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AccountLinx is an application that we offer that allows you to export your ExakTime time data for your payroll/accounting software. With AccountLinx, you enter additional information so time data we export is properly understood by your payroll/accounting software. After the time data reaches your payroll/accounting software, you then utilize that time data for job-cost reporting, payroll, and more.
Table of Contents
- Review Time Records on ExakTime Connect
- Open AccountLinx
- Select the Date Range to Export
- Perform Any Necessary Mappings
- Select Employees to Export
- Export Your Time
- Import Time Data into Your Payroll Software
Please Note
Before proceeding, there are a couple of things to keep in mind:
- This article assumes that you:
- Have installed and set up the latest version of AccountLinx.
- Have familiarity with AccountLinx and its menus.
- Have familiarity with utilizing time data in your payroll/accounting software.
- It can help to use pay period closing in ExakTIme Connect to prevent further time card modifications after you have finalized your time card review and edits. This can help ensure the data is consistent between ExakTime and your payroll/accounting software.
- We will refer to any payroll/accounting software as "payroll software" in this article for brevity.
- If you are new to using AccountLinx to import time data into your payroll software, we recommend going through the export process days before payroll submission. This provides ample time to resolve any unexpected errors before payroll.
- The steps below are what we believe to be best practices for exporting from AccountLinx. If your company requires a different set of steps, we recommend you document your steps and why they differ. This can help in situations where you ask us for assistance so we can better understand your process as we usually operate under the assumption of best practices.
Review Time Records on ExakTime Connect
Before we can export any time from AccountLinx for your payroll software, your employees' time should be reviewed and confirmed in ExakTime Connect. It is easier to correct the time in our system before it reaches your payroll software and allows consistent data between the two systems. If you are unfamiliar with time card details, please refer to the following dedicated article.
We also recommend enabling and using pay period closing. This feature allows you to close a pay period to prevent unexpected changes to time cards after they have been finalized.
Open AccountLinx
Open AccountLinx once you have confirmed the time is ready for export in ExakTIme Connect. The application should appear like below.
Select the Date Range to Export
Use the date range menus towards the top-right of AccountLinx to select the start and end dates of the time data you want to export, then click View. Only the time records within this date range will be available to export.
Perform Any Necessary Mappings
If you have added new employees, locations, and/or cost codes to ExakTime Connect, you may need to map these ExakTime entities to their payroll software equivalents. This can be done by entering the appropriate ID or performing direct mappings, depending on the accounting package.
For example, an employee may be known as "John Doe" in ExakTime Connect, but is known as Employee 1045 in your payroll software. The "Mapping" step allows you to help bridge that gap of information between two different systems.
In the top left of AccountLinx will be a series of options depending on the payroll software you are using:
- Map Employees
- Map Locations
- Map Cost Codes
Perform any necessary mappings so the time data will be understood by your payroll software and populate properly. If you are unsure of how to map entities, please refer to the following dedicated article.
Select Employees to Export
Select the employees you want to export time data for with the checkboxes towards the left of the employee names. Clicking the checkbox for an employee will also select all their time for the date range you are viewing. You can checkmark each employee individually or click All to select everyone. To remove a selection, uncheck the name or click Clear to unselect everyone.
If an employee's name is italicized and grayed out, the employee does not have eligible time data to export. If an employee with no time data is selected during your export, nothing will be exported for them generally, so you can keep them selected.
A red exclamation icon appears for any employee with incomplete time records for the selected date range. Their incomplete time records will not appear in AccountLinx and must be addressed in ExakTime Connect. If you make any changes to time records, click View for the date range to ensure it refreshes the application and has the latest time records for export. You will need to reselect your employees when refreshing the date range.
A good rule of thumb is to click All to select all employees, then uncheck any employee with time data you do not want to export.
Additional Sorting Options
Employees can be filtered based on having time for the selected date range with the drop-down menu above the employee list. Employees who have no time records will not be listed. Employees with incomplete time records will be listed, but the incomplete time records will not be listed for selection.
If you see an employee's name as gray and italicized, it indicates that their time card only contains incomplete time records. The employee's time card should be corrected for their time records to be exported.
The Location view allows you to separate your employees and their time records based on the locations worked and can be enabled with the drop-down menu next to the search bar. This can help when employees work in multiple locations, but time records for specific locations should not be exported.
Using the checkbox for a location in the first column will select any time records for an employee containing that location. For example, if an employee has worked at multiple locations, but only 1 location was selected, only the time records with the selected location will be selected.
You can use employee categories to separate employees if you only need to select certain employees, such as field or non-contract employees.
Special Consideration for Time Records with Same Date as Export
When selecting your employees or time to export, you cannot select any time records for the same day as your export. This is to help prevent accidental exports of the current date which may be incomplete or not corrected and for policy calculations.
If you need to export records for the same day, please refer to the following article for more information on a possible work around.
Export Your Time
- Click Export from the toolbar when you are ready to export your time data.
- Depending on the payroll software, two different things will happen:
- For software such as QuickBooks and Sage 100 MasterBuilder that we can connect directly with, the time data will be exported directly into the software.
- For software such as Foundation, ADP, and ComputerEase, AccountLinx will generate a file you will import into your software. You will be asked where to save the file to begin the export process.
- We recommend making the file name recognizable in case it is saved with past exports (e.g. have the export date in the file name).
- It may help to double-check if your accounting/payroll application requires a specific file name when importing.
- A window for the Export Progress screen will appear. The results are displayed on the screen as each employee's daily records are exported. The Export Progress screen will indicate when the export process is complete. If you encounter any errors or warnings that would prevent the time data from exporting, note the error for further review. Click Close when complete.
What AccountLinx Does After Exporting
After AccountLinx successfully exports the employee records, the records will be marked as being exported. When marked as being exported:
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In AccountLinx - The time records will be "hidden" in AccountLinx to prevent duplicate exports. The employees' names will be grayed out if they do not have any eligible records to export.
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In ExakTime Connect - The time records will have an orange arrow icon arrow on the time card pages of ExakTime Connect.
Need to Reexport Time Records?
As the records have been hidden on AccountLinx, you are not able to export the records again unless you reset the exported records. For more information on how to do this, please refer to the following dedicated article.
If Errors/Warning Encountered
If you encountered any errors/warnings when exporting your time data, see if you can resolve the errors/warnings and try to export again. If you receive the same messages when trying to export and are unsure on how to resolve them, feel free to contact us with the "Request Support" link at the top of the page.
Import Time Data into Your Payroll Software
For software we cannot connect to directly, you will need to import the file exported in the previous step into your software.
As the steps for importing time data into accounting/payroll applications can differ, we cannot provide specific steps for each application. We have steps for some commonly used applications such as Foundation and ComputerEase that can be found in the following section.
If you are unsure of the steps to import the time data, we can try to assist you to the best of our ability. But we recommend referring to the support resources or the support staff of the accounting/payroll application as they would be more knowledgeable to assist you.
Reviewing and Using Time Data in Your Payroll Software
After the time data has been imported into your payroll software, we recommend reviewing the time data in your payroll software to ensure that the data is what you are expecting before submitting payroll.
If the time data is what you had expected, you should be able to utilize it for payroll, billing, reporting, and more. If you are unsure of how to proceed with using the time data, we recommend consulting the support resources/contacts of the respective accounting/payroll application as they would be more knowledgeable to assist you.