Export or back up the relevant data first. Do not delete, void, unreconcile, or adjust historical transactions unless you understand the accounting impact.
Menu names can change. We link current first-party instructions so you can confirm product behavior before acting.
QuickBooks Time captures and approves time; QuickBooks Workforce is the employee-facing experience for time and pay information. A reliable implementation defines the employee record, pay item, project or customer, approval cutoff, payroll sync, correction path, and post-payroll reconciliation before the first live timesheet.
Best for: employers, payroll administrators, project teams, and workers using QuickBooks Time or Workforce
What this guide covers—and what it does not
The page owns one search intent: setting up and controlling QuickBooks Time and Workforce. Related jobs have their own canonical guides so you can move between them without mixing product selection, setup, troubleshooting, and migration advice.
- This guide owns time capture, Workforce use, approval, and payroll handoff.
- Payroll plan selection belongs to the payroll pricing guide.
- Initial employer, employee, tax, and prior-pay setup belongs to the payroll setup guide.
Evidence-first workflow
Move one approved timesheet through payroll
Test the complete chain before enabling the whole workforce.
- 1
Map
Align employees, pay items, customers, projects, service items, classes, and locations.
Evidence: One mapping sheet names the source and destination for every field.
- 2
Capture
Invite a pilot worker and record regular, overtime, break, location, and project examples.
Evidence: The worker and manager see the same submitted hours.
- 3
Approve
Apply the real cutoff, correction, and manager-approval process.
Evidence: Approved time is locked or changes are visibly controlled.
- 4
Reconcile
Send the pilot to payroll and job-cost reports, then compare hours and dollars.
Evidence: Timesheet, payroll preview, project cost, and ledger totals agree.
Decision control
Choose from evidence, not a feature list
Use the same four gates for setting up and controlling QuickBooks Time and Workforce: define the job, surface constraints, choose the smallest workable option, then verify the records.
Which time workflow should you use?
Choose from pay complexity, field conditions, approval structure, and job-cost requirements.
| Your situation | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Simple employee hours with one manager | Basic tracked-time workflow | Keep dimensions minimal while preserving approval and payroll review. |
| Crews work across jobs or customers | Require project coding | Job profitability fails when approved hours reach payroll without a usable project dimension. |
| Workers have unreliable connectivity | Pilot field behavior | Offline or delayed synchronization must be tested under actual device and network conditions. |
| Payroll is handled by another provider | Define an export contract | The approved dataset, cutoff, corrections, and rejected-row process must be explicit. |
Make the employee identity the control point
Confirm that the worker is attached to the correct employer record and uses an individual invitation. Duplicate employee records can split time, payroll history, or pay access. Establish who owns legal-name changes, email changes, terminations, and rehires.
Document what workers can see in Workforce and where they should report a missing pay stub, incorrect time entry, or account-access problem. Do not solve identity problems by sharing a manager login.
Design approvals and corrections together
State the pay-period cutoff, approver, delegation rule, reminder schedule, late-entry handling, and circumstances that allow approved time to change. Require a reason and retain before-and-after evidence for changes after approval.
Overtime and break rules can have legal consequences. Configure them from authoritative employer and jurisdictional requirements and have qualified payroll or legal advisers review the policy.
This guide explains system controls, not wage-and-hour law. Validate labor rules in every jurisdiction where people work.
Reconcile hours, pay, and project cost after every handoff
Compare approved hours by employee and pay type to the payroll preview before submission. After payroll posts, compare gross wages, taxes, liabilities, and project labor with the payroll reports and general ledger.
Log rejected rows, unmapped items, duplicate exports, reopened timesheets, and manual adjustments. The exception queue is part of the integration—not an inconvenience to handle informally.
- Approved hours by employee and pay code
- Regular and overtime rates
- Customer, project, class, and location dimensions
- Gross pay, payroll liabilities, and labor-cost reports
Completion checklist
Do not call the decision or setup complete until someone independent of the initial change can verify these items.
Frequently asked questions
Are QuickBooks Time and QuickBooks Workforce the same app?
They are related parts of the employee and time experience, but the names describe different jobs: time capture and management versus the worker-facing access experience. Confirm the current features available in your subscription and region.
Does approved QuickBooks Time automatically make payroll correct?
No. Employee, pay-item, overtime, project, and accounting mappings still need review. Compare approved time with the payroll preview and the posted ledger.
Can contractors use the same workflow as employees?
The operational time workflow may overlap, but worker classification, pay processing, access, and tax reporting differ. Configure the accounting treatment only after classification is decided by a qualified party.
Still comparing adjacent tasks? Use the complete guide library to find the one page that owns your intent.
Optional free utilities
Tools that support this workflow
These run in your browser and can help prepare or inspect files. They do not replace reconciliation, source-document review, or an accountant’s approval.
Sources checked
First-party product documentation used to verify the workflow and risk notes in this guide.