How to move Timesheets with Xero Practice Manager

Managing and Reallocating Timesheets in Xero Practice Manager

In professional services environments, accurate time tracking is essential for both operational efficiency and financial reporting. However, situations often arise where timesheet entries need to be reallocated—whether due to incorrect job assignments, changes in billing status, or internal restructuring of work categories. Understanding how to effectively manage and move timesheets within Xero Practice Manager is therefore a valuable skill within modern Accounting Practice Management.

A common scenario involves internal jobs that were initially set up with billable tasks. Over time, it may become necessary to reclassify these activities as non-billable, particularly when they relate to administrative or internal functions. Rather than editing each individual timesheet entry, a more efficient approach is to create a new internal job configured with non-billable tasks and transfer the existing timesheets accordingly.

The process begins with the creation of a new internal job. This job should be assigned to an internal client—often labeled simply as “Internal” or aligned with the organization’s name. Careful attention should be given to the job structure, including assigning the appropriate financial year, selecting team members, and defining tasks. Importantly, each task must be individually created and explicitly marked as non-billable, as bulk task creation does not allow for this configuration.

Maintaining manageable job sizes is also a key consideration. Large volumes of timesheets—particularly exceeding 100,000 entries—can impact system performance. As a best practice, internal jobs should be rolled over annually to ensure optimal usability and reporting efficiency.

Once the new job is established, timesheets can be transferred from the original job using the “move timesheets” function. During this process, a critical step is ensuring that the option to update the billable status based on the destination task is selected. This ensures that all transferred entries adopt the correct non-billable classification, thereby preserving the integrity of historical data and improving reporting accuracy.

Finally, after confirming that all timesheets have been successfully moved, the original job should be archived to prevent further use. This not only maintains data clarity but also reinforces proper workflows for future time tracking.

In summary, the ability to efficiently reorganize timesheet data supports both operational clarity and accurate financial reporting. By following structured processes within Xero Practice Manager, firms can ensure their internal activities are correctly categorized and aligned with best practices.