QuickBooks time tracking for field crews

If you run payroll or job costing in QuickBooks, you already know the Friday routine. You collect hours from texts and paper, add them up by hand, and re-key each one into QuickBooks. Clox tracks the hours all week and gives you a QuickBooks-ready import, so you stop typing time twice.

QuickBooks does a good job with payroll and job costing once the hours are inside it. Getting them inside it is the part that eats your Friday. You are chasing crew members for their times, reading messy texts, adding hours in your head, and then typing every line into QuickBooks by hand. One transposed number and the paycheck is wrong.

Clox tracks the hours all week and hands you a file QuickBooks can read. This post walks through exactly how that export works, what lands in the file, and the one-time setup. A quick note before we start. This is about getting time into QuickBooks, the accounting product, for payroll and job costing. It is not about QuickBooks Time, which is a separate tracker. If you already use QuickBooks for your books, this is for you.

How the export works

The whole loop is four steps, and only two of them involve you at a desk.

1. Your crew clocks in and out on their phones all week. One tap. It works offline, so a dead zone on the job does not lose a punch. The time is saved on the device with its real timestamp and syncs when signal comes back.
2. You review and approve the hours on the web. Time accumulates by person and by project, so you can see who worked where before you sign off.
3. You export the QuickBooks-ready file from the Reports page.
4. You import that file into QuickBooks, or skip the file entirely with a live sync (more on that below).

That is the routine every pay period. The crew never touches a spreadsheet. You never re-key a single hour.

Three ways in, pick the one that fits your setup

QuickBooks comes in a few flavors, so Clox gives you three ways to move time into it. You choose based on how you run your books.

• QuickBooks Online, as a CSV file that matches the QBO import template.
• QuickBooks Desktop, as an IIF file the desktop version reads.
• A live sync to QuickBooks Online over a secure connection, which pushes time with no file at all.

The live sync connects Clox to your QuickBooks Online account through a secure authorized connection (OAuth), then sends approved time straight across. If you would rather not download and upload a CSV every pay period, that is the path for you. If you are on QuickBooks Desktop, or you like keeping a file for your records, the CSV and IIF options are there.

What is in the file

For QuickBooks Online, Clox writes a CSV that matches the columns QuickBooks expects when you import time activities. Here is what each column carries.

Notice that Clox puts the project name in the Customer column, so your hours land already grouped by job. Service Item and Class are optional in QuickBooks, so Clox leaves them blank for you to fill if your books use them.

Clox still calculates overtime on the web so you can review it, using standard daily-8h and weekly-40h defaults that you can configure per employee. For QuickBooks specifically, you let QuickBooks do the split on import so it matches whatever rules you have already set up there.

Set it up once

You pick your payroll systems one time, and after that only the ones you use show up in the export menu.

1. On the web, go to Settings, then Integrations, then Payroll.
2. Choose your QuickBooks path: QuickBooks Online CSV, QuickBooks Desktop IIF, or the live QuickBooks Online sync.
3. If you pick the live sync, authorize the secure connection to your QuickBooks Online account when prompted.
4. Save. From now on, that option appears in the export menu on the Reports page.

There is also a universal Payroll summary CSV that always appears in the export menu, so you have a plain fallback that maps into any system. For the exact QuickBooks side of the import, follow QuickBooks' own instructions, which stay current with their screens. You can find them in QuickBooks' support center.

Common questions

We already do it by hand. Why change?

Doing it by hand works right up until a number is wrong or a crew member forgets to send their hours. The cost is not just the typing, it is the reconciling, the corrections, and the paycheck disputes. With Clox the hours arrive from the phones already totaled by person and project, and you export instead of re-typing. You can see what that adds up to for your crew with the calculator below.

Does it handle overtime for QuickBooks?

Yes, and it does it the way QuickBooks expects. Clox sends total hours in the file, and QuickBooks applies your overtime rules on import. Clox also shows overtime on the web so you can review the week before you export. Your defaults are daily-8h and weekly-40h, configurable per employee, with an optional California rule set that adds daily double-time and a meal-break review flag.

What if a job runs across two pay periods?

Hours are stamped with the date they were worked, so you export the range that matches your pay period. Time from the same job simply lands in whichever period it falls in. Nothing is lost at the boundary and nothing gets double-counted.

Do my workers need to install anything?

The iPhone app is on a TestFlight beta right now, so anyone can join that. If you would rather skip installs, a worker can clock in straight from a phone browser at app.getclox.com. Either way the punch works offline and syncs later. You can see the full picture and current pricing before you commit, and start a trial at signup.

Use a different payroll system? Clox also exports to Gusto, ADP, and Paychex. Each has its own guide.