Best Practice for Karbon to QBT to QBO time and billing

  • 31 March 2021
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We are currently working to fully implement Karbon at our firm which means we are switching to QuickBooks Time for our time and billing. We ran into a situation early where many of our contacts were syncing across to QBO even though there was no reason to have them there, so we created four contact categories:

  • Client (syncs with QBO)
  • Client Contact (related to client but does not sync to QBO)
  • Firm Vendor (does not sync to QBO
  • Client Vendor (does not sync to QBO)

For joint returns, we create a client group with the name of the couple (John & Jane Smith) and assign the contact type “Client.” We then add two person contacts as contact type “Client Contact” for each person in the couple and add them to the client group. This stops John Smith and Jane Smith from syncing to QBO but pushes the contact group “John & Jane Smith” to QBO for time and billing purposes.

We do the same thing with organizations but use the “Add Organization” instead of “Add Contact Group” as contact type “Client” and then associate the appropriate client contact persons to the organization.

Does anyone have a different way that they have handled this? I’m always curious to learn how other people are adapting.

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1 reply

Kjeske
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Great question. Sounds like you have put some strong effort into planning your transition.

I use Xero, but a lot of the syncing structure is the same. I only sync Xero contacts with Karbon and sync Karbon contacts and work with QuickBooks Time. I like this cause it allows us to track time allocated to each work item. Separate classing of contact in Karbon is important (as you have done) since the sync setting in Karbon allow you to toggle which contacts to sync with QuickBooks Time.

To handle individual returns, I create only one one contact per couple in Xero and invoice that main contact. We can also add a secondary contact to make sure both spouses receive the invoice notification. Added to the invoice are 2 Individual tax return items (1 for each spouse), which allows me to track the number of individual return sales in Xero.

Organizations are handled by tracking time per work item and then each work item is invoice together as separate items on a single invoice.

We have been using this structure for about 2 years now and the process is smooth so far. I foresee future automation solutions via Zapier.

Please note that my firm does not bill per hour. We try go through a proposal process to agree on scope and monthly price for recurring work. For one-time and special projects, we quote a price up-front prior to the start of work. We use QuickBooks time to measure performance per work item and team member.

Hope this helps you some.

KJeske

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