QuickBooks Online doesn't have a built-in weekly timesheet grid for employees to fill out themselves. What it does have is a record type called TimeActivity — a single time entry tied to a worker, a date, and (optionally) a customer and service item. Every time-tracking approach for QuickBooks Online eventually has to produce TimeActivity records; the question is how those records get created.
Option 1: Enter hours directly in QuickBooks
You can open the Time menu inside QuickBooks Online and add TimeActivity entries by hand, one at a time or via a weekly view. This works for a one-person shop. It stops working the moment more than one or two people need to report hours, because someone — usually you — ends up re-typing everyone else's time from texts, emails, or paper.
Option 2: Collect hours in a spreadsheet, then re-key them
This is where most growing teams land by default. Employees text or email their hours, someone consolidates them into a spreadsheet, and then someone re-types the totals into QuickBooks. It's slow, and every hand-off is a chance for a transposed digit or a missed row.
Option 3: A timesheet app built around TimeActivity
The third option is software that employees enter hours into directly — usually a weekly grid or a stopwatch/timer — with an approval step, and then exports the approved hours straight into QuickBooks Online as TimeActivity records. Done well, this removes the re-keying step entirely: the same record a manager approved is the record that lands in QuickBooks.
That's the model Time Tracker On uses. Employees and vendors fill in a weekly grid or a timer (your Company Settings decide which), a manager reviews and approves the week, and only approved hours are eligible to export. Each approved entry becomes one TimeActivity record, mapped to the right worker, customer, and service item automatically.
What actually goes into a TimeActivity record
- The transaction date
- Either an EmployeeRef or a VendorRef — never both on the same record
- A CustomerRef, if the entry's project is tied to a customer that's synced with QuickBooks
- An ItemRef, if a service item can be resolved for the entry
- Hours and minutes
- Whether the time is billable or non-billable
- A description (or your notes, if no description was entered)
Notice what's not on that list: Projects and Tasks. QuickBooks Online doesn't have a native concept of either — they're how a timesheet tool like Time Tracker On organizes work internally, and they stay internal. What crosses over is the customer and service item behind them.
The takeaway
If your team is still emailing hours or hand-typing them into QuickBooks, the fix isn't a better spreadsheet template — it's removing the re-keying step entirely. Connect QuickBooks Online once, let your team fill in a weekly timesheet, approve it, and export.