Category Archives: vacation

Do you know how much time is in the vacation bank?

It’s summTimeControl Detailed Vacation Bank Report, TimeControl, Enterprise Timesheet, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter Vandersluisertime and for many organizations, that means employees are taking advantage of the warm weather to take vacations.  For some, those vacations have been planned earlier in the year, for others, they are just making their plans.

TimeControl provides tools to track not just when employees took vacation but how much vacation time an employee has earned and how much they’ve taken throughout the year.

The Employee Bank is one of multiple banks of time within TimeControl that can be activated and monitored.  Time can be earned automatically within TimeControl using the Accruals module.  Alternately, if this is managed elsewhere, the banked time can be imported from outside sources such as the HR system.  Once earned, the banked time is visible to the employees in a report or a dashboard view.

When it’s time to take vacation, the employee selects a charge code for that in their timesheet either in advance or after their time off.  TimeControl then automatically deducts that time from the appropriate bank.

One of the most time-consuming parts of vacation banks for management are discussions with employees about how much time they’ve earned or taken but this too can be managed in TimeControl with the Detailed Employee Bank report.  For day-to-day operations, the report has a dynamic view which can be viewed and filtered instantly no matter how many employees there are.

Vacations are the most common but only one aspect of banked time off and scheduled time off.  TimeControl can also impose validation rules on TimeRequests for time off to ensure the rules are followed of time off requests vs. time in the bank.  Other banked time can also be tracked such as sick leave or personal time off.

You can find out more about how TimeControl manages time off requests and vacations at: www.timecontrol.com/features/vacation-approvals and more about accruals at: www.timecontrol.com/features/accruals.

TimeControl Value Propositions for Team Members

We have focused on making time-entry in TimeControl quick, easy and convenient because CAMERA PICTURES 018the 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.

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.

vacations webcast 2 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.