Solved

Automatically bill time based on billing rates

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
June 10, 2019
4 replies
6 views

I am recording time using TSheets. I approve the time using QuickBooks after its synchronised with tsheets. Once I’ve approved the time I can create an invoice. At this point the billing rate is zero but it does show me the hours billed. It also posts a cost to the project based on the employee cost rate. Once I’ve pulled the time entry into an invoice I can’t see which employee incurred the time so I’m not sure how much to invoice. I can see a billing rate in the employee list but I can seem to get the information to pass through to the invoice.

Can i I set billing rates in qb online or is there a way around this issue.

QuickBooks Online

Best answer by Jon Andrews

Hello there, Jon Andrews.

When you create an invoice from TSheets, the rate is based on the Service item you've selected.

In your case, I'd suggest creating two different service items for employees and apprentices. Then, import it to your TSheets account. This way, you can select the correct service item with the correct rate when editing time entries.

Check this article as your guide on how to create a service item.

Click the Reply button if you have other concerns. I'm here to help.

This will create too many service items and will make things complicated.

I believe QB desktop can manage this kind of time sheet billing but it sounds like Quickbooks on line can not.

I just found a workaround. Once I approve the time I go to weekly timesheets. From here I can adjust the pay rate based on employee at the service code level. It's a bit slow and "clunky" and would expect software like QB to make it streamline like the rest of the software.

R

Rasa-LilaM

QuickBooks Team

Let me welcome you first to the Online Community, Jon Andrews.

Thanks for being detailed about your concern. This gives me a clearer picture of what happened.

Once the TSheets data are synced into QBO, the employee’s name will not automatically show on the invoice. You still have to manually enter it in the Description field to identify who incurred the time.

Ideally, the billing rate should appear when creating an invoice. Since this information is not auto-populating, let’s try performing some troubleshooting steps to fix the issue.

To begin, open the service and make sure the rate is selected. If the item is properly set up, refresh the timesheet data by opening and closing it.

This should help you get back on track. Keep me posted how these steps work for you. I’ll be right here if you need more help.

J

Jon AndrewsAuthor

Thanks for your reply

i have qualified and apprentices logging time under the same service item. The qualified employee bills time at a higher rate than the apprentice so I need different billing rates based on employees. In the employee details there is a field for charge rate as well as cost rate (per hour). The cost rate auto populates in project costs but the charge out rate does not auto populate when producing an invoce

AlexV

Level 10

Hello there, Jon Andrews.

When you create an invoice from TSheets, the rate is based on the Service item you've selected.

In your case, I'd suggest creating two different service items for employees and apprentices. Then, import it to your TSheets account. This way, you can select the correct service item with the correct rate when editing time entries.

Check this article as your guide on how to create a service item.

Click the Reply button if you have other concerns. I'm here to help.

E

engineer1

QBO absolutely needs an option to set bill rates for employees at a project level. We negotiate our bill rates for different classes of employees for each contract. That bill rate sheet is specific to each contract. I don't want to setup a bunch of different "service items" in order to accomplish this.

O

ohanavet

I agree. I use QB online with projects and T-sheets. All automatically comes into the weekly timesheets except pay rates. T-Sheets doesn't push that field. They check the "Billable" box, but I have to manually add the pay rate for each employee time sheet entry field before I can add to an invoice. What a pain and I only have a few employees. I've found if I uncheck and recheck the "billable" box, the default rate gets added, so why can't that happen automatically?

D

dj Resolute

We use Minute 7 (same at Tsheets) to add our billable time. When it comes in to quickbooks you can see the time on Timesheets but that time has a zero bill rate. On the weekly timesheet there are a few other lines where you could add additional services and hours (that did not come from the time system) and those have the bill rate. It is very annoying to say the least.

katherinejoyceO

Level 9

We are a 20 person consulting shop. Our business is very simple. We have consultants that need to track time and billable expenses by week and we need to put them on an invoice and send it to the customer.

In order to do this we need to have the following

1. The project

2. Employees that are working on the project

3. The bill rate by employee by project (it is possible to have multiple bill rates for one individual)

4. The ability to capture expenses and mark them as billable or no billable to a client

We originally thought QBO would do all of this. But after going through all of our implementation we found out that QBO could not handle this.

Thus we are looking at 3rd party apps.

We need the ability to capture hours and expenses as we thought QBO could handle the invoicing. It would be better if QBO did the invoice was our theory.

We looked at TSheets and minute7. Tsheets does not capture expenses so we went with minute 7. Minute 7 captures our hours and expenses just as we thought they would. It sends the hours by person to QBO. When QBO gets those hours (even though it has a bill rate in QBO) it put zero as the bill rate in the weekly timesheet. If you look at the weekly time sheet there are generally 3 lines. All 3 lines on a time sheet with no hours has a bill rate. When minute 7 sends hours QBO does take the bill rate and put it on the timesheet.

Thus for our 20 timesheets each week we would be forced to go in and add the bill rate to each one. I believe that is what the person on this time sheet called "clunky". Besides being "clunky" it also is a control issue and adds the risk of mistakes. Once we get the bill rate in on a year long project we should never have to have the risk of it being entered wrong every week. The system knows the bill rate and should be able to put it on the timesheet.

Please help me understand if I have this wrong.

I would expect the projects section to be the central hub of this part of the system. The projects section should have the employees and bill ratees and cost for the project. Those bill rates should drive invoicing.

Hi there, @dj Resolute.

Thanks for following this thread and for sharing detailed information on your concern.

Glad to know that you've found a compatible third-party app that suits the need of your business. If that works correctly on your end, you should be good to go.

Otherwise, you'll want to look for other apps that work best for you and your business. Visit the QuickBooks Apps website to find the right apps for your business.

I understand the need to have all these features available in QuickBooks, we're working hard to enhance our product and services for everyone. I encourage you to visit our QuickBooks blog regularly to get updates about the new features.

Let me know if anything is missing, I'd be glad to provide clarification and help you further.

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RyanBe

We have the same fundamental problem. It is not feasible to have a service item for every possible bill rate we charge customers, or to expect employees to know which item to use for their role on each project. With the forced transition to TSheets we're in the position of needing to go in and manually edit weekly time sheets in QuickBooks after time is approved/synced from TSheets. This is an error prone and unreasonable solution.

Pricing rules do not work for us as they cannot be set based on class (we do not use projects). Expanding the capabilities of price rules would solve most of the problems for me and many of the other QBO customers with the same issue. In our case, we need price rules created based these criteria:

1) Class

2) Employee

3) Service Item

In other words, set rate to $150/hr for Class "XYZ" AND Employee "John Doe" AND Service Item "Consulting"

Overtime will still be a problem.

M

Maybelle_S

QuickBooks Team

Thank you for joining the thread, @RyanBe.

I understand the importance of being able to configure the billable rates by employees in addition to the rates by service item in QuickBooks Online. I'll also pass along this to our engineers so they'll get more ideas on how to improve QuickBooks and ensure to give our customers the best experience possible.

To stay current with the latest news and updates, you can always visit our blog.

Leave a comment below if you have any other questions. I'm a few clicks away to help. Have a good day!

D

dedmundson

Still no change as of April 26, 2022. Is adding the billing rate automatically even in the planning stage?

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