QuickBooks Workforce permissions: the greyed-out toggle and other admin snags
A guide to QuickBooks Workforce settings, from mobile time entry to GPS permissions, and why individual overrides can grey out company-wide toggles.
Teams switching on the QuickBooks Workforce mobile app keep hitting the same wall. The permissions that govern the app sit in the QuickBooks Time web dashboard, not in Workforce itself, and one account-wide switch quietly locks several others. The accepted community answer on this, posted by Intuit, amounts to a guided tour of those settings. These are the switches, and the traps around them.
The settings only a Time admin can change
Workforce is the app your team members use. QuickBooks Time is where you configure it, and only a Time admin can touch the relevant options. The list includes mobile time entry, GPS setup and permissions, timesheet submission, mileage tracking, geofencing, notifications, the who’s working view, and the mobile device time zone. Time off sits slightly apart. If you want people to add or request time off in the app, you grant that permission while setting up time off itself.
Mobile time entry, on and off
Mobile time entry is the permission that lets someone clock in and out from a phone. Turn it off and the result looks inconsistent by design. A team member can still sign in to Workforce and view their recorded hours. What they cannot do is track new time from the mobile app. If someone can see their hours but the clock controls never appear, this permission is the first place to look.
Turn it on for the whole team
In QuickBooks Time, open Company Settings, choose Time Options, then Time Entry. Two checkboxes matter here. The first, allow team members to track time on the mobile app, switches on mobile entry for everyone. The second, allow team members to manage their own timesheets, goes further. It lets people sign in from a computer or a phone and handle their own timesheets. It also forces mobile time entry on as a side effect, and that is where the confusion begins.
Why is the mobile time entry toggle greyed out?
Enabling the manage-your-own-timesheets option turns mobile time entry on and greys out its checkbox, both in Company Settings and in each person’s individual permissions. Admins often read the grey as a fault in the software. It is not a fault. The broader option is simply controlling the one beneath it, and the software is telling you so. The logic runs in reverse as well. Uncheck the timesheets option and the mobile entry checkbox unlocks for selective use.
Give mobile access to selected people
Suppose only part of the crew should track time from phones. In QuickBooks Time, go to Company Settings, then Time Options, then Time Entry. Uncheck allow team members to manage their own timesheets, leave the mobile app option checked, and save. Next, open My Team, select a person, and open their Permissions tab. Turn on mobile time entry and save. Add the manage my timesheets permission too if that person should edit their sheet from any device. Repeat this for each person who needs phone access.
One rule settles disputes between the two levels. A manual change to an individual’s permissions overrides the account-wide setting. If one person’s access looks wrong, check their Permissions tab before assuming the company settings failed.
Where do GPS permissions live?
Location settings follow a different path from the time entry options. In QuickBooks Online, open Settings, then Account and settings, then Time, and edit the Geolocation section. There you can make location services a requirement. When you do, each team member must also have location services switched on at the phone level for tracking to work. If GPS data goes missing, the device’s location setting deserves the first look rather than the admin toggle.
Time off and the remaining switches
Time off carries its own permission, granted during time off setup. The remaining admin switches, covering timesheet submission, mileage tracking, geofencing, notifications, the who’s working view, and mobile device time zone, follow one pattern. Set them once for the company in QuickBooks Time, then adjust them per person where the business needs it.
The pattern holds across every setting described here. Company Settings in QuickBooks Time sets the default. The Permissions tab on each person sets the exception. The exception wins. Before troubleshooting anything else, work out which of the two levels you actually changed, because a greyed-out checkbox is usually behaving exactly as intended.