Timesheet Expert 4.5
If your business is perfectly managed, and everything always happens
on time, you don't need this program. For the remaining 99.99 per
cent of us, it's essential! This is the full 5-user version of the software.
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System requirements: 486 or higher, 8Mb RAM, Microsoft Windows 3.1 or higher. Uninstall: No. |
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Contact details: Atlantic EC Limited, phone +44 (0) 174 393 190, e-mail Atlantic_EC@compuserve.com |
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Using TimeSheet Expert Watch these exclusive PC Plus ScreenCam movies demonstrating how to use Timesheet Expert.
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Introduction to Timesheet
Welcome to Timesheet Expert Server, designed to help your organisation track time and expenses for projects, clients and activities. This page provides a brief overview of the software and highlights some of the benefits to be gained from using an automated timesheet system.
A Brief Overview of Timesheet Expert
Timesheet Expert is, as its name suggests, a comprehensive time tracking and management system.
Timesheet records what activities your resources have been working on, when the work was done, how long it took, what cost has been incurred and how much of the cost is chargeable to a client (if applicable). It tracks Resources (staff, equipment and so on), their hourly Costs, Charges and Expenses by a variety of different criteria, including Project and Client. You can also enter basic rates for Resources, with National Insurance, pension and other sums. This ensures that you can account for most, if not all associated Costs.
Although Timesheet offers comprehensive features, it is designed to be used with little or no instruction. Naturally, there are preparatory steps required before timesheet entries are made - among other things:
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Resources need to be identified. Each resource has one timesheet, which can be combined with others for reporting and invoicing purposes.
- Activities need to be specified. Activities are the basic units
used in Timesheet to describe how resources spend their time.
- Timesheet reference tables must be defined. Timesheet cannot supply these - they refer to the projects, clients, charges and so on relevant to the work being carried out by the resources.
As outlined above, a set of basic information has to be available to the software; this information includes, Resources, Clients, Projects, Activities, Costs and Charges. Of course, different organisations may use different terms to describe this information - for example, Resources could refer simply to Staff or Employees. In order to match existing company standards, you can redefine the terminology used to match existing internal labels - for example, Resource may be changed to 'Employee' or 'Engineer' and once changed, the new label applies to both screen views and printed reports.
It is advisable to have Supervisor who is responsible for the system by maintaining the list of active users and managing the reference tables - Resources, Clients, Projects, Activities, Costs, Charges and Expense Types - so that data entry is verified on input. In addition, having a Supervisor in charge of these aspects of Timesheet, leaves the other users of the system free to simply concentrate on either viewing relevant information or inputting the hours worked and associated charges.
Each Resource has its own timesheet in which the hours worked on a particular date are logged together with associated information such as the name of the project, activity, cost and so on - all of which can be selected from the reference tables created by the Supervisor. In fact, even if a Resource does not have direct access to Timesheet, you can still print blank timesheets, which can then be completed manually by the Resource. This ensures that a coherent approach to timekeeping is maintained throughout your organisation.
Timesheets are normally displayed on a week by week basis summarising the data either by project or activity, depending on the method which best suits your existing working practice:
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The Activity View is designed for users who primarily perform multiple activities on a single project and lists the Activities concerned down the left hand edge.
- The Project View is for use by users who primarily perform a
single activity on multiple projects and is arranged to show the
relevant Projects listed down the left hand edge of the Timesheet Grid.
Time may be recorded directly using the handy stopwatch feature or by entering the number of hours spent in the traditional way.
Advanced security administration allows the Supervisor to decide which projects and activities are applicable to each resource and whether they are able to have timesheets and expenses auto-approved. In addition, access privileges may be set which allow restrictions to be placed such that users can only access areas of the system relevant to them. This simplifies use of the software by preventing people having to choose between options which are not applicable to their work; for example, the payroll department can be given access to view costs and expenses without being able to maintain any other data.
Tracking time and expenses logged can be a purely reactive process. True time management is proactive. Timesheet's budget facility ensures that you can both monitor your organisation's use of time and, having set up budgets, you can later compare your actual hours, costs and charges against those budgeted. Any variance can then be analysed to show whether you could have allocated resources more effectively.
Once timesheets, and expenses if applicable, have been entered and approved, they can be invoiced with the invoice total being calculated automatically. Invoices can include VAT (or other taxes applicable to overseas companies) if required. Once posted, the appropriate timesheet and expenses entries are stamped with the corresponding invoice number to provide an audit trail showing which timesheets match which invoices. Invoice entries may be made up of individual entries or summarised by project, client, activity or resource; additional lines can also be added to an invoice to provide further explanation, such as specific materials used on a project. Each invoice line may be associated with a nominal code, which enables information to be exported directly into your accounts system.
A wide variety of reports include a complete summary of time logged on anything from a daily to a yearly basis; reports showing the performance of individual resources can be generated if you wish to perform cost/charge comparisons to assess profitability. Naturally, report data can also be filtered to allow the extraction of particular information - perhaps, for example, you just want to see the total expenses claimed by two Resources working on one particular project. Timesheet data can also be exported to spreadsheets for further manipulation or presentation in graph form with the usual choice of bar, pie, line and area formats.
In conclusion, Timesheet is flexible enough to be used as a stand alone system for small businesses or by many users in a large corporate environment. Its sophisticated features ensure it can be used by a wide variety of people including project managers, engineers, programmers, MIS/DP managers to name but a few. In addition, its charge rate facility makes it particularly useful for consultants, architects, auditors and anyone else involved in contract time recording, where Resources accrue charges for the Client and costs for the Employer.
The Benefits of an Automated System
In today's increasingly competitive business environment, the goal of most organisations is to enhance their competitive advantage. One road towards this goal includes finding effective means for improving business procedures - such as the efficient processing of timesheets. Many organisations have employees who are either salaried or paid for work on projects chargeable to clients at an hourly or daily rate - this means timesheets must be completed in order to determine an employee's salary or how much to invoice a client.
Timesheets are completed and presented to a supervisor who checks them and passes them on for authorisation - the process sounds simple. However, when you consider that timesheets are, in practice, coming in from various departments throughout an organisation and not all require authorisation by the same manager, you can soon see a situation developing where timesheets are passing back and forth between different personnel for some time before they reach the payroll or accounts departments, ready for payment or invoicing.
Automating your timekeeping system with Timesheet brings with it many benefits:
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Using Timesheet you can ensure that everyone completes a timesheet. In a paper system, making sure that all timesheets are completed and handed in punctually is one of the most difficult aspects to manage. Timesheet allows the Supervisor to keep track of all timesheets and their status enabling appropriate corrective action to be taken promptly.
- Timesheet has been designed to ensure that the necessary task of
logging hours worked is quick and easy to perform. Often, employees
consider completing timesheets an unwelcome task. By reducing the
effort in completing this task, Timesheet ensures that both regular
and occasional users are insulated from the complexity of the system.
- Timesheet allows a list of valid charge codes to be created
ensuring that it is easy to search for a relevant code. In addition,
having a preset list forces users to allocate their hours to approved
charges, eliminating the use of meaningless codes that do not tie
work in to specific projects or activities.
- Timesheet allows approval rules to be determined by the
Supervisor. In a paper system getting timesheets signed off can be
the most time-consuming function of the entire process. With
Timesheet you have the facility to approve timesheet entries and
expenses on a resource by resource basis; this is particularly useful
if you wish to only approve timesheets associated with contract staff
and are happy to allow all permanent staff timesheets to be approved automatically.
- Timesheet allows a list of multiple cost and charge rates to be
maintained; this list can include rates for normal work hours,
overtime, sick leave and so on. Rates can be used for many purposes:
for example, the accounts department will need to track normal and
charge out rates for invoicing, while the payroll department may need
to determine overtime payments.
- Timesheet offers a wide range of reports to show information by
project, activity, date, department, resource and so on.
Cross-referencing information in a timesheet system is vital, and
with Timesheet, data may be sorted and selected based on the criteria
of many fields in the system. Reports may be produced to answer
questions such as "How many hours were spent last year on
Research and Development?" or "How much overtime was
required to get the new product to market on time?"
- Timesheet provides comprehensive security features that allow the system to be set up to ensure that only appropriate areas are available to different users. A timesheet system is a financial system containing highly confidential information and, as such, the information contained must be controlled in a secure fashion.
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Timesheet uses the Open Database Connectivity standard (ODBC) which allows it to integrate fully with other corporate database systems. As such, managers can use it in isolation to do their own personal manipulations while corporate systems that require timesheet information can still be linked directly, allowing for a single point of entry for any piece of data.
These are just some of the many benefits to be gained, as you will discover once you are using Timesheet!