Time tracking blog

Thanks to our friends over at onlineaccounting.com, we received a huge education on ways to improve our QuickBooks export format.  In other words, we just got schooled by the women who wrote the book on using QuickBooks properly.  If you use QuickBooks for processing payroll or want to easily create invoices from your time tracking data, you are going to love this!

Our QuickBooks integration has been rewritten as an Add-on, and can now be found in the Add-ons section of your Freelancer, Business, or Platinum TSheets account.  To get started, open the My Account window from the main TSheets interface, and click on the Add-ons tab.  Scroll down and locate the QuickBooks Add-on, and click on Install.  Upon doing this, another window will open up where you’ll be presented with an array of configuration options.

Some of the items you’ll get a chance to configure as part of the Add-on are:

• Company Create Time - This is a unique code related to your installation of QuickBooks, and is required in order to import time into it.
• Payroll Items - TSheets now allows you to enter your QuickBooks Payroll Items into TSheets, and map a default one to each of your employees!  This is going to make processing payroll much more like a checkup as opposed to a root canal.
• Customer / Job / Task Mapping - Yes, you can have your TSheets time mapped directly to your Customers, Jobs, and Tasks in QuickBooks.  It’s just a matter of naming your job/project codes so they match your QuickBooks entries.
• Billable Job Codes - That’s right, you can now mark a job/project code as billable or not.  If you export time that was tracked against a billable job code, it will set the billable flag so that it can be an invoice item once it’s imported into QuickBooks.
• Define Payroll Schedule - You can define your payroll schedule (weekly, biweekly, twice a month, monthly) so that you don’t have to do manual calculations when pulling reports.  Just select the pay period with the correct period end date and you’re ready to go.

Here are a few images so you can get a feel for how easy this is.  Check it out yourself via a free trial account, we think you’ll be pleased!

Company Create Time

Payroll Items

Billable Job Codes

Payroll Schedule

Today we have the pleasure of announcing another highly anticipated feature - Multi-level Job/Project codes!  TSheets users with the new business or freelancer accounts finally have the option of breaking away from a flat list of job codes, and can now track time against clients, projects, and tasks.

How does it work? Essentially multi-level job-codes work just the way they did before, except now there’s a parent / child relationship that can be created.  Use this structure to your advantage by breaking jobs/projects into levels.  Client -> Project -> Task is probably the most common way to break tasks out, but we’ve left it open ended so it will work for your unique needs.  Get started by clicking “Manage Employees” (yes, we know this is counter-intuitive) and then “Manage Jobs/Projects” at the bottom of the window.

We’ve added two new ways to make assigning job codes to employees easier.  Truly global job codes. For a long time we’ve had the ability to assign newly created job codes to “all current employees”.  We’ve now replaced that with an “Assign to everyone” check-box that makes that job-code globally assigned to everyone.  When job-codes are assigned to everyone they show up with a light-blue background color.  It’s important to realize that a job-code assigned to everyone with this option cannot be unassigned from anyone- it’s global.  Which leads us to the second improvement.

A new job-code assignment tool has been added.  To access it, create a job-code, then edit it again by clicking on the job-code’s name, and then click the new “Assign” button.  A new interface appears with a list of employees, allowing you to assign (or unassign) the job-code in bulk.  The screen-shot on the right shows it in action.

Moving forward. At some point we’re planning on adding a layer specifically for those of you tracking time for customer billing purposes.  We’re not sure what that will look like just yet, but it’s on our minds and might be ready in the 2-3 month range.  If you have suggestions be sure to post them, we take customer feedback very seriously.

More time tracker screen-shots:

Adding a new job-code:

Editing a job-code:

Moving a job-code:

Assigning job-codes to an employee:

What if workers could clock in and out via their cell phones with simple voice commands?

“Clock me in on the 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Paving project. Note that I’m meeting with the client at 9.”

TSheets has recently completed integration with Jott, a voice to text gateway, that allows users to make simple toll-free calls to track their time.  The sentence above would clock the user in under the “1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Paving” project code, and attach the notes “I’m meeting with the client at 9″ to their work log.  Once the clock is running, confirmation is sent to the user via email or SMS text.  When the user wants the clock to stop, he simply makes another call.

Listen to an example Jott phone call:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 6 or above) is required to play this audio clip. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

“… a new time tracking standard for mobile workers.”

Getting Started:

1. If you don’t have one already, setup a TSheets account
2. Click “My Account” and enable Jott from the “Add-ons” list
3. Click “Jott” from the main menu for additional instructions

Once an account administrator has completed these steps, any worker with the “Mobile Time Entry” permission can then link their accounts to Jott and start tracking their time.  Jott will ask them who they want to jott, confirm their answer, and listen for commands that tell TSheets what kind of action to take.

For more integration information, check out the wiki.

Example

You : Call Jott (866.568.8123)
Jott : “Who do you want to Jott?”
You : “TSheets”
Jott : “TSheets, is that correct?”
You : “Yes”
Jott : Beep
You : “Hi TSheets, please clock me in under the project code, meeting external, and attach the notes: meeting with Jim Stevens about bathroom remodel and proposal. Thank you.”
Jott : “Got it”

How does it work?

Jott translates your voice messages and sends the text to TSheets.  TSheets then analyzes the message, determines actions based on personalized project codes and key-words,  and then takes action for you.  If you’re not a reader but want the inside scoop, here’s my brain dump on it:

The Future Is Here

“Being able to just call in, clock in and be done gives me the flexibility I need to fight crime all around the world.”

Tony Stark (Stark Industries)

Now anyone can use their voice to clock in and out. Just like in the Marvel movie, Iron Man, you say the words and we know what to do. The Future is here.