This is the ninth and final installment in a series of blog posts that specifically examine QuickBooks from an agriculture perspective. There is no “QuickBooks for Ag”. So how can we use some of the features in QuickBooks if we are in the ag business?

For this last post, we are going to look at adding a little more technology to features we’ve already demonstrated. Definitely one of the headaches of all the QuickBooks abilities we’ve looked at is the recording of time. Several steps are involved and several people. The communication between those people is critical and that is often the greatest obstacle in any organization.

So how can we make recording time for employees simpler?

A number of developer solutions exist that will record time and automatically import it into QuickBooks. One of the most popular and best known is an Idaho company named TSheets.

A detailed look at the service is far more than what we could cover here, so let’s just hit the high points and examine how this might help you.

With a TSheets subscription, I have a web site login where I, as the administrator, have access to all my company settings. Employees, customer:jobs, class, and more upload directly from QuickBooks. I don’t have to enter this data.

Along the left side of the screenshot above are a number of tools that allow me to setup and mange employees, look at reports of time worked, etc.

There’s a popup window labeled My Time Card which lets me record my own time if necessary. Another window is labeled Who’s Working and would display all employees that were clocked in at that particular moment.

There are several ways the TSheet service can be used. Each employee can clock in and out for themselves as they go through each workday. Or I, as the administrator, can fill in my employee’s time after the fact, although this misses out on some of TSheets’ cool abilities.

TSheets is mobile-friendly. Employees can clock in and out on their mobile device. Or, managers can be setup to be responsible for groups of employees. Anywhere there is a cell phone connection, the manager can clock his/her crew in and out as needed.

The above screenshot was taken on an iPhone with the TSheets app.

There are approval steps that can be added to the process. The employee can enter time, or it can be entered by a manager. At the end of the pay period, the time is ‘submitted’ with the click of a button.

Depending on the setup you choose, it may be someone else’s responsibility to approve the time. Once your designated approval process is complete, the time will automatically populate the weekly timesheet in QuickBooks for that employee.

The next step is to simply go to the Payroll Center and issue paychecks.

TSheets, and similar services, have much more to offer than only the features described in today’s post. But this gives you an idea of what is available in the way of automating and simplifying time entry.

If you would like more information about TSheets, you can contact us. You can also review the TSheets web site and/or sign up for a free trial subscription by clicking here.