cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Bryan M
Level 2

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

Has anyone else been experiencing the discrepancy between time activity in Quickbooks and the respective job costs (labor) in respective projects? It's been happening since May to where those labor costs are artificially low because the time activity isn't pulling over. 

 

Any help?! Anytime I call Quickbooks, no one has the slightest idea how to help or even get me to the right staffing to address this.

 

Thanks!

22 Comments 22
GlinetteC
Moderator

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

Hello, Bryan. There have been no reported cases similar to yours. 

 

Rest assured, I'm here to assist you and work towards resolving these challenges regarding the discrepancy between time activity and project labor costs.

 

When tracking labor costs, ensure that the time entries used for payroll are associated with the projects. This will ensure that the amounts match up without any discrepancies.

 

If it's set up correctly, a cache-related problem is likely causing the amount difference. Consider accessing QuickBooks through an incognito window or private browser to address this. This mode doesn't retain your browsing history, occasionally leading to software issues like mismatches, errors, and missing options. You can use these shortcut keys as a reference:

 

  • Ctrl Shift for Google Chrome
  • Ctrl Shift P for Firefox
  • Control Option +if you're using Safari

 

If it works, return to the regular browser and clear the cache to eliminate any historical data resulting in unusual browser behaviors. Switching to a different supported browser can also fix the problem.

 

In addition, you can check this article to manage your labor costs and profitability in QBO: Track hourly labor costs and profitability by project in QuickBooks Online.

 

If you have anything else you need help with managing project labor costs or related matters, please let me know by adding a comment below. I'm here to address any concerns you may have. Take care!

Bryan M
Level 2

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

Think it's a bit different issue.

 

Within a certain project, you can toggle between Payroll Expenses and Hourly Costs when looking at overall job costs. Prior to May 12th, there was never an issue simply looking at Payroll expenses but subsequent to that date, they simply don't migrate over to the costs associated with that respective job (even though Payroll has run successfully and hourly costs are indeed tracking to respective employees the right way). 

JaeAnnC
QuickBooks Team

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

I appreciate you for getting back to us, @Bryan M. Let me step in and share details about migrating your payroll expenses to the costs associated with projects in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

 

In QBO, there are three scenarios why payroll expenses are not reflected in your project expenses that are currently working by design.

 

First, you have a salaried employee who tracks hours on timesheets. All hours, whether are more or less hours on the timesheet than the salary hours on the run payroll, all hours will only reflect under one customer or project. As a workaround, you can run an Itemized Total Time report in QuickBooks Time and filter by employee and date range. 

 

Second, you have an hourly employee. If you have 30 hours allocated on the timesheet but added another ten on the run payroll, those ten hours will display as Not Specified since they were never on the timesheet.

 

Third, you have an hourly employee who has 40 hours in regular pay but is separated into 30 regular and ten overtime. The timesheet has now been disconnected from payroll and will reflect as Not Specified because you did not make the edit on the timesheet first, but on the payroll instead. 

 

If you don't fall into any of these scenarios, I recommend reaching out to our customer support team since we currently have an ongoing investigation regarding your issue. This way, you'll be notified via email whenever new updates are made available. To do that:

 

  1. Go to the Help icon and choose the Search tab.
  2. Select Contact Us.
  3. Describe your concern and select Continue.
  4. Choose between Chat with us and Have us call you.

 

Additionally, here's an article with a list of payroll reports you can run to view information about employees' wages, taxes, and deductions: Run payroll reports in QuickBooks Online Payroll.

 

Fill me in if you have additional questions about payroll expenses. I'll be more than glad to assist you anytime. Keep safe, and have a great rest of the day!

Bryan M
Level 2

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

JaeAnnC, thanks for this reply. 

 

We don't use timesheets. We input hours over from Co-Construct and prior to 5/12, that was the only labor costs (payroll expense). I think currently when looking at an individual project and associated costs, I would have to subtract any payroll costs and then add in hourly costs. On top of this, I'd have to add in any labor burden to those hourly costs and view the project through the Hourly Costs 'lens' to see actual costs. I don't see any other way to do it.

 

Prior to 5/12, all labor costs were pretty easily displayed intuitively but now, I must say, it appears a 'fix' has just made things more cumbersome. Perhaps I'm missing something. 

JaeAnnC
QuickBooks Team

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

Thanks for getting back to us with further information, @Bryan M. I'm here to point you in the right direction so you'll get the assistance you need in reflecting the correct time activity hours on your projects in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

 

To further investigate the incorrect time activity hours, I recommend reaching out to our customer care team. This way, they can initiate a screen-sharing session in a private setting and raise an investigation if necessary. Here's how:

 

  1. Go to the Help icon and click the Search tab.
  2. Select Contact Us.
  3. Enter a short description of your concern and select Continue.
  4. Choose between Chat with us and Have us call you.

 

Furthermore, I'll share an article with a list of payroll reports you can generate if you wish to view information about employees' wages, taxes, and deductions: Run payroll reports in QuickBooks Online Payroll

 

Please don't hesitate to return to this thread whenever you have additional concerns about payroll expenses. I'm always here to assist you further. Keep safe, and have a great day ahead!

Bryan M
Level 2

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

Yeah, I've been down that road and spent a good 2 hours on the phone last Tuesday...case # 15106832688 I believe. 

Lori70
Level 2

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

You are correct, Brian.

 

I have opened multiple cases with Intuit regarding this issue... and have yet to find a support rep that understands anything to do with accounting and/or reporting. I now have months of labor hours and related expenses on my reports under "not specified", yet the job costing was entered via the timesheets, paid out via payroll and show up under the project hours report & the project time cost by employee report - just not on the project profitability report where it belongs (sure make my projects look great; no labor expenses).  It is going to take a very long time to rebuild the reports by hand, but it is the only way at this time to get proper reporting.  Shoot, old green sheets would've been more reliable.  So very frustrating.

UnityEle
Level 2

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

Exact same here.

For example see screen shot below. Over 125 hours, but showing costs of $412....

 

I had a case open and they closed it without solving it.

This is way to long for this issue to be going on....it used to be just fine. We don't know if we're making a profit on each project!!! I pay huge money for time sheets, payroll, quickbook advanced for theses features.

 

Has anyone successfully resolved?

Screenshot 2023-11-15 190953.png

UnityEle
Level 2

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

Have you determined a solution to the ongoing issue?

I had a case open and it is now closed based on the auto reply I received from my email.

But still can't see wage expenses on projects!

 

I am so frustrated that we can't get any help!

Bryan M
Level 2

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

No, no resolution. I would think this conversation is still popping up in someone's inbox or there's a moderator 'moderating' the discussion but I've given up on any short term solutions. What's really bizarre is that someone should be able to say OK, something changed after 5/12 to where now the functionality works this way...but no one can (or is willing) to figure that out. 

akinabioye
Level 1

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

We are having a very similar issue. Any resolution here! We have spent several hours on with QB support. They seem to be incapable of actually understanding the issue. 

 

Very disappointed and dissatisfied, having to create manual journal entries and calculate the actual payroll cost is extremely burdensome. 

JessT
Moderator

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

Thank you for joining the conversation, akinabioye,

 

I understand how you feel with the support experience and the burden of having to create manual journal entries and calculate the payroll cost. 

 

I can see that initial steps were already introduced in this thread. I'm going to have to let you contact our QBO Phone team again, so they can take a look at your QuickBooks to investigate this issue further. They have the right tools to do screen-sharing and gather data for further investigations.

 

If there's anything I can do to assist you further, please don't hesitate to reach out.

MColleen
Level 1

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

We've been experiencing a similar issue as well. It's a little different for us though because we use QuickBooks Time, and then import that info into QuickBooks online. What I found is that if I manually make any adjustments to hours (e.g. switch something to a different pay type) when I run payroll the labour cost information will not show up in the projects they have worked on. It is like the timesheet gets 'broken' and the time is now unspecified time. I've had to do a lot of creative overrides and such in QuickBooks Time. And it's now (mostly) working. The odd thing still doesn't report properly, even though payroll ran perfectly. 

Bryan M
Level 2

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

No resolution that I've seen...I think what we're going to have to do, since we import hours from a builder software (and then the hours migrate back to our builder software) is adjust our hourly rate to include labor burden and then that'll get us 'closer' to a cost for labor. 

 

Is that as good as just being able to look at payroll costs? Definitely not but such is life I guess. 

IrizA
QuickBooks Team

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

Being able to track your time accurately is my priority, MColleen. I've got some information to help you with this. 

 

In QuickBooks Online Payroll, as you use your payroll expenses to see your labor costs, the costs can only be shown in projects after the payroll is being processed. 

 

Since you've mentioned that some of the information is working, I recommend using a private browser to rule out any browsing history or cached files causing the problem. Here are the shortcut keys for accessing private browsers:

 

  • Google Chrome: press Ctrl + Shift + N
  • Mozilla Firefox: press Ctrl + Shift + P
  • Microsoft Edge: press Ctrl + Shift + N
  • Safari: press Command + Shift + N

 

If the issue persists, I recommend clearing your browser's cache and cookies. Also, you can use other supported web browsers that can help identify if the issue is related to your current browser. 

 

For more details about tracking the labor costs and profitability in QuickBooks, you may refer to this material: Track hourly labor costs and profitability by project in QuickBooks Online

 

Additionally, you may also want to learn about project profitability report after you track your labor cost: 

 

 

If you have further information regarding payroll or anything related to QuickBooks, feel free to reply. I'm happy to help you resolve your concern.

UnityEle
Level 2

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

It is unacceptable to think that we should have to do a work around to know payroll costs associated with each project. This is basic accounting software capabilities. Like i've said, I pay a huge cost to have quickbooks time, payroll and advanced accounting. For me not to be able to trust the job costs is ridiculous....and that's an understatement. For it to be going on this long without QB figuring it out really gives me a negative impression of their dedication to customers. They seem to be putting us to the side...obviously they don't have someone working on this problem. If it is not figured by the new year, I'm going back to sage.

DLPadmin
Level 1

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

GOOD LUCK because you're going to need it!! I just wasted well over an hour of my time, with FIVE different reps who just kept passing me onto the next clueless rep. I finally had to demand to speak with a Supervisor and eventually hung up waiting because my time is valuable. This is absolutely RIDICULOUS!!! Why pay for services when they are not even accurate. Hope someone can figure this out, otherwise what's the point of having a feature for job costing that is incorrect, totally pointless. 

Terry B2
Level 1

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

Apparently problem still exists 2 months later.

In projects I changed the employee rate to Hourly Costs, then in the profit margin column there was a yellow dot with an exclamation point, from there I was able to fill in hourly costs of each employee, yay

but

when I click on a project and go to Project reports / Time Costs by employee or supplier....all the employee hours are there with dates but only 0.00 in the cost rate column.

When cost rate for an employee is clicked it takes me to the Time Activity single day time sheet, where there is a Cost Rate /hr box but it is empty

I can't find a fix other than manually entering cost rates at the Time activity single day time sheet. 

Pretty frustrating & very time consuming.

 

MJoy_D
Moderator

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

This is not the kind of experience we want you to have with your project reports after making changes to the employee rate, @Terry B2
 

If you have already tried the troubleshooting steps provided by IrizA above and they didn't work or if they don't apply to your specific scenarios as provided by JaeAnnC, we recommend that you reach out to our Customer Support team. They can help you isolate the errors in a safe and secure environment and guide you on how to resolve them.

 

To contact our Customer Support team, please follow the steps below: 

 

  1. Go to the Help icon to connect to a live support agent. 
  2. Select the Search tab and click on the Contact Us button.
  3.  Select a topic for your concern in the What can we help you with? section.
  4. You'll now be provided options on how to connect to our Customer Support.

 

You can check this article for more information about the different types of support we offer and their availability: QuickBooks Online Support.

 

From here, you can run a Project Profitability report from the Project Reports tab to get an itemized view of your project accounts and transactions. This report only uses data from payroll expenses. Check out this article for more information about this report: Track hourly labor costs and profitability by project in QuickBooks Online

 

Let me know if you need more help with your account. I'm always here to answer them for you. Have a wonderful day!

Bryan M
Level 2

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

Browser functionality? Don't think so. If it were that easy, this would've been taken care of when speaking to Customer Service back in October. 

 

If there was someone dedicated to actually looking into this issue, it would've been fixed by now...4 months later. 

 

I think what it boils down to is if you import hours from a 3rd party builder software, QB just doesn't deem it a priority to look into what happened last May to change the functionality. 

tom42
Level 1

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

Apparently still no fix to having this work as advertised? I was just on chat for 1.5 hours doing a screen share, approving time in QB Time Sheets, but it will not reflect in the project where QB Online says 'Understand how you spend your time and what it cost on a project' --- yeah, that'd be just super. Please make it work. 

Bryan M
Level 2

Time Activity Hours are not migrating to project direct labor/mgmt inside of respective projects

Indeed. It would be nice if the software actually worked. What's more striking is that it USED TO WORK and then they made a change and no one can seemingly figure out how to MAKE IT WORK AGAIN! 

 

Wild stuff. 

Sign in for expert help
Ask questions, post replies & join our community of QuickBooks users.

Need to get in touch?

Contact us