QuickBooks Time Kiosk Setup: Device Rules and the Custom Field Cap
Teams setting up the QuickBooks Time kiosk in QuickBooks Online hit unsupported tablets, photo capture limits, and a field cap that requires Advanced.
QuickBooks Online teams that want a shared tablet for clock-ins are finding the Time Kiosk tougher to deploy than expected. Two walls come up again and again: hardware that will not run the app, and a cap of three custom fields unless the company runs QuickBooks Online Advanced. The accepted walkthrough in the thread we reviewed covers both, and it maps out an install path that sidesteps the usual stumbles.
Common sticking points
The kiosk is a feature add-on inside QuickBooks Time, the time tracking service connected to QuickBooks Online. It turns a tablet into a shared clock where team members pick their name and clock in or out. Setup sounds simple. In practice, three failures come up most often. Certain tablets will not run the app at all. Photo capture misbehaves on one Samsung model. And the custom field limit holds standard plans to three fields.
RCA tablets sit at the bottom of the compatibility list. They do not work with any version of the kiosk, app or browser, so a tablet bought for this purpose can end up useless for it.
Which tablets can run the kiosk?
The screen is the first checkpoint. A supported tablet needs a display of 1024 by 768 pixels, held in landscape. It also needs a connection, either Wi-Fi or cellular data. Consumption is modest: for a team of ten, each clock-in and clock-out moves about 60KB.
Two Samsung models carry warnings. The SM-T377A is not recommended if you plan to capture photos at punches. The Galaxy SM-T113 is limited to the browser version of the kiosk. Android devices on version 4.4.4 face the same restriction. On those devices the app is off the table, and the browser is the only route.
The custom field ceiling
Custom fields are the quieter blocker. Teams that record extra details on each shift, such as a department or a job label, often need more than three fields. The kiosk path does not stretch that far on standard plans. The accepted answer is direct here: using more than three custom fields calls for QuickBooks Online Advanced. That is a plan decision rather than a setting, so settle it before tablets get mounted on the wall.
Mounting and placement
The top answer spends as much time on the mount as on the software, and for good reason. A kiosk lives in a hallway or on a shop floor, where a consumer tablet on a flimsy stand will not survive. The guidance calls for heavy-duty, durable hardware, a cable management system, and reliable access to power. If the mount cannot adjust, aim the screen at a 45-degree angle. Set it about three feet high on a flat, stable surface so it serves standing team members and wheelchair users alike.
The setup path that works
Work starts on the desktop. Open All apps, choose Time, then Overview, and select Manage kiosks. Sign in to QuickBooks Time as the admin. Under Company Settings, open Time Options, then Date & Time, pick your time zone, and save. The kiosk feature itself is added through Feature Add-ons under Manage Add-ons: search for Time Clock Kiosk and install it.
Next, add the tablet. Select Add Device, then Other device, and write down the four-digit authorization code along with the company identifier. On the tablet, install the QuickBooks Time Kiosk app from Google Play or the App Store. Open the app, enter the company identifier, and select Next. Enter the authorization code, select Authorize, then return to the desktop and select Done.
There is a shortcut when no tablet is available. Select Add Device, then Use this computer, give the kiosk a name, and the desktop itself becomes the clock.
Preferences to check before go-live
The final stretch sits in kiosk preferences, reached by selecting the kiosk name. Decide who may use the clock: under Team Members, you can limit punches to a chosen group instead of the whole roster. Turn photo capture at punches on or off. Choose the device language; each team member can still pick another language for a single session, and the choice resets when the session times out.
Two settings trip people up. Record Location asks for the device’s location permission on first launch, and if that gets switched off by accident, the fix lives in the device’s own location settings. The Team Member List can be hidden, which makes everyone type their name instead. The colored status dot next to each profile picture can be hidden as well; green marks a team member as clocked in.
None of these steps is hard on its own. The trouble starts when a team buys hardware before checking compatibility, or meets the custom field limit after the tablets are already on the wall. Confirm the plan first, confirm the screen second, and the install itself is the easy part.