application.

These latter two methods can be maintained separate from QuickBooks with the time information imported into QuickBooks. Below is an example of a timesheet for Frank Marshall, an employee we pay by the hour.

We have set up a service item call "Blueprint changes" for which we pay Mr. Marshall $35.00 per hour and bill at $50 per hour. First, we enter time for Mr. Marshall below to a weekly timesheet. Notice that we are only billing the "Burch, Jason:Room Addition" project. Let’s assume that the work on the "Abercrombie, Kristy:Remodel Bathroom" project was included in a turnkey cost. Even though we are not billing it, we want to track this time as a project cost for when we review our profitability by project.

Payday rolls around for Mr. Marshall and, as you can see below, the items reflected on his timesheet are automatically included in his paycheck.

Now, let’s bill Jason Burch for the "Blueprint Changes". We accomplish this by selecting "Customers", "Invoice for Time and Expenses", and then selecting from a list of unbilled charges. The result is an invoice as shown below.

QuickBooks allow you to set a default billable rate for an employee or even to bill the same service item at different rates for different employees. This is accomplished in the employee master. I will discuss this in more detail in another post.

Robert Guild is certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor in Austin, TX who conducts CPE courses for CPAs and individual training and group classes to QuickBooks users. His company at www.QBCoach.biz, maintains a sixteen-station QuickBooks lab, providing hands-on training. You can contact him directly at rguild@QBCoach.biz or follow him on twitter at QBPro