Table of Contents
Purpose 🧠
This article is to outline the steps for exporting your payroll hours from Aspire to QuickBooks Desktop as part of your weekly or bi-weekly payroll process!
Check Before Exporting
If you are reading this article, you should have already:
Double-check the following:
✅ Confirm all Payroll Items have been assigned to each employee in QuickBooks Desktop that will have hours exported from Aspire. Payroll Items are known as Pay Codes in Aspire. Reminder: If a pay code from Aspire is exported and that payroll item is not assigned to an employee in QuickBooks Desktop, the employee will be paid $0 for the hours.
✅ Confirm the web connector has run before exporting payroll. This brings the Accounting Sync ID information from QuickBooks Desktop into Aspire for your employee in the Payroll section of their contact record.
Review the Accounting Sync ID field on a few employee contact records to make sure the Sync ID populated.
⚠️ The Accounting Sync ID field on the contact record must have a number populated before processing payroll. If not, rerun your Web Connector.
Exporting Payroll
We will review the steps for exporting payroll hours from Aspire to ensure it successfully transfers into QuickBooks Desktop.
Reviewing Employee Hours
First, go to Scheduling and select Weekly Time Review.
Select the first day of the pay period you need for the payroll export with the calendar picker.
Review all employees' times for their work week. All employees' time should be in a status of Pending. Time worked is broken down daily, with the total hours worked, and a total for each employee’s overtime hours is displayed at the end of each week.
Your Operations teams should be reviewing and accepting time entry daily for minimal errors. (To learn more about Aspire's Time Entry Acceptance Workflow, read the article here.)
Look if the employee's time is in an Unaccepted status or if their name is in red text.
If Employee Time is Unaccepted
Correct time for each employee if their status is Unaccepted.
Click on the Unaccepted hours, and choose Open Time Entry.
Review the total hours to be sure all the hours are correctly assigned to a work ticket.
After reviewing the time in Time Entry, when the Save button on this screen is clicked, the status will change on the employee's time from Unaccepted to Pending.
If Employee's Name is Red
⚠️ If an employee’s name is displayed in red on Weekly Time Review, that means the employee is missing information necessary for payroll processing or an OT Paycode Exception.
To fix an employee's missing information:
Go to Contacts, and select the employees contact record.
Verify that a base rate and a pay schedule have been entered into the Payroll fields.
📌 Note: Be sure the Effective Date is set to the first day of the pay period, at the beginning of the employee's first pay period.
Once the payroll fields have been corrected, you should be able to go back to Time Entry and the name would be listed correctly, so you can proceed.
Approving Employee Time
Once all the employees are shown in Pending status, with no errors, the hours need to be Approved.
Click the checkbox next to each employee or click the checkbox next to the status field to select all employees you want to approve.
Select Bulk Actions and click Approve.
You will then export hours for hourly employees.
Select the Pay Schedule to filter your list of employees.
📌 Note: If you track sub-contractor or temporary hours, it is necessary to select the correct pay schedules for Accounts Payable.
Go to the Bulk Actions, and select Export.
A window will open up displaying the week dates. Do not change the beginning date or end date. A checkbox will ask if you want to include previously exported items. You typically will leave this unchecked. Click Save.
After the export is complete, a temporary pop up will appear confirming all the data has been transferred to QuickBooks Desktop.
⚠️ Aspire exports one week at a time; if you complete payroll bi-weekly, you export and sync again for your second week. Confirm all hours came across one week at a time.
For the sync, run the Web Connector manually in QuickBooks Desktop.
Web Connector is set to auto-run at a time that you have selected when you've completed set up. However, you can manually run this again so you don't have to wait on an automatic update.
⚠️When a change is needed in Aspire due to error; un-approve the time related to the error and then reapprove the time.
Export the hours again for the people that had errors. When you do this, you'll be resending hours for the entire week, including hours that might have synced over previously.
Make sure to double check the hours for those employees to confirm the hours are correct. If you have extra hours, remove the ones in QuickBooks Desktop that have doubled.
Process Payroll within QuickBooks Desktop
To process payroll successfully, verify the hours from Aspire have transferred over to QuickBooks Desktop accurately.
There are two ways to verify the hours in QuickBooks Desktop.
First Option
Go to Reports in QuickBooks Desktop.
Select Jobs, Time & Mileage.
Select Time by Name.
Change the dates at the top of the screen to the range that was exported.
Check the total at the bottom of the below screen.
Make sure it matches the Total Hours listed in the Weekly Time Review screen in Aspire.
📌 Note: Due to rounding differences, you may see small variances in the total hours listed in Aspire and what is shown in QuickBooks Desktop.
Second Option
In QuickBooks Desktop, go to Employees.
Select Enter Time.
Select Use Weekly Timesheet.
Choose each employee's name and change the dates to review hours transferred.
Verify the hours by employee and confirm the total shown matches the Total Hours in the Weekly Time Review screen in Aspire.
After verifying that your hours are transferred over correctly to QuickBooks Desktop, payroll checks can be created. If they have not, please review the next section to review any sync errors.
If you are running a weekly payroll; create your payroll checks.
If you are running a bi-weekly payroll, remember to export your second week of payroll. You will repeat the same process so that the second week of payroll checks can be created.
If you have questions about QuickBooks Desktop payroll checks, please contact your QuickBooks Desktop account representative.
Troubleshooting the Aspire Hours Sync
If your hours are not showing up the way you thought they would after you've run the web connector in QuickBooks Desktop, you will have to go back to Aspire to confirm that the hours have synced to QuickBooks Desktop.
Confirm That Hours Have Synced
Go back to Aspire and confirm that your hours have synced properly and review your hours export.
To do this:
Go back to the Scheduling module and then the Weekly Time Review tab.
Click on the clock to view the Time Entry Sync Summary screen.
💡 Tip: If the screen is blank, review your filters to make sure the correct date has been selected.
On the Time Entry Sync Summary, you will see the Batch Block number which is given to each line.
The Processed Block number should be zero, because the sync to QuickBooks Desktop hasn't been finalized.
If the Sync Error display column shows each value as No, your payroll should have been exported to QuickBooks Desktop successfully. You will need to log a ticket into a AspireCare if this is not the case.
If it shows Yes, continue down below.
If the Sync Error is Yes
If the Sync Error display column shows Yes, click into that line, and the Sync Error screen will appear.
Review the Sync Error column to see the description of the error.
Additional common sync error explanations are in the next section.
If the error is in QuickBooks Desktop, corrections will have to be made in QuickBooks Desktop.
If the error is from missing or incorrect information in Aspire, you will need to make the corrections in Aspire. When a change is needed in Aspire due to error, unapprove the time related to the error and then reapprove the time.
Export the hours again for the people that had errors. When you do this, you'll be resending hours for the entire week, including hours that might have synced over previously.
Make sure to double check the hours for those employees to confirm the hours are correct. If you have extra hours, remove the ones in QuickBooks Desktop that have doubled.
Once you have corrected all sync errors in QuickBooks Desktop or Aspire, go back to Aspire and click Resend Export Errors button on the Sync Summary screen. To get back to this screen go to Scheduling ➡️ Weekly Time Review ➡️ Time Entry Sync Summary (clock icon).
The following message will be displayed.
After you resend your export errors, this adds another row on the View Sync Summary screen in Aspire. Previous exports will also show. A new line is added for the exports for the errors that were resent. The new line for these exports is identified by the number zero in the Processed Block display column.
Return to QuickBooks Desktop and manually run the web connector again to refresh your data.
Repeat this process until the Sync Errors in Aspire are all displayed as No.
When you are done with these steps, you can work in QuickBooks Desktop to process your payroll!
Examples of Sync Errors
Listed below are some common sync errors that appear in Aspire and their solutions. If there is an error displayed that is not listed here, please log a ticket with AspireCare for assistance.
Item Wage Error
Error: There is an invalid reference to QuickBooks Payroll item Wage “A-PrevWage” in the Time Tracking.
Solution: The error may show a different Item Wage, but the payroll item displayed means the payroll item is not in QuickBooks Desktop. Add the item to QuickBooks Desktop.
Time Tracking Errors
Error: The employee ’‘8000…-184865” provided in the Time TrackingAdd has the checkbox “Use time data to create paychecks” set to unknown state.
Solution: The error means that the employee does not have the box Use time data to create paychecks checked in QuickBooks Desktop. Check this on, and try to sync again.
Error: There was an error when saving a Time Tracking. QuickBooks error message: Billable activities must have a customer: job and services item.
Solution: In QuickBooks Desktop, under Preferences, choose Time & Expenses and then, Company Preferences. Verify if the box Mark all time entries as billable is checked under Time Tracking. If so, uncheck that box.
Error: There is an invalid reference to QuickBooks Class “IRR’ in the TimeTracking. QuickBooks error message: Invalid argument. The specified record does not exist in the list.
Solution: The error may show a different class, but whatever class is displayed means the class is not in QuickBooks Desktop. Add the class to QuickBooks Desktop and then try to sync again. (To add a class, see instructions here.)
Checklist for Exporting Payroll to QuickBooks Desktop
As you keep learning the flow of exporting payroll to QuickBooks Desktop, we've provided you a simple checklist to go through! You can download your own checklist below. 👇
