You can track time against contacts or work in Karbon by integrating your account with QuickBooks Time. This guide will walk you through the steps to connect your QuickBooks Time account to Karbon and begin tracking time.

Note: To use QuickBooks Time with your Karbon account, you will need to be on the Business or Enterprise plan.

If you are an existing QuickBooks Time (previously Tsheets) user, you must take the time to ensure that your contact names in Karbon match any codes in QuickBooks Time before you connect the two apps.

Note: This is a critical step! Any Karbon contacts that don’t match a QuickBooks Time code will be created as a new code in QuickBooks Time. 

To avoid creating duplicates, we recommend exporting your codes from QuickBooks Time and comparing them with your Karbon contacts. Take the time to ensure your client names in QuickBooks Time match your contact names in Karbon.

Once you've checked your contacts, you will then need to ensure that your Time & Budgets feature is turned on within Karbon. This feature allows you to set estimates, track time, manage capacity and analyze performance.

We also suggest ensuring that all QuickBooks Time users have the same email address (not username) as the corresponding Karbon users before you connect the two apps. Any QuickBooks Time user with an email address that does not match the corresponding Karbon user will not be able to enter time in Karbon.

After you have made sure that your QuickBook Times codes match a contact in Karbon and that all users are able to track time, setting up the integration is easily done in these 3 steps:

From 'Settings' in Karbon, choose 'Connected apps'. Select QuickBooks Time by clicking 'Connect'.

You'll be given the option to connect an existing account, or if you don’t have a QuickBooks Time account, you’ll also be able to create one with a 14-day free trial.

Once you have connected your QuickBooks Time account you will be able to set up your integration settings.

You can choose to track time either against each contact, or on both contacts and work items.

Note: Consider the following things when you choose what to sync:

You then select what contact types you will track time against. For example, if you don't need to track time against Suppliers, you can leave that contact type unchecked.

Once you click 'Save & Sync', the data you have chosen will be synced with QuickBooks Time. You can now begin to track time from either Karbon or your QuickBooks Time dashboard.

Your final step before using QuickBooks Time in Karbon will be to turn on your custom fields within QuickBooks Time in order to sync over your Task Types and Roles, which are necessary when creating time. QuickBooks Time has a limit of 6 custom fields, 2 of which will be needed for Task Type and Role. For successful integration there must be 2 free custom fields, otherwise, the integration attempt will produce an error of "Too many custom fields in QBT".

If you want to track time and bill clients using Karbon, QuickBooks Time and QuickBooks Online, we recommend you follow this order to ensure a successful connection:

If billing at a Contact level only (not work or job level), the steps above will ensure that time is tracked either in Karbon or QuickBooks Time and flow directly into QuickBooks Online. Please note that while Karbon will create new contacts in QuickBooks Time, QuickBooks Time will not create new contacts within QuickBooks. Therefore, you will need to periodically update your contact list in QuickBooks to enable the data to flow between all three systems.

Please keep in mind the sync between QuickBooks Time and Karbon is not a two-way sync. Actions made to a contact in one system will not be updated in another.

If tracking time for both contacts and work, you will also need to ensure QuickBooks 'customer:jobs' match the 'customer:job' structure in QuickBooks Time. Therefore, the work item naming you create in Karbon must also match the 'customer:job' notation in QuickBooks. You will also need to periodically update those directly in QuickBooks to ensure the data flows as expected from Karbon to QuickBooks Time to QuickBooks.

Once you have linked to your QuickBooks Time account, you can begin linking tracked time from Karbon to QuickBooks Time.

Within the 'Time & Budgets' tab on a work item. From here, you can choose 'Add Time Entry'.

You will then be able to enter time for the work item, the Role, Task Type, date, and duration, as we as any notes. Specifying the 'Role' and 'Task Type' is important because they ensure the right dollar amount is associated with the time entry that is made.

You can add time from a contact within your 'Time & Budgets' tab. From here, you can choose 'Add Time Entry'.

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From your global add icon (+) in the top right, select 'Time Entry'. You'll then have the option to add time against a contact or work item that you search for.
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Note: When adding time from this option, you will not be able to locate the 'None' contact. You must search for and use another contact to add time against. If you wish to add time against the 'none' contact, you will need to add time directly on that contact, or on one of their work items.

Add time using the clock icon in the upper right hand corner of your screen. Click the clock icon in the upper right corner of the Karbon screen. If you are on a contacts timeline, the client name will automatically be filled in. If you are on a work item, both Client and Work will be filled in. If it's not filled in, simply start typing to search for a client or work.

You will be able to view any time that has been tracked and entered on the 'Time & Budgets' tab of the contact or work item. This includes the time that has been entered in both Karbon and QuickBooks Time, and will also outline which team member has tracked what time.

In Karbon, you will see the last six months of time that has been entered.

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With the Time Administrator user permission, you will also be able to see your own timesheets as well as all of your colleagues.

In your QuickBooks Time account, you can enter time in 'Time Entries' by selecting the codes to record time for. This time that you record will then be visible in Karbon on the corresponding contact and/or work item.

Note: If you chose to track time against both clients and work in QuickBooks Time when setting up, then you can only record time against work items, not clients in QuickBooks Time. However, you can add time for both in Karbon to see the results in your QuickBooks Time reporting.

You can also view time entries in QuickBooks Time, which have been entered against contacts or work items in either app. From your QuickBooks Time dashboard, select 'Time Entries'. All your time data will be stored here.

Once setup you shouldn't need to manually synchronize. After creating a Contact, Work Item, or Time Entry in Karbon you should immediately see it appear in QuickBooks Time.

After entering time in QuickBooks Time please allow up to one hour for it to appear in Karbon. If you need to see that time immediately you may manually synchronize in Karbon by going to your Settings > Connected Apps > QuickBooks Time and clicking the 'Save & Sync' button.

When you add a new contact and work in Karbon, this will automatically flow to QuickBooks Time (if you have chosen that item type to link to QuickBooks Time). However, any new contacts that are added in QuickBooks Time will not automatically be created in Karbon.

If you change a contact or work name in Karbon, the QuickBooks Time code will also be updated. But if you update a name in QuickBooks Time, it does not flow back into Karbon. While the names will now differ, they will remain in sync in regards to time.

If you change a contact for work in Karbon, the QuickBooks Time code will remain linked, but you will need to move the work to the new client inside QuickBooks Time. If you don't do this, QuickBooks Time will report under the old client.

If you have any questions about how to connect, feel free to reach out to our support team and they will help you.

If looking for direct assistance with QuickBooks Time only, use these resources to get you up and running confidently with QuickBooks Time.

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