Your accountant trusts QuickBooks. Make the hours going into it worth trusting.
QuickBooks Time is built for clocking in hourly crews, with GPS, geofencing and kiosks. Knowledge work doesn't clock in. Timely captures project time as it happens, turns billable hours into draft invoices, and passes them to QuickBooks Online for you to send.
What QuickBooks gets right
QuickBooks Online is the system your accountant already trusts, and QuickBooks Time is excellent at the job it was built for: clocking in hourly teams in the field.
- Books, invoices and payments your accountant already works in
- Billable timesheets with approvals, from QuickBooks Online Essentials up
- GPS clock-ins, geofencing, kiosks and payroll for hourly field teams
Numbers borrow authority from where they live
Once hours land in the ledger, they look as exact as the bank balance beside them. An hour guessed on a Friday afternoon sits in the same tidy column as a payment that cleared, and nobody downstream can tell the difference.
Every QuickBooks route starts with someone typing or clocking in. QuickBooks Online has its own timesheets from Essentials up, QuickBooks Time adds clock-ins, and its new AI turns photos of paper timesheets into digital ones. Each one records what a person entered.
So change who writes the first draft. When Timely drafts the timesheet from the work itself, people check the hours instead of reconstructing them, and the numbers that reach QuickBooks have something behind them.
An example day of 6h 30m. In QuickBooks Time: 6h 30m clocked in. Nothing says which client it was for. In Timely: 6h 30m drafted across 3 projects, ready to check and submit.
How Timely and QuickBooks Online work together
QuickBooks Online keeps the money. Timely captures the hours and hands them over as draft invoices.
Draft invoices from billable hours
Timely builds an invoice from unbilled hours that have a rate. Filter by client, project or period, and group the lines by person, tag or team.
Sent to QuickBooks Online as a draft
Push it to QuickBooks Online, check it there and send it to your client. Taxes, discounts and currencies are handled in QuickBooks.
Status comes back, hours lock
Draft, sent, paid and void statuses sync back to Timely, and invoiced hours turn read-only so nobody bills them twice. Available on Premium and Unlimited.
What people notice first
We've tried ones that come free with programs like Quickbooks but keep coming back to Timely because of its reliability and ease of use. As a small agency it solving the problem of accurately tracking our billable time, which in the past often went under reported.
Timely keeps up with me, no matter where I'm logged in, and it's quick work to map the time records to companies/projects for invoicing purposes.
What each setup costs
QuickBooks Time charges a monthly base fee plus a fee for each person, on top of QuickBooks Online. Timely charges per person, and the QuickBooks Online integration comes with Premium and Unlimited. Past the first few people, Timely costs more each month.
| Pricing | QuickBooks | Timely |
|---|---|---|
| How you're charged | A monthly base fee, plus a fee per person | A fee per person |
| Plan you need | QuickBooks Time Premium: $20 a month plus $10 a person | Premium: $16 a person billed annually, $20 monthly |
| Project estimates vs actuals | QuickBooks Time Elite: $40 a month plus $12 a person | Planned vs actual time on Premium |
| Also needs | QuickBooks Online | QuickBooks Online, to send invoices |
Checked on . Source: QuickBooks Time pricing page.
QuickBooks Time vs Timely + QuickBooks Online
Where QuickBooks Time stops, and what Timely adds. We've marked where QuickBooks Time does it better, too.
| Feature | Timely + QuickBooks Online | QuickBooks Time |
|---|---|---|
| Capturing time | ||
| Captures work automatically, no timer | : Memory app for Mac and Windows | : Clock-ins, kiosks and typed timesheets |
| Drafts your timesheet for you | : AutoSheet drafts each day for you to check and submit | : Its AI turns paper timesheets into digital ones |
| Weekly timesheets | : Every plan | : QuickBooks Online Essentials and up has them too |
| GPS, geofencing and kiosk clock-ins | : Timely doesn't do clock-ins | : Kiosk on Premium, geofencing on Elite |
| Approving and billing | ||
| Timesheet approvals | : Premium and up, built with time entry states | : Approve and lock, or reject with a reason |
| Locked time | : Unlimited plan | : Approved time is locked |
| Billable rates | : Set in QuickBooks Online | |
| Invoicing | : Draft invoices sent through QuickBooks Online, Premium and up | : Approved hours flow into QuickBooks Online invoices |
| Payroll | : Export hours for your payroll provider | : Through QuickBooks Workforce payroll |
| Planning and reporting | ||
| Planned vs actual time | : Premium and up | : Budgeted vs actual hours, Elite plan |
| Capacity planning | : Logged and planned time against capacity, Unlimited plan | : Shift and job scheduling instead |
Connect QuickBooks Online
One admin connects it, and the rest happens in Timely's Invoices tab.
Connect your company
A Timely admin connects QuickBooks Online from Timely's integrations settings, signs in with Intuit and picks your company.
Build an invoice
Create an invoice in the Invoices tab. It starts with every unbilled hour that has a rate, and you narrow it by client, project or period.
Send it from QuickBooks
Push the draft to QuickBooks Online, check it and send it to your client. Payment status comes back to Timely, and later invoices for that client sync automatically.
Questions about Timely + QuickBooks
Does Timely replace QuickBooks?
No, it feeds it. QuickBooks Online stays your accounting system, and Timely sends it draft invoices built from the hours your team logged.
Which QuickBooks products work with Timely?
QuickBooks Online only. QuickBooks Self-Employed isn't supported, and you can connect one QuickBooks Online company to each Timely workspace.
Which Timely plan do we need?
The QuickBooks Online integration comes with Premium and Unlimited.
Can Timely send invoices without QuickBooks Online?
No. Timely builds draft invoices, but it can't send, export or print them on its own, so you send them from QuickBooks Online. Without it, you can export a report for another invoicing tool or connect one through Zapier.
We clock in field staff. Should we switch them?
No, keep QuickBooks Time for them. Its GPS clock-ins, geofencing and kiosks suit crews on the move. Timely suits the people whose work happens at a computer.
What stops an hour being billed twice?
Once hours are on an invoice, they turn read-only in Timely and show as billed via invoice, so they stay off the next one.
Keep the books. Change where the hours come from.
Try Timely free for 14 days with your QuickBooks Online company. No card needed.