Overview of importing timesheets

In QuickBooks Online a timesheet is used to record the time worked by employees or vendors, that can then be used as billable time or in payroll. Using Zed Axis you can import timesheets into QuickBooks Online in batch from a text file, Excel file or IIF.

Steps to import timesheets into QuickBooks Online

Follow these steps:

First connect Zed Axis to QuickBooks Online
Click on the import tab and browse to the file that contains your timesheet data that you would like to import.
Map the columns in your import file to the corresponding fields in QuickBooks Online
Click import and the timesheet will be imported directly into your QuickBooks Online company file.

Watch a demonstration of how to import timesheets into QuickBooks Online

More help

Sample Template of Timesheets

Where the fields appear in QuickBooks Online

Detailed description of the fields that you can map

QuickBooks Online Field	Format	Description
Id	Str 11	Identifier for the Time Activity required for Modify
Txn Date	Date	The date of the time activity
Name Of	Enum	MANDATORY Values of Vendor or Employee
Employee Vendor Ref Name	Str	MANDATORY - Name of the employee or vendor recording time activity, displayed as *First Name Last Name*
Customer Ref Name	Str	Full Customer Job name for the time entry (required if Billable Status = Billable)
Department Ref Name		Name of the department
Payroll Item Ref	Str	Payroll item for the time entry, determines how the employee will be paid (must match what is in QuickBooks Online) ie Regular Pay or Overtime Pay
Item Ref Name	Str	Service Item name for the time entry
Class Ref Name		Class reference
Billable Status	Enum	Billable status - Billable or NotBillable
Taxable	Boolean	True if the time entry is billable and taxable
Hourly Rate	Decimal	Hourly bill rate for this time activity (required if Billable Status = Billable)
Duration	hh:mm	MANDATORY Duration of the time entry, in format of hh:mm
Break Duration	hh:mm	Break duration for time entry in format hh:mm
Start Time	Date Time	Time work started format as yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss
End Time	DateTime	Time work ended format as yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss
Description	Str	Description of work completed

By Steve Batten

Error: Pay items unavailable - When importing timesheet entries into QuickBooks Online Canadian editions the timesheets will successfully import but the Payroll Item is not and when viewing the imported timesheet activity it shows "Pay Items unavailable". This is a known issue with the Intuit API we do not have a fix for this at the moment.

Article ID: 221, Created: 9/24/2013 at 6:30 AM, Modified: 1/15/2024 at 10:01 PM

Feedback

Is there a way to import time for payroll? If this is the way where does the payroll item go? (Regular overtime Doubletime etc.)
Brad Williams (3/20/2019 at 3:49 PM)

Sorry at the moment we cant import the Payroll item on Timesheets into QuickBooks Online, we are hoping to add that field in an update
Steve (5/28/2019 at 12:46 AM)

is the payroll item available yet?
Brad Williams (6/26/2019 at 10:55 PM)

Hi Brad, we just added that in the V14.1 release. So you can now import time and it will be added to the Payroll Run for that employee.
Steve (4/14/2020 at 10:42 PM)

I'm trying to import time entries into Quickbooks Online, using the above mapping, and Zed Axis just stops at the end of the validation. Validates 1000 of 1000 records, then an error pops up "Error occurred while importing data to Quickbooks. Please check log file." But no log file is created, and none of the 1000 rows are listed as an error. Only 1 row is listed, and that has the status "Pending". Any suggestions?
Andrew Shelley (3/27/2019 at 8:48 AM)

Worked it out - I needed to have 'auto-numbering' checked.
Andrew Shelley (3/28/2019 at 1:42 AM)

The HourlyRate column is not mapping and I have no idea why. I have it mapped, but it is just not showing up when I hit save as one of the mapped columns.
Rachel Smith (6/5/2019 at 11:15 PM)

Can you please check to make sure there is not a # or $ symbol in the header row, if so please remove that and try again.
Steve (6/6/2019 at 6:57 AM)

Import timesheets into QuickBooks Online