Thursday, August 29, 2013

How to Import QuickBooks Time Clock Users


Rather than having to maintain two separate entry points when you hire new employees, Virtual TimeClock allows you to import QuickBooks time clock users. This means you only have to enter the new employee information one time before importing the new data into your time clock software.

First, export your QuickBooks employees. Go to the File menu of QuickBooks and select Utilities, Export, Lists to IIF Files. Check Employee List and OK. You may change the file name, but you must keep the .IIF extension.



Next, import your QuickBooks users. Choose Configure from the administrative toolbar of Virtual TimeClock and open the Users control panel. Click Add, Import Users and follow the instructions for importing a QuickBooks IIF File.



Existing Virtual TimeClock users will be updated with the personal information from QuickBooks if a matching social security number is found. For users with no social security numbers, you’ll be prompted to merge records for those users with the same last name. If you don’t import your QuickBooks users before performing your first time clock export, QuickBooks may create blank or duplicate employee records if it doesn’t find a name with an exact match.

All the steps needed to integrate QuickBooks with Virtual TimeClock can be found in our QuickBooks Payroll Integration Guide.

Jeff
Tier 2 Tech Support
Redcort Software, Inc.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Scripted Time Clock Installations


The Virtual TimeClock installer can be run from a command line and accepts some parameters to assist in scripted installation. This is especially helpful when you need to install a large number of time clock clients. Here are the most common parameters.

/SP-
Disables the This will install... Do you wish to continue? startup prompt at the beginning of installation. The parameter includes the trailing dash ( - ).

/SILENT, /VERYSILENT
Instructs the installation to be silent or very silent. A silent install does not show the wizard or the background window. It does display the installation progress window. A very silent install doesn't show the progress window in addition to the two windows suppressed by the SILENT parameter. In either case, any error messages that occur during installation are displayed. /SILENT and /VERYSILENT do not suppress the startup prompt (above).

/SUPPRESSMSGBOXES
Suppress message boxes during installation. Only has an effect when combined with /SILENT and /VERYSILENT. Any message boxes that would have been displayed are responded to in the following fashion:

  • Keep newer file? = yes - newer files are kept
  • File exists, confirm overwrite. = no - files are not overwritten
  • Abort or Retry? = Abort - process is ended
  • Retry/Cancel? = Cancel - process is canceled
  • Warnings about low disk space, directories existing (or not), exit the setup program, confirmation of uninstallation, etc. = Yes - continue the operation
  • Setup or uninstall completed, and restart needed = Yes - restart the computer

Examples
Here are some examples of these parameters in action that you may find useful. These examples are using the Pro Client installer.

Install the program without displaying any of the standard prompts, i.e. install location, but still show the progress, and verify the user wants to perform the install: TimeClockProClientSetup.exe /silent

To avoid asking the user to confirm, but still show progress: TimeClockProClientSetup.exe /SP- /silent

Confirm that the user wants to perform the install, but show no other progress: TimeClockProClientSetup.exe /verysilent

Skip the confirmation, and don't show any other progress: TimeClockProClientSetup.exe /SP- /verysilent

Jeff
Tier 2 Tech Support
Redcort Software, Inc.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Port Forwarding


In order to use Virtual TimeClock at different locations over the Internet, there are a couple of one-time setup steps that need to be completed.

Static IP address
First, have your Internet service provider (ISP) update your Internet service to a static IP address. Make note of the static IP address they assign you and have them update the router configuration at your time clock server location to use the new static IP address.

Port forwarding
Second, open a port on the router at your time clock server location. This is commonly known as 'port forwarding' or 'port mapping'. Since every router is a little different, you'll need to consult the user's guide that came with your router for the exact steps to set up port forwarding. There's a website call Portforward.com that I've found really helpful for setting up port forwarding on different routers and modems. It's not comprehensive, but it's rare I can't find the router I'm looking for.

Jeff
Tier 2 Tech Support
Redcort Software, Inc.