Did you know that TimeControl 6.8 includes a powerful Accruals Module to allow Human Resources and Payroll departments to automatically calculate and store time in many different categories? Many organizations have scenarios where the timesheet is an ideal place to calculate overtime based on the total number of hours or the amount of vacation or personal time off that has been earned each period based on a person’s seniority or managing banked overtime. TimeControl’s new Accruals Module allows all of these types of calculations and more.
This extensive functionality is included with every TimeControl or TimeControl Online and has four different accrual rule categories:
1. Calendar Accrual Based on Static Values
In some organizations, your vacation time or personal time off is earned at a standard value. For example, let’s say you get 3 weeks of vacation and a standard week is 40 hours long. Each month you might earn 10 hours. The calculation is 40 hours times 3 weeks for 120 total hours per year of vacation and divide that 120 by 12 months and we get 10 hours per month. TimeControl can automatically do the storage of those hours into each employee’s vacation bank.
2. Calendar Accrual Based on Posted Time Values
Imagine that we need to calculate a set number of hours per employee each month based on the total number of hours accumulated during this period to their personal time off bank. The calculation might be particularly well suited to people who are on part time or hourly pay as opposed to salaried staff.
3. Timesheet Accrual Based on Rate Codes
Some organizations may configure TimeControl to accrue time into a bank based on the value found in the rate code. For example, it is quite common in TimeControl to identify a rate as an overtime rate with specific values for internal cost vs. external billing value. The TimeControl Accruals module can look at these lines and determine if the overtime values should be treated as time to go into a particular employee’s bank such as banked overtime over a certain value.
4. Timesheet Accrual Based on Timesheet Hours
In some organizations, there are rules for the amount of overtime that can be accumulated based on the number of hours in a timesheet. Let’s say, for example, we want to add to the employee’s overtime bank an amount calculated at 1.5 times the hours for any time spent over 40 total hours but below 50 total hours and 2 times the hours for any hours above 50.
A TimeControl instance may include numerous Accrual rules. Some rules could apply to the entire staff and others might apply only to certain staff or even to certain staff under some conditions.
Find out more about TimeControl Accruals at www.timecontrol.com/timesheet/accruals.
Category Archives: banked time
Managing Holidays with TimeControl
The holidays are upon us and here at HMS when we think of Holidays, we think of what Payroll and Human Resources people need to do to properly account for them in the TimeControl timesheet. TimeControl includes functionality that is perfect for managing holidays that will be taken by many staff people and assisting those personnel with entering the appropriate line item in their timesheet.
TimeRequest Wizard
The TimeRequest Wizard is a great function which is typically made available only to Administrators. It to add entries into future timesheets and approve those entries in advance. The function is extremely simple to use. Administrators select a date in the future and then enter the description, number of hours and the charge and rate code that are appropriate for the upcoming holiday. Then the Administrator selects which users should get this timesheet entry. Once the Administrator confirms the entry, TimeControl creates a pre-approved TimeRequest which will automatically create an entry for each of those users in the future timesheet with the properly entered number of hours and charge code already done.
TimeControl Administrators often enter the entire year’s holidays in advance for the entire staff early in the year. Using the TimeRequest Wizard means fewer errors in entry during holidays for those who are entitled to the time off.
Some of the challenges which the TimeRequest Wizard’s functionally overcomes include:
How to manage different holidays for different groups?
The TimeRequest Wizard can create future entries for any filtered or selected group of employees. Perhaps you have US Thanksgiving for the American staff and Canadian Thanksgiving for those in Canada. No problem. The Administrator simply selects different filters for different groups.
What if someone unexpectedly works on the holiday?
No problem. The TimeRequest has been pre-approved and will pre-load into the employee’s timesheet but the employee can overwrite or delete that line should they wish. The TimeRequest entry simply provides them an entry that is pre-made for them, not something that they can’t undo when the time to do their timesheet comes along.
Other functionality that is important for HR and Payroll managers at this time of year includes:
Managing vacation and Personal-time-off (PTO) banks
Around the holidays it’s quite common for some staff people to want to take additional time off from their vacation or Personal-time-off banks. TimeControl supports up to 9 separate banks of time by default. In an employee wants to put additional time on their timesheet for vacation or personal time, they can make a TimeRequest to get approval and then TimeControl’s Validation Rules can check to make sure the employee still has enough time in their time-off bank.
Links to external systems
TimeControl has been designed to link to external systems such as HR and Payroll systems or services so your Holiday and time-off data can get to the right place without having to retype.
Powerful reporting and dashboarding
TimeControl’s reporting and dashboarding options lets us show summary and detailed reports for holidays booked, holidays taken as well as any additional time taken.
TimeControl Human Resources Solution Portal
To find out more about TimeControl and how it can help with your Human Resources (HR) requirements as well as other business challenges, visit the TimeControl HR Solution Portal at www.timecontrol.com/solutions/hr. You’ll find a webcast, and screen shots and you can even see a webcast of the TimeRequest Wizard in action.
TimeControl Value Propositions for Team Members
We have focused on making time-entry in TimeControl quick, easy and convenient because 
the truth is that team members just want to get their timesheet done – usually in a hurry on Friday afternoon. The fact that TimeControl is web-based means that employees can enter their timesheet from almost anywhere, as long as they have access to the internet. With TimeControl Mobile, users can even enter time from their smartphone mobile device.
The TimeControl timesheet can be pre-populated with scheduled tasks imported from a project management system. The timesheet can also be pre-populated with tasks that the employee usually performs, we call this a personal pre-load. Having the tasks already in the timesheet means the team member simply needs to assign hours to the tasks that are already loaded. Another form of timesheet pre-load involves the use of the TimeRequest module. Employees request time-off or other special time through TimeRequest by filling out the date and description of the time (vacation time, personal day, banked time, etc …). When this time request is accepted, the time is automatically populated in the future timesheet.
From the MyTimeControl homepage dashboard, employees can quickly see how much sick time, personal time and vacation time they have taken and is available. Training hours, banked time and more can also be seen if the company opts to track this type of time. This knowledge empowers employees to better manage their time and eliminates the need to be constantly be calling HR to ask for this information.
This post has been a continuation of the TimeControl value propositions started last week. Over the coming weeks I will continue on this series outlining the key benefits of using TimeControl by company role. Last week we covered Executives and in the posts to come we will continue with CIO’s, Project Managers, CFO’s, Resource Managers, HR managers and Payroll managers.
For more information on the benefits of TimeControl by role, please check out the TimeControl Value Propositions factsheet located on the www.timecontrol.com site.
Managing banked time with TimeControl
Keeping track of banked time is one of the fundamental reason for purchasing a timesheet system. Every company has it’s own policies which offers employees certain types of non-standard time that that needs to be kept track of. Vacation time, personal time and sick days are the most common and that is why they come as part of the default set-up in TimeControl. These can be modified or added to for a total of 9 banks per employee. 
Hours are allocated to each of the banks through the employee table. As the employee draws from the banks, TimeControl keeps track of the time taken. When users log into TimeControl they will see a table of banked time on the main dashboard. This table shows the allotted time, time taken and time remaining which allows employees to keep track of their own banked time.
Validation rules can be created to ensure that people are not taking more hours out of a bank than is available. Also, employees can use the TimeRequest function to request permission to take time from a particular bank when permission is needed.
For more information please check out the webcast entitled Managing Banked Time which is available in the TimeControl Online Learning Center.
Manage your vacations with TimeControl
It’s summer time and the vacation schedules are just about to get underway. Here at HMS we thought it would be a good time to share with you a free guide on how to use TimeControl to better manage vacations in your organization. TimeControl is one of the most recognized timesheet systems for organizations who need a single timesheet interface to fulfill the multiple requirements of payroll, human resources, project management and finance.
We’ve created a free webcast narrated by HMS Software’s President, Chris Vandersluis. It’s only a few minutes long and you can see some key functionality demonstrated that helps organizations manage vacations whether from an end-user or administrator perspective. Included in the webcast are discussions on:
The TimeControl Dashboard
The TimeControl dashboard includes a module by default which shows Vacation, Sick Leave and Personal time banks with indicators of how much time the employee has available in each bank, how much they’ve taken and how much is remaining. Just knowing how much time is left available to them lets employees plan their vacations better.
Managing Banked Time
TimeControl can also control banked time in a number of ways. TimeControl can be configured to accrue vacation as its earned so the bank of time increases each month. You can also track banked overtime if your organization has such a policy and track deposits of overtime into the bank and withdrawals of time off from the bank.
Vacation Approvals with TimeRequest™
TimeControl’s TimeRequest feature let’s the employee request approval for vacation right inside the timesheet itself. Then, once approved, the vacation is automatically inserted into the employee’s future timesheet.
Validation Rules
TimeControl’s Validation Rules let administrators determine what vacation rules are acceptable. You can restrict an employee from taking time that they’re not entitled to or, if you allow it, permitting time to be taken before it’s earned. These business rules have everyone who enters their vacation timesheet already complying with the organization’s policies.
Alternate User Functionality
We’ve thought of supervisors also. After all, managers and supervisors take vacation too! TimeControl’s Alternate User function lets a supervisor delegate their approval responsibilities to someone else while they’re away. (TimeControl still tracks who has actually done the approvals for proper auditing.)
TimeControl Mobile
Finally, if the vacation is going so well that you’d like to keep it going for another week, TimeControl Mobile is a part of every TimeControl implementation. Use your Smartphone to log into TimeControl from wherever you are and add a week’s vacation in your timesheet!
To see the free webcast, visit the TimeControl HR Solutions page at http://www.timecontrol.com/solutions/hr/. The webcast is available in the Webcasts area at the bottom of the page.