Mapping is a required process in AccountLinx to define what an ExakTime entity is the equivalent of an entity in your accounting/payroll application when exporting your time data. For example, employee "John Smith" may be known as employee "3598" in your other applications.
As accounting applications can be flexible in their setup, the steps below may not address all situations but should cover a majority of them. If the steps below do not fit your expectations, please use the "Request Support" link at the top of the support site to request further assistance from our product support team.
Table of Contents
Things to Note
- We recommend that the mapping process is done before each export to ensure complete and smooth exports. Depending on your accounting/payroll application, the mapping process may require you to enter IDs or directly match up the entities between the software. If your entities are not mapped, then you may experience difficulty with completing payroll and/or reviewing job costing in your accounting/payroll application.
- If your entities were imported into ExakTime with SyncLinx, the mappings may already be completed or be nearly completed. We still recommend double-checking your mappings to ensure smooth exports.
- When the employee, location, and/or cost code has been mapped, you will not need to map it again. You would only need to map new entities that have not yet been mapped.
- If any data has been mapped, it can also be remapped if the entity has changed on your accounting package (e.g. the main office location in ExakTime has changed from one entity to another in your accounting package).
- If we do not have the option to map a location and/or cost code, then the selected exporter for AccountLinx does not support the exporting of location and/or cost code information with time data.
- When going through the mapping process, you may see inactive ExakTime Employees, Locations, and Cost Codes, if they are present for the selected date range in AccountLinx to allow you to properly export the data.
- Starting with AccountLinx version 4.7.8.86, you can filter your entities when mapping to show all entities or only entities that were used for the selected date range in AccountLinx.
- If "Used in Date Range" is selected, be sure to select and view the correct date range in AccountLinx so the correct entities will be listed for mapping.
- If "Used in Date Range" is selected and you had already exported records, the mapping list will be empty as there are no time records to reference for mapping.
Mapping with IDs
Mapping with IDs is generally used in instances where time data must be imported into your accounting/payroll application with a file.
Mapping Entities Manually
- Click on the appropriate mapping button near the top-left of AccountLinx.
- When the mapping window is open, you will see the ExakTime Connect option on the far left. To the right will be a column(s) that will require an ID/Code/Number that will be recognized by your accounting/job-costing application. If you are unsure, the column header will generally indicate what data is expected to be entered.
- For example, Andrew Anderson's ID for his accounting application is 001. This ID is entered here so when Andrew Anderson's is exported from AccountLinx, it will use 001 for identification.
- When the mappings have been completed, press .
Unmapping Entities
If a mapping is incorrect or should not have any mapping, you can simply re-enter/remove the information.
Mapping Entities With Integration
For supported applications, AccountLinx can use Employee, Location, and/or Cost Code IDs in ExakTime Connect for mapping with the "Integration" option. After it has been enabled, any entity with missing mappings will become mapped when AccountLinx opens. It will also make it so that if the mappings are changed in AccountLinx, it will also update the respective ID in ExakTime Connect to ensure the data is consistent between ExakTime Connect and AccountLinx.
If you think this option can help you, please refer to the dedicated article to enable this option.
Mapping with Direct Connections
For supported applications such as QuickBooks or Sage 100 MasterBuilder, mapping can be done by associating the ExakTime Connect location with the equivalent in QuickBooks or Sage 100. This removes the need to enter information such as IDs/Codes directly.
- Click on the appropriate mapping button in the top left of AccountLinx.
- Select the ExakTime Connect entity on the left-hand side and the equivalent entity on the right-hand side from your Accounting/Job-Costing application. Click .
- You can map an entity if it already has a mapping, allowing you to correct/update any mappings as needed.
- Once mapped, the accounting/payroll entity will appear next to the ExakTime entity.
- Press when finished.
Unmapping Entities
Unmapping allows you to remove the mapping for an entity. Be aware that trying to export an entity without any mappings can result in export errors, depending on your settings.
Special Direct Connection Mapping Options
Some exporters allow us the option to "Auto-Map" or "Unmap All".
Clicking "Auto-Map" will try to automatically map your ExakTime entities with their equivalents from your accounting/payroll application if the names match exactly.
Clicking "Unmap All" will remove all your mappings to start over. If you click this button accidentally, DO NOT SAVE YOUR CHANGES or you will need to remap all your data. Simply close the window without saving and reopen the mapping window.
Additional Mapping Options
Depending on the exporter selected, additional options can be enabled to offer additional columns on the respective mapping windows. This can include options such as alternative pay, phases, departments, etc. to provide additional information for your time data exports.
Some of these fields allow you to enter data manually via text entry or are populated with data in a drop-down menu when importing the entity via SyncLinx.
In the example below, we are enabling optional fields for Foundation Software.
- Go to Tools and click Exporter Settings....
- The Exporter Settings window should open. Click Configure....
- The Configuration window should open. You will see options like below with drop-down menus. The drop-down menus will dictate what the fields will be associated with. In the example below, we are setting the "Alternative Earning Codes" to the cost code, so the earning codes can be dependent on what cost codes an employee used.
- After setting alternative earning codes to cost codes, we can see the new fields available on the "Map Cost Code" window.