QuickBooks Workforce permissions: where each time tracking setting lives
Teams trying to control time tracking rights in QuickBooks Workforce find the switches scattered across Time settings, add-ons, and user profiles.
QuickBooks Online teams that want tighter control over time tracking keep bumping into the same reality. The permission switches exist, but they sit in three different areas of the software. Full custom user roles, the broadest control on the list, sit behind a plan upgrade. We pulled the rest into one map so you do not have to hunt.
Custom roles belong to QuickBooks Online Advanced
On the standard QuickBooks Online plans, you pick from the user types the product already provides. You cannot build a role of your own. If you need to decide exactly what each person can see and do in areas such as banking, sales, and payroll, that capability comes with QuickBooks Online Advanced. Once there, you can create custom roles and tune the permissions area by area. For teams on lower plans, this is the one wall no setting change will get around.
How do you turn on mobile time entry?
Mobile entry is controlled in QuickBooks Time, not in the main QuickBooks Online interface. Open Company Settings, choose Time Options, and then Time Entry. Two checkboxes sit on that screen. The first, Allow team members to track time on the mobile app, switches mobile clock-ins on for everyone. The second, Allow team members to manage their own timesheets, lets people sign in from a computer or phone and edit their own time.
Here is the part that confuses people. Enabling the timesheet self-service option also turns on mobile time entry, then greys that checkbox out in both company settings and individual profiles. Nothing is broken. The software treats self-service as the broader right, so the narrower one stops being separate. Clear the company-wide self-service box if you want per-person control back.
To grant mobile entry to selected people only, uncheck both boxes at the company level and save. Then go to My Team, open the team member, and select the Permissions tab. Enable Mobile time entry and save. On the same tab, Manage my timesheets gives that person self-service from any platform. Repeat the steps for each person who needs access.
Where are the GPS and location settings?
Location tracking has its own screen, and it offers three levels. From the main Settings gear, open Account and settings, choose Time, and select the edit icon in the Geolocation section. Required means a team member must have location services turned on for the app to record where time was tracked. Optional leaves the choice to each person, with no effect on tracking. Never disables location tracking outright.
Geofencing is set separately. In QuickBooks Time, Company Settings leads to Location and then Tracking; choosing Off there means location is never tracked. For individual rules, open My Team, choose the person, and select the Location tab. Custom Rules for this Team Member lets you set a different standard for that one person. Select the rule and save.
Who can manage timesheets for everyone?
Some team members need to see and edit other people’s time, not just their own. That right is assigned from the same Permissions tab in My Team. The Role list offers Admin, Payroll Manager, or Custom. Below the role, Manage timesheets for all team members hands over exactly that. Select it, save, and the person can work with every timesheet on the team.
The Custom role here is built inside QuickBooks Time. It is separate from the fully custom roles that come with QuickBooks Online Advanced, which apply across the wider product.
How do timesheet approvals get switched on?
Submission and review run through an add-on rather than a core setting. Go to Feature Add-ons, choose Manage Add-ons, find Approvals, and install it. Then open the Approvals Preferences window, and on the General tab, select the option that lets team members review and submit their own time. Once it is on, people review and submit their time instead of only entering it.
What does mileage tracking need?
Mileage tracking has two requirements, and skipping either one stops it from recording. First, in Account and settings under Time, edit Geolocation and turn on mileage tracking if it is not already on. Second, install the Mileage Tracking add-on from Feature Add-ons. There is also a dependency outside QuickBooks Time: automatic mileage capture while someone is clocked in requires location tracking to be turned on in QuickBooks Online first. If drives are not logging, check all three.
The short version
No single screen governs Workforce permissions. Company-wide defaults live in Company Settings and Account and settings. Individual rights live on each person’s Permissions and Location tabs. Submission and mileage live in Feature Add-ons. The only hard limit is the role builder, which arrives with QuickBooks Online Advanced. Everything else is navigation, and the greyed-out mobile checkbox is behavior, not a fault.