Timesheet Portal supports QuickBooks Online integration, allowing you to seamlessly export your client invoices and self billing invoices. We provide implementation packages to train you and help you perform your initial QuickBooks setup. If you would like further information, please raise a ticket on your account. Alternatively, read the following help sections to guide you through the setup process and to find out how to export to QuickBooks.
To get started, you will need a QuickBooks Online account. Within Timesheet Portal, go to Settings > Client Invoicing > Invoice Export, and choose your Export mode to Quickbooks Online.
Once set, click on the Connect button to connect to QuickBooks. You will be redirected to a QuickBooks login page, requesting you to allow our application to access your QuickBooks account. You will need to grant permission for Timesheet Portal to access your account. We will need to be able to post invoices, as well posting customer records and accessing your service items, classes, accounts etc.
Map your tax rates
Tax rates need to be mapped so that when sales or purchase invoices are exported to Quickbooks, the correct Quickbooks tax rate can be set. Once you have connected to Quickbooks, click on Map Tax Codes. You will see a list of your own tax codes, with drop-downs showing all the Quickbooks tax codes.
Use the dropdown lists to map your tax codes to the corresponding tax codes in Quickbooks. For more complex invoicing requirements, you may need to add additional tax codes to your Timesheet Portal account. You can do this by going to Settings > Account > Tax Codes. When mapping, you can also tick the checkbox on the right-hand side to replace the Timesheet Portal tax code name with the mapped Quickbooks tax code description. This will make it easier to identify your tax codes as both systems will have the same descriptions.
Once you have mapped your tax codes, click on Save before proceeding to mapping your clients.
Map Customers
In order for Timesheet Portal to associate a particular invoice with one of your customers in Quickbooks, we need to have a unique reference to the Quickbooks customer record. To start this process, click on Map Customers. You be presented with a list of all your Quickbooks customers. We will attempt to automatically match your Quickbooks customers by their name to existing Timesheet Portal records. If we do not find a matching name in Timesheet Portal, you have three options:
1. Create a new record in Timesheet Portal using the details from Quickbooks. You can do this by choosing Add as new client.
2. Manually choose which Timesheet Portal client you wish to map to. For example, you may have a client Northern Manufacturing listed in Quickbooks, with a record you previously created in Timesheet Portal Northern Manufacturing Ltd. To do this, select Map to existing client, and then select your Timesheet Portal client from the third column.
3. Ignore the client. You may have old clients in your Quickbooks account which you no longer work with, and so you don't want to have any references to these clients in Timesheet Portal. Just select Do not add to Timesheet Portal.
Once you have completed your client mappings, click on Save, and then move on to the next section to configure your service and class mappings.
Tax calculation & purchase orders
You need to set up your tax calculation method so that it matches your configuration in Quickbooks. If your Quickbooks account is configured for invoice entries including tax, then choose Tax inclusive, otherwise choose Tax exclusive.
As there is no built-in field for purchase orders on invoices in Quickbooks, this is usually achieved by creating a custom field in Quickbooks. In order to link your Timesheet Portal invoice purchase orders with a custom field in Quickbooks, you will need to select the corresponding custom field from the drop-down list that appears next to Purchase Order.
Service & Class Mappings
When you connect to Quickbooks, Timesheet Portal will download your list of classes, service items / products and accounts. This will allow you to link certain items within Timesheet Portal to these elements. For example, you may currently be using classes in Quickbooks to link to certain areas of your business, such as business unit or region. You can create a replica of these items as cost centres within Timesheet Portal and then link specific cost centres to their matching classes in Quickbooks. The following two tables list the items which can be associated with each other when exporting invoices:
Quickbooks element |
Products / Services |
Timesheet Portal elements |
Cost centres |
Client category |
Project category |
Task category |
Task consultant |
EmployeeText group |
Both the Class mapping and Products/service mapping settings allow you to choose either Fixed or one of the Timesheet Portal elements. If your class or product/service does not vary according to client, task, etc, then just choose Fixed, and select the appropriate mapping. However, if you wish to dynamically link to another varying Timesheet Portal element, then choose the appropriate item. As an example, you could choose to map Quickbook classes to Timesheet Portal cost centres. Once you have selected this option, click Save, and then go to the corresponding Timesheet Portal area to set up the mappings. Most of these can be found in Settings > Lists. When editing or creating list items, you will see a field labelled Invoice accounting code. This is the field that allows you to map an item to specific Quickbooks items.
Exporting invoices to Quickbooks
Once you have generated your invoices in Timesheet Portal, you can export them directly to Quickbooks using the Export button on top of the client invoicing page. You will need to approve your invoices first before they can be exported. When exporting, you will be given the option to either use the Timesheet Portal generated invoice number, or alternatively allow Quickbooks to assign a number and then save this invoice number back into Timesheet Portal. This option allows you to continue generating invoices manually in Quickbooks for work that doesn't get invoiced in Timesheet Portal without disrupting your invoice numbering sequence.
Once exported to Quickbooks, you will receive an email with the results, and a system message will be posted to your account. To view system messages, click on the envelope icon on the top-right of your screen. The messages provided here will give you important information on how to rectify issues, for example if you delete a class item in Quickbooks and we are unable to link it to the previously mapped class.
Once you have initiated the export process, change the Exported drop-down on the client invoicing page to Exported only, so that you can see your exported invoices. To check when an invoice was exported, and if its number was altered during the process, open up the invoice and look at the invoice notes at the bottom of the invoice.
Troubleshooting
You get the message "No invoice number was returned, but was sent to QuickBooks Online successfully" after exporting.
This happens if you have turned on custom transaction numbers in Quickbooks. If you wish to keep custom transaction numbers on, then you must choose the option to use the Timesheet Portal invoice numbers when exporting to Quickbooks. Alternatively, you can disable custom transaction numbers in Quickbooks, by going to Settings -> Account & Settings -> Sales Form Content and Untick Custom transaction numbers.