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Freshbooks has several standardized reports, one of which is “Time Entry Details.” 

We generate this report every morning. 

Is there a way to get Zapier to generate the Time Entry Details report and either email it or add it to Google Sheets? 

I tried the integration in which every new time entry is immediately entered in Google sheets, but rather than appearing as it does in the Time Entry Details report, with a text project name and a number of hours, it instead provides a project number and a number of seconds. 

Hi ​@ljw,

 

Welcome to the Community.

 

Zapier doesn't directly support generating FreshBooks' "Time Entry Details" report, but you can automate the process with a workaround. Use FreshBooks' automation to create and email the report, then set up Zapier's Email Parser to extract key details. Finally, use Zapier's Google Sheets integration to log the data in a spreadsheet, optionally formatting time entries. While not a perfect solution, this approach can help streamline the process.

 

I hope this information is helpful, and I'm here to answer any further questions.

You advise that we “use FreshBooks' automation to create and email the report,” but I just confirmed with FreshBooks support that no such automation exists. Freshbooks’ rep confirmed that reports must be generated manually, and they do not automatically generate reports. 

Do you have any other suggestions?

I’m also wondering if you have ideas for improving this: 

“I tried the integration in which every new time entry is immediately entered in Google sheets, but rather than appearing …with a text project name and a number of hours, it instead provides a project number and a number of seconds. ”

Hi ​@ljw,

 

I apologize for any confusion regarding FreshBooks automation for creating and emailing reports. There may have been a miscommunication or a recent change in their service, and I appreciate your patience as we explore alternative solutions.

 

While FreshBooks may not offer an automation feature for reports, you can use Zapier to streamline the process. For example, you can create a Zap that triggers when a new invoice is generated in FreshBooks and automatically sends an email with the invoice details. While this isn't a full report, it may help optimize your workflow.

 

Regarding your data formatting issue, FreshBooks transfers project numbers instead of names and records time in seconds rather than hours when sending data to Google Sheets.

 

To fix this, you can use Formatter by Zapier to convert the project number into the project name and adjust the time format from seconds to hours. If you need assistance setting this up, I'd be happy to help you.

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