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Hi Everyone - we are about to being our Karbon implementation and have been discussing how Karbon integrates with QBO for time and billing purposes. Our thought was to track and input time in Karbon then use the QB time integration to be able to actually do our billing in QBO. 

 

We are wondering if this is currently the best approach and if there are any best practices or pitfalls we should avoid here? We don’t necessarily bill according to the time but do track time on a project basis and plan to continue that in Karbon. 

 

We are a tax heavy firm but also have a lot of fixed fee monthly or quarterly billing. All our other accounting for our firm is already being done in QBO. We also use Ignition for proposals but may not use that integration at first. 

 

We were also curious of any overall tips or potential things to avoid as we work through out implementation to avoid any headaches down the road. 

 

Any insight would be appreciated, thanks! 

I’ve been using Karbon for +1 year. 

Great product, but I don’t think it can match QB time for easy of use in recording time. 

Is there a way to keep on using QB time for recording time, and then integrate the QB time data integrated into Karbon for practice insights?

 


I can’t comment on billing so I’ll tag @Aliesa Jackson here. 

For the Ignition integration, I personally don’t use it and instead have been playing around with the API. The reason I don’t use it is because all the dates on work items get set to the start and end date of the proposal and roles don’t get assigned. So for that reason it’s just as quick for me to create a new work item and assign these things as it is to go edit them on the created work item from the integration. But the alternative to that is using the API. 

If you have standardized roles such as onboarding, for example, you can use the API to create your onboarding work item and assign the dates and roles automatically. That way when a proposal gets accepted you can have that initial work item created and people can start working on it. 

Because you’re a tax heavy firm, you could also combine the API with the use of a queue system wherein when a new tax proposal is accepted then create certain work items and assign them immediately to a user called “Tax Queue”. Then someone who manages the queue can go in and assign roles to people and you’re off to the races with the work. 


I’ve been using Karbon for +1 year. 

Great product, but I don’t think it can match QB time for easy of use in recording time. 

Is there a way to keep on using QB time for recording time, and then integrate the QB time data integrated into Karbon for practice insights?

 

That was one option we thought might work if we were having trouble with the sync. I’ve been told that this does work by a few people but haven’t seen exactly how they are doing it in detail. Thank you! 


Reading other replies, the QB time integration with Karbon doesn’t sound good.  Although it’s manual intensive, I’m currently getting the time report from QB and fee income from Xero and working out the profitability on Excel.


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