Automate Monthly Payroll Prep with Projects, Timesheets, and QuickBooks Time Sync

Payroll is a calendar problem as much as an accounting problem. Someone must:

• Remind staff (or a client’s team) to submit time before the cutoff
• Collect a clean hours file for the period
• Get those hours into QuickBooks before the payroll run
• Confirm that payslips went out

Doing that in email threads and one-off exports breaks every month. A project with scheduled duplication keeps the same task and step structure, remapped to each calendar month.

LedgerTitan ships a system project template named Monthly Payroll Run with two tasks:

1. Collect timesheets
   • Remind team to submit time (send_email, auto-execute on reminder)
   • Email timesheet CSV (send_email with timesheet attachment) for the project period
2. Run payroll
   • Sync hours to QuickBooks as TimeActivities (sync_qbo_time_activities)
   • Checklist step to run payroll in QuickBooks (payslips are created there)

Use it with a client for client payroll service, or without a client for firm staff—assign teams and workflow recipients accordingly. Schedule calendar-month duplication on the template project so each period gets its own copy (named with the month).

Attach reminders to the collect steps with start dates a few days before period end (and on period end for the CSV). When a step reminder fires, LedgerTitan still sends the usual reminder notification—and, when autoExecute is on, it also runs the workflow step.

Combined with calendar-month project duplication and period date remapping, “three days before month-end” stays correct every month.

Use a Send Email step with Attachments → Timesheet data for project. That builds the same CSV shape as the timesheets export, scoped to:

• The project’s start/due dates (the payroll period)
• An optional client on the project
• Work assignees on the step (users/teams) when you want a subset of people

Workflow email recipients (and optional extra To addresses) receive the attachment—typically your payroll admin, not every timesheet owner. The same Attachments control can also add a file upload or document analysis CSV.

Intuit does not expose a public API to create QuickBooks payslips or paychecks. LedgerTitan is honest about that:

• When QuickBooks is connected, Sync QBO Time Activities pushes unsynced timesheet hours as TimeActivities (employee mapping required under Settings → Organizations → QuickBooks).
• If QuickBooks is not connected, the step soft-skips with a clear note so the project can continue.
• You still run payroll inside QuickBooks to create payslips and pay people.

Map each org user to a QuickBooks employee before relying on sync. Unmapped users are skipped and reported in the step result.

1. Create a project from Monthly Payroll Run (Templates).
2. Assign teams/users; set workflow recipients on the email and CSV steps.
3. Set project dates to the current period; schedule calendar month duplication for the first of each month (or your preferred anchor day).
4. Optionally attach a client for client-scoped payroll.
5. Connect QuickBooks and map employees if you want TimeActivity sync.
6. Add step reminders for “few days before EOM” and “EOM” with auto-execute on the email steps.