Bringing Timesheets Into QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll
QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll users can import timesheets from the software itself or a CSV file, provided the timesheet feature is enabled first.
Among UK users of QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll, one payroll question keeps coming back: how to move timesheet data into a pay run without typing every line twice. A community thread on the subject drew an official reply from Intuit, the software’s maker, and that reply now stands as the accepted solution.
We have worked through the steps. The import route is built in, but two things gate it: a setting that has to be switched on first, and a file format with firm rules.
Who this affects
The guidance covers the UK edition of QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll, the higher tier of the online payroll tooling. It is written for that tier specifically and may not match the standard payroll offering, where the menus differ. If your payroll screens do not line up with the steps below, that tier difference is the likely reason.
The appeal is easy to see. Firms that track hours in a dedicated timesheet system, or in a spreadsheet, want those hours in payroll without a second round of typing. Retyping is slow, and it invites transcription errors into people’s pay.
Why is the import option missing?
The official answer opens with a prerequisite rather than a fault. Timesheets are a feature you have to enable, and until you do, the import controls stay out of sight. The route runs through payroll settings. Open All apps, choose Payroll, then Employees, and switch to the Payroll Settings tab. Under Business Management sits a Timesheets entry with an Enable control inside it. Once that is done, the rest of the workflow becomes reachable.
How do you import timesheets for the whole payroll?
With the feature live, the bulk import takes a handful of steps. Stay in the Employees area and choose Manage Employees, then Import Timesheets. A dropdown lists the available sources. If you want the hours you have already recorded inside QuickBooks, pick QuickBooks from that list. Set the date range the import should cover and select Import. The same screen doubles as the gateway for files from outside providers, which is where most of the time saving sits.
Can you re-import timesheets for a single employee?
A narrower route lives inside the pay run itself, and it is the one to reach for when one person’s hours are wrong. Open the pay run, select the employee concerned, then choose Actions and Import timesheets. You then decide whether to pull in only this period’s entries or earlier periods as well. The pay run recalculates around the new data once the import lands, so a correction flows through without rebuilding anything.
What does a custom file need to contain?
Third-party systems and plain spreadsheets feed the same upload, and the format rules are few but strict. The file must be CSV or tab separated, with one timesheet entry per line. Each line needs an employee plus one of two timing patterns: either a start and end date and time, or a plain date with a units figure. Most exports from timesheet providers can be reshaped to fit.
The upload itself runs from the same Import Timesheets screen. Choose Custom file upload, browse to your file, and confirm. You are then asked to set the date format used inside the file, which decides how each date is read. Column mapping comes next, and the screen previews the first few rows of each column so you can assign the right data type to each one. You also choose between automatic approval and the standard approval workflow. Select Import to finish.
Errors, approvals, and the pay run caveat
Failures surface at the upload check. Errors are listed once the file has been read, and you get two ways forward: fix the file and upload it again, or reconfigure the columns and retry. A clean import ends with a confirmation stating how many records came across.
The genuine caveat sits elsewhere. Entries already included in a pay run may not be replaced by a later import. If an import appears to do nothing, that is the first thing to check before assuming the file is at fault. Beyond it, the workflow is ordinary: one setting to enable, one screen for the import, and a file spec that most exports can meet.