QuickBooks Online Integration

What This Integration Does

The QuickBooks Online integration connects Standard Time® directly to your Intuit company file using the official QuickBooks Online API and OAuth2 authentication. Data flows in both directions — so your job list stays current with QuickBooks and your billed time flows back to QuickBooks automatically.

Connecting to QuickBooks Online

Standard Time® uses OAuth2 to authenticate with Intuit QuickBooks Online. You authorize the connection once, and Standard Time® stores the tokens securely — refreshing them automatically so you stay connected across sessions without re-entering credentials.

Step-by-Step Connection

1. Open the Home page in Standard Time®.
   From the Standard Time® main window, navigate to the Home (All Views) page — the primary dashboard.
2. Click the QuickBooks icon.
   A dedicated QuickBooks tab opens. This is the integration hub for all QuickBooks data operations.
3. Click the green "Connect To QuickBooks" button in the upper-left corner of the QuickBooks page.
   Standard Time® redirects your browser to the Intuit authorization page.
4. Sign into Intuit QuickBooks Online.
   Use your normal QuickBooks Online credentials. If you have multiple company files, select the one you want to connect to Standard Time®. Click Connect to grant access.
5. You are returned to Standard Time® — Connected!
   The QuickBooks page now shows a Disconnect button and the four sync operations. Standard Time® confirms the connection by fetching your company name and address.

Disconnecting

Click the Disconnect button on the QuickBooks page at any time. Standard Time® revokes both the access token and refresh token with Intuit and removes the stored credentials from the database. The connection can be re-established at any time by clicking Connect To QuickBooks again.

Importing Customers & Jobs

The Import customers and jobs from QuickBooks operation reads your QuickBooks customer list and creates matching Client and Project records in Standard Time®. If a record already exists by name, it is updated rather than duplicated.

How Customers Map to Standard Time®

QuickBooks uses a hierarchical customer model: a top-level Customer can have Jobs (sub-customers) beneath it. Standard Time® maps this as follows:

Import Filters

Before importing, you can filter which QuickBooks customers to include:

• Active — import only active customers (default: true) or include inactive ones.
• Created after — only import customers created after a specific date. Useful for incremental syncs.
• Updated after — only import customers whose records were modified after a specific date.

After the import completes, you can view the results directly from the QuickBooks page by clicking View Standard Time Clients or View Standard Time Projects.

Exporting to QuickBooks

Three types of records can be exported from Standard Time® to QuickBooks Online. Each export creates the corresponding QuickBooks record type and marks the Standard Time® record as billed so it is not exported again.

Export Time Logs

Click Export time logs to QuickBooks from the QuickBooks page. Each Standard Time® time log becomes a TimeActivity record in QuickBooks Online.

Before exporting, filter the time logs by:

• Employee — export time for a specific employee or all employees.
• Client — limit to a specific client or all clients.
• Start date / End date — the date range of time entries to include (default: last 30 days).
• Billed — export only unbilled records (default) or include already-billed records.

Service items (billing categories) are also created in QuickBooks automatically if they don't exist, linked to an income account named "Services".

Export Expenses

Click Export expenses to QuickBooks to send Standard Time® expense records to QuickBooks as Purchase records. The same date range, employee, and client filters apply as for time log exports.

Each expense must have an account name assigned in Standard Time® — this becomes the QuickBooks expense account. A bank or credit card account is also required to record the payment method. Standard Time® creates missing expense accounts and bank accounts in QuickBooks automatically.

Export Invoices

Click Export invoices to QuickBooks to send a Standard Time® invoice to QuickBooks as an Invoice record. Invoices are exported individually — open the invoice in Standard Time® and click the export option from the QuickBooks page.

Each exported invoice includes:

• Customer name, due date, transaction date, PO number, and customer memo.
• Line items for each time log attached to the invoice — with quantity (hours), unit price (billing rate), and service date.
• Line items for each expense attached to the invoice — with amount, service date.

Data Mapping Reference

The following tables show exactly which fields are read or written during each sync operation.

Import: QuickBooks Customer → Standard Time®

Export: Time Log → QuickBooks TimeActivity

Export: Expense → QuickBooks Purchase

Export: Invoice → QuickBooks Invoice

Field Mapping

Understanding how QuickBooks fields correspond to Standard Time® records makes it easier to set up your data correctly before syncing. The three most important mappings are Client, Project, and Category.

Customer:Job → Client and Project

QuickBooks Online uses a Customer:Job hierarchy to represent clients and the work performed for them. Standard Time® splits this on the colon:

Clients

From the Standard Time® Home page, click the Clients icon to open the client list. Each client record corresponds to a QuickBooks top-level customer — the portion of the name before the colon in a Customer:Job pair. The client record holds contact information, billing address, payment terms, and the billing rates used when exporting time to QuickBooks. After importing from QuickBooks, newly created clients appear in the QuickBooks folder in the client list.

Projects

From the Home page, click the Projects icon to open the project list. Each project corresponds to a QuickBooks job — the portion of the name after the colon in a Customer:Job pair (for example, Acme Corp:Phase 1 creates a project named "Acme Corp:Phase 1" under the "Acme Corp" client). Projects are the unit of work employees log time against, and they appear in the project list and on the Gantt chart. After importing from QuickBooks, new projects also land in the QuickBooks folder.

Categories (Items)

From the Home page, click the Categories icon to open the category list. Categories represent the type of work being performed — for example, Engineering, Design, Installation, or Testing. In QuickBooks, the equivalent is a service Item on a time record. When Standard Time® exports a time log that has a category assigned, it maps that category to a QuickBooks service item of the same name, creating the item in QuickBooks automatically if it does not already exist.

Categories can be assigned directly to Project Tasks in Standard Time®. When an employee logs time to a task that has a category, that category (and its billing rate) is automatically applied to the time record — and flows through to the QuickBooks Item field on export. This lets you bill different types of work at different rates within the same project.

Users (Employees)

Standard Time® maps each user's name to a QuickBooks Employee (or Vendor, for contractors) when exporting time logs. By default, the Standard Time® username is used as the QuickBooks employee display name — and if no employee by that name exists in QuickBooks, one is created automatically.

If you need a different name to appear in QuickBooks — for example, because your QuickBooks employee records use a different format, or a user's name in Standard Time® does not match their legal name in payroll — open the user record in Standard Time® and set the QB Employee property. When that user's time logs are exported, Standard Time® uses the QB Employee value instead of the username to look up or create the QuickBooks employee record.

Barcode Scanning & QuickBooks Items

If your shop floor uses barcode scanning, the path to clean QuickBooks exports is already built into how Standard Time® works. The key insight: Project Tasks are process steps — and scanning a task barcode on the shop floor is how employees record the work they performed. Assign the right Category to each task during setup, and QuickBooks Item data takes care of itself at export time.

How It Works

During admin setup, each Project Task in Standard Time® can be assigned a Category — the type of work that step represents (Machining, Assembly, Welding, Inspection, etc.). When an employee scans a task barcode on the shop floor, Standard Time® records a time entry and automatically applies the Category that was pre-assigned to that task. No employee selection required — the Category follows the scan.

Because the Category on each time entry maps directly to a QuickBooks Item, every scanned time log arrives already labeled with the correct billing type. When you export time to QuickBooks, the Item field is populated from the Category — there is nothing more to fill in. Open the QuickBooks page, click Export time logs to QuickBooks, and you are done.

Reusing Projects with Pre-Assigned Categories

The most efficient setup for repeat manufacturing work is to build a project template — a Standard Time® project whose tasks already have categories assigned — and then duplicate that project for each new job or work order. Standard Time® supports project duplication from the project list: the copy includes all tasks and their category assignments, ready to scan immediately.

This pattern scales well across a shop floor running many simultaneous jobs:

• Build the template project once with tasks named after your process steps and categories set to your QB service items.
• For each new job, duplicate the template and rename it to match the customer or work order number.
• Print barcodes for the new project's tasks and post them at the workstations.
• Employees scan as normal — all time logs accumulate with the correct categories.
• At billing time, export to QuickBooks. Every time entry is already mapped to the right Item.

For a detailed walkthrough of barcode scanning setup, see the Shop Floor Barcode Scanning guide.

After Exporting Time

Once time entries land in QuickBooks Online as TimeActivity records, QuickBooks puts them to work in two directions: billing your clients and paying your employees. Both flows pull directly from the exported records — no re-entry needed.

Client Invoicing from Time Entries

QuickBooks tracks every exported time entry against the customer it was logged for. When you are ready to bill a client, QuickBooks surfaces those entries automatically during invoice creation:

1. Create a new invoice in QuickBooks.
   Go to + New → Invoice and select the customer. QuickBooks checks for any unbilled time entries associated with that customer.
2. QuickBooks prompts you to add billable time.
   A panel appears on the right side of the invoice screen — "Unbilled activity" — listing each exported time entry that was marked Billable. Each entry shows the date, service item (your Standard Time® Category), description (notes from the time log), hours, and billing rate.
3. Add the entries to the invoice.
   Click Add on individual entries, or Add all to pull every unbilled entry onto the invoice at once. Each entry becomes a line item — quantity is hours, unit price is the billing rate from Standard Time®, and the amount is calculated automatically.
4. Send the invoice.
   Review the totals, add any non-time charges, and send. QuickBooks marks the time entries as billed so they do not appear again on future invoices.

Paying Employees from Time Entries

If you use QuickBooks Payroll, exported time entries feed directly into the payroll run for hourly employees. QuickBooks reads the hours recorded against each employee and uses them to calculate gross pay — no manual hour entry in the payroll screen.

1. Run payroll in QuickBooks.
   Go to Payroll → Run Payroll and select the pay period. QuickBooks looks up all TimeActivity records for each employee within that date range.
2. Hours are pre-filled from time entries.
   For hourly employees, QuickBooks totals the hours from all time entries in the period and pre-populates the regular hours field. Verify the totals and make any corrections before proceeding.
3. Review and submit payroll.
   QuickBooks calculates gross pay, deductions, and net pay from the pre-filled hours. Submit payroll as normal — direct deposit or check — and QuickBooks posts the payroll expense journal entries automatically.

Time Entry Reports in QuickBooks

Beyond invoicing and payroll, QuickBooks offers several reports that work directly from your exported time entries: