Integrating with FreshBooks – Chrometa

Connect to Chrometa for a single user
Connect to Chrometa for a team
Import clients, projects, tasks and users
Automated rules
Client and Project keywords
Manual Allocation
Rules and keywords on the fly
Daily reminder to review your time
Sync Preview for a single user
Sync Preview for a team
Export user's time to FreshBooks
Export team's time to FreshBooks
FAQs
Related links

All users can link their FreshBooks account to Chrometa, import clients, projects and tasks into Chrometa and export the time back to FreshBooks

Once they've linked their account:

Team members and solo users can allocate their time entries to clients and projects in the Time Dashboard page and export the time to FreshBooks.
Team admins can allocate time entries from all team members in the Team Dashboard page and export the time on the team member's behalf to FreshBooks

This feature is available to those using the V21 version.

Connect to Chrometa for a single user

Go to Integrations > FreshBooks
Click Connect Chrometa to FreshBooks
Log in to your FreshBooks account if not already logged in.
Authorize Chrometa to import your clients, projects and tasks and to export time entries back to FreshBooks

Connect to Chrometa for a team

Go to Integrations > FreshBooks
Click Connect Chrometa to FreshBooks
Log in to your FreshBooks account as a team admin.
Authorize Chrometa to import your clients, projects, tasks and users and to export time entries back to FreshBooks

Once connected, Chrometa will match each FreshBooks account to the Chrometa account using the user's email address.

Import clients, projects, tasks and users

After users connect their FreshBooks account, an initial sync is triggered. This imports clients, projects, tasks and users (if using a team account) into Chrometa. The first sync can take up to 10 minutes to complete.

Clients are listed here.

Projects are listed here.

After the initial sync, when a user adds a new client or project in FreshBooks, or when a user updates a client or project in FreshBooks, the changes are immediately reflected in Chrometa.

Manual Sync

A user can also start a sync in the background:

Go to Clients or Matters
Click Sync with FreshBooks

Automated Rules

The "Automated rules" setting adds a list of keywords to your clients and projects based on the client name, email address and other basic information from FreshVooks. When Chrometa sees the keyword in a time entry, it automatically allocates it to the client. A user can add/edit the list of keywords.

To turn the "Automated rules" option:

Go to Rules > Default rules
Turn all applicable options for email addresses, phone numbers, first name and last name

Client and Project keywords

A user can see, add, update and delete the list of keywords associated with a client or project from the Clients or Projects page:

Go to Matters or Clients
Search for your matter, click on the matter name
Enter the associated phone number(s) in the Keywords field and hit the 'Enter' key
Click Save keywords

Every time a document (Word, Excel, PDF...), email or website you work on contains at least one keyword, it is automatically allocated to the client or project.

As a team admin, the list of keywords is applied to the rest of the team.

Manual allocation

On top of the automatically allocated entries, you can manually allocate time to a client or project (or change the allocation made by Chrometa).

Go to Time > Allocated or Unallocated
Select a time entry or multiple time entries by checking the box
Click Edit entries
Select a project from the dropdown
Click Save Entry

Rules and keywords on the fly

All past and future phone calls to and from the number entered in the keywords field will be allocated to the matter.

Daily reminder to review your time

A user can request Chrometa support to send daily notifications to the PC, Mac or Phone to review the time.

Sync Preview for a single user

At the end of the day, the user can review their time under My Time > Sync Preview, this is the preview screen of what the data will look like in FreshBooks.

From this screen, a user can edit the time entry: total time, description (all the related documents, emails and online activities) and formatting. By default, time entries are grouped by day and project.

Sync Preview for a team

A similar screen with data from the entire team can be viewed by the team admin under Team Time > Sync Preview.

From this screen, a team admin can edit the time entry: total time, description (all the related documents, emails and online activities) and formatting. By default, time entries are grouped by user, day and project.

Export user's time to Freshbooks

When ready to export time entries to Freshbooks:

Click the checkbox at the beginning of the line for each time entry or select All
Click Export to FreshBooks

Time entries are sent to Freshbooks and hidden from the Chrometa Sync Preview page to avoid double exporting.

Export a team's time to FreshBooks

When ready to export time entries to FreshBooks:

Click the checkbox at the beginning of the line for each time entry and user or select All
Click Export to FreshBooks

Time entries are sent to FreshBooks and hidden from the Chrometa Sync Preview page to avoid double exporting.

FAQs

Does the integration work with FreshBooks Classic?

No, the integration only works with FreshBooks (2017 update), to connect to a FreshBooks classic version, use our Chrometa V5

Is the Export automatic?

No, the user or team admin needs to review the time and then export to FreshBooks.