Time Tracking for QuickBooks: Plans, Setup, and Employee Options

QuickBooks offers two distinct ways to track work hours: basic time entry inside eligible QuickBooks Online plans, and the more capable QuickBooks Time service. Basic tracking can suit customer or project hours for invoicing; QuickBooks Time adds team-focused tools such as clock-in options, scheduling, and approvals, subject to your subscription and payroll setup.

QuickBooks time tracking: the two options

Basic time entry in QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online Essentials, Plus, and Advanced include basic time-tracking settings. They let you record project or activity hours and configure details such as the first day of the workweek, customer, billable status and rate, class, service items, and notes. That can be enough when your main goal is assigning hours to customer work and using billable time for invoicing. See Intuit’s instructions for turning on and setting up time tracking.

#	Preview	Product	Price
1		uPunch HN1500 Starter Time Clock Bundle for Small Business: Employee Punch Clock System with 100...	$119.99	Buy on Amazon
2		TIMOZIA Time Clock for Employees Small Business, 6 U.S. Time Zones, Automatic Daylight Saving & Auto...	$53.21	Buy on Amazon
3		uPunch CR1000 Digital Time Clock and Date Stamp for Small Business: Complete Employee Time Tracking...	$149.99	Buy on Amazon

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QuickBooks Time for team management

QuickBooks Time is the expanded option for managing a team’s hours. Depending on the plan and configuration, it supports employee time entry, customer or project assignment, approvals, scheduling, and time-off requests. Approved hours can be used for payroll, invoicing, and reporting. Both basic time-entry timesheets and QuickBooks Time timesheets can be accessed from QuickBooks Online, but their features and eligibility are not interchangeable.

Which QuickBooks plans can use QuickBooks Time?

Intuit lists QuickBooks Online Essentials, Plus, Advanced, Intuit Accountant Suite, and QuickBooks Workforce Premium or Elite as eligible connections for QuickBooks Time. Workforce Premium and Elite include QuickBooks Time; Intuit’s setup guidance also describes Premium and Elite as add-on choices and mentions a 30-day trial. Because packaging and eligibility can change, check the current QuickBooks Time plan page and your account before upgrading.

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uPunch HN1500 Starter Time Clock Bundle for Small Business: Employee Punch Clock System with 100 Time Cards, Card Rack, and Ribbon

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Intuit’s US pricing page has listed Time Premium at a $20 monthly base price plus $10 per user per month, and Elite at a $40 monthly base price plus $12 per user per month. These are date-sensitive listed prices, not a guarantee of your checkout total; promotional terms may exclude per-user charges, and prices or eligibility may change. Confirm the live price and offer terms before buying.

How employees can enter time

QuickBooks Time supports browser, mobile-device, and shared-kiosk workflows, and a business can mix methods across its team. Intuit says, “Your team members can track time on a web browser, their mobile devices, or on a kiosk.” A kiosk can run in a computer browser or on an iOS device or Android tablet. The tablet is optional equipment, not a QuickBooks Time requirement; check current operating-system and app requirements before choosing a device.

Rank #2

TIMOZIA Time Clock for Employees Small Business, 6 U.S. Time Zones, Automatic Daylight Saving & Auto Time Update, Punch Card Time Recorder with 6 Punches Per Day-50 Time Cards and 2 Ribbons (White-3)

• 𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗖𝗜𝗦𝗘 𝗔𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗘 𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚: Our Punch Card Attendance Machine comes with a large 4" LED screen for clear visibility. Track your employees' start times, break times, lunch periods, and weekly work hours with precision, up to 6 entries per day. Each card holds 15 days of records per side, just flip for continuous tracking. Supports Dual-color printing, black for normal attendance, red for late or early departure, and a built-in speaker provide clear alerts, ensuring seamless and efficient workforce track & time management.
• 𝗙𝗨𝗟𝗟 𝗨.𝗦. 𝗧𝗜𝗠𝗘 𝗭𝗢𝗡𝗘 𝗖𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗚𝗘: This attendance machine supports 6 major U.S. time zones: Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, and Hawaii. Employees across different regions can be tracked accurately without confusion. Perfect for offices with multi-location teams.
• 𝗔𝗨𝗧𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗖 𝗗𝗔𝗬𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 𝗦𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗔𝗗𝗝𝗨𝗦𝗧𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧: The employee time clock automatically switches between Daylight Saving Time and Standard Time. It handles spring forward and fall back changes seamlessly. This ensures precise timekeeping year-round without manual adjustments.
• 𝗔𝗣𝗣 𝗦𝗨𝗣𝗣𝗢𝗥𝗧𝗘𝗗: This attendance machine comes with an easy-to-operate app for smarter management. The app also allows you to change between 6 major U.S. time zones, set Working Time, set Password, Print Format, Setup Paper, DST Setting, Music Time Setting, and other necessary attributes. NOTE: To calculate total workdays, late entries, leaves, and salary summaries, you need to do it manually from the punch card.
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Choose the entry method around how and where people work: browser entry can suit desk-based staff, mobile entry can suit workers away from a shared computer, and a kiosk can provide a common clock-in point. Features such as location visibility depend on the worker sharing location and on applicable plan and configuration.

Set up QuickBooks time tracking

For basic time entry in QuickBooks Online

1. Open QuickBooks Online settings and go to the time-tracking preferences. Turn on time tracking and choose the first day of your workweek.
2. Set the fields your business needs, such as customer, billable status and rate, class, service items, and notes.
3. Have employees or administrators enter time against the relevant work, then review the resulting timesheets for invoicing or reporting.

There are important payroll limitations: Intuit says basic QuickBooks Online time tracking is unavailable if the customer uses QuickBooks Workforce Payroll, and the weekly timesheet will not work properly when Payroll Core is attached to the QuickBooks Online subscription. Check the setup guidance for your exact payroll combination before relying on basic timesheets.

Rank #3

uPunch CR1000 Digital Time Clock and Date Stamp for Small Business: Complete Employee Time Tracking System with 50 Time Cards, Ribbon & Keys

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• ADVANCED DATE STAMPING: Simplify document organization with built-in date stamp functionality, featuring preset messages and 3-way printing for efficient proof of receipt and processing.
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For QuickBooks Time

1. Start QuickBooks Time setup from an eligible QuickBooks Online or Workforce account. Confirm that the subscription and payroll connection shown in your account support the features you intend to use.
2. Configure the pay schedule, overtime rules, and payroll mapping before inviting workers, so recorded hours have the appropriate payroll destination.
3. Review the customer, project, service-item, and billable choices workers will need. Intuit says employees, vendors, customers, payroll items, service items, billable items, classes, and locations are managed in the connected source system; additions to workers in QuickBooks Online can flow to QuickBooks Time.
4. Add or invite workers, then select the browser, mobile, or kiosk method each person will use. If using a shared kiosk, set up the supported device or computer browser as the clock-in station.
5. Set the approval process and test a timesheet through review before using approved hours for payroll, invoicing, or reporting.

Approvals, classic QuickBooks Time, and the Online transition

Intuit describes a phased move of classic QuickBooks Time management and scheduling into QuickBooks Online. Its product update described an initial wave beginning in September and said the classic site would be retired “in a few months”; it did not establish a final completion date. Follow the migration notice for your account and use the current interface available to you rather than assuming every account has migrated.

Some approval workflows remain tied to classic QuickBooks Time in Intuit’s help guidance: timesheet submissions and DCAA compliance require approval in classic Time. If either applies to your organization, confirm the workflow in your account before changing how approvals are handled. Intuit’s current help also covers team administration, schedules, customer and project assignment, location visibility when workers share location, and time-off requests; availability varies by subscription and configuration.

Quick Recap

Bestseller No. 1

uPunch HN1500 Starter Time Clock Bundle for Small Business: Employee Punch Clock System with 100 Time Cards, Card Rack, and Ribbon

Simple Setup - Plug-and-play design with clear instructions enables tracking in minutes.; Clear Printing - High-quality uPunch ribbons deliver legible, consistent punch punches.

$119.99

Bestseller No. 2

TIMOZIA Time Clock for Employees Small Business, 6 U.S. Time Zones, Automatic Daylight Saving & Auto Time Update, Punch Card Time Recorder with 6 Punches Per Day-50 Time Cards and 2 Ribbons (White-3)

$53.21

Bestseller No. 3

uPunch CR1000 Digital Time Clock and Date Stamp for Small Business: Complete Employee Time Tracking System with 50 Time Cards, Ribbon & Keys

$149.99

Choose the right time-tracking setup

• Choose basic QuickBooks Online time entry if you mainly need to record customer or project hours for billing, and your plan and payroll setup support it.
• Consider QuickBooks Time if your team needs a range of clock-in methods or richer time-management workflows, such as schedules, approvals, or time-off requests. Verify each required feature against your plan.
• Check the total price against your expected user count, including the base subscription and per-user charges, and confirm whether a displayed promotion applies to both.
• Check the employee workflow before rollout: browser, mobile, or kiosk. A tablet is only one possible kiosk device.
• Check payroll and migration status in your account, especially if you use Workforce Payroll, Payroll Core, classic Time approvals, or have received a migration notice.

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.