Tag Archives: time and attendance

rates

Show me the money!

When we think about a timesheet, we’re more likely to think in terms of hours and minutes rather than dollars (or Euros or Sterling) and cents.  But, in the end, time resolves to money.  For some organizations, they try not to think in terms of rates because the conversation can be so complex or so contentious.

TimeControl was designed from its inception to tackle that challenge.  The first thing to think about is what a rate on a timesheet means and the problem can be that it might mean different things to different people.  Everyone might easily agree that a person worked on a particular task for an hour yesterday.  But to Payroll, that means one thing, to Billing that means something very different and to a project management team that might mean something different again.

That same hour that Payroll says “Well, that actual cost of that hour was $55.00.” might mean to billing “That invoice-able rate of that hour was actually $110.00” or “The invoice-able rate of that hour was $0.”  For project management perhaps they work on an average basis and don’t worry about things like overtime, double overtime, unbillable time or banked time.”  But other parts of the organization do worry about those very things.

The rate structure of TimeControl just like the rest of the product is phenomenally flexible and, unlikely virtually any other timesheet product we’ve encountered, it is designed to be flexible in multiple directions at the same time.

We’ve put together materials that can make this easier to understand for new clients who are just getting their rate structure started or long time existing clients who want to extend their TimeControl to tackle other aspects of costing in the timesheet.  You can find webcasts, screen shots, slide shows and a white paper called “How to create your TimeControl Rate Structure” on the TimeControl website at: https://www.timecontrol.com/features/rates.

 

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Managing non-project hours in TimeControl

TimeControl is so often talked about as a project management tool that we sometimes forget how important it is to manage hours that aren’t part of a project at all.  One of the most powerful aspects of TimeControl is being able to be the timesheet that can track hours for tasks as well as all the non-project time.  This allows a timesheet to be entered that is complete.  It has all the hours spent in the organization for all purposes.

Unlike the timesheets that are included with many project management systems, TimeControl is designed to serve both Project Management and Human Resources at the same time. A TimeControl timesheet may have entries that are destined for updating tasks in a project but it might also have hours that are key for invoicing, for job costing, for vacation, sick leave and other entitlements and, of course, for payroll.  Only an auditable timesheet is suitable for these multiple purposes at once and TimeControl is designed with this in mind.

Aside from the obvious time and attendance functionality, there are numerous functions within TimeControl to support these many non-project processes they include:

  • TimeControl’s Banks management includes functionality to track time off, overtime, sick leave, banked overtime, vacation management, training time and more. This gives Human Resources powerful auditable tools for tracking entitlements that have been taken and time remaining for those categories.
  • TimeControl’s TimeRequest™ lets timesheet users request vacation or personal time off in advance and once approved, have that time automatically inserted right into their timesheet on the appropriate day.
  • TimeControl Accruals does automatic, auditable calculations of overtime, banked time, rate changes and keeps a traceable record of when time and extra earnings were earned.
  • TimeControl’s TimeRequest™ Wizard lets an administrator pre-approve days off for such as holidays for large groups of users and have those timesheet entries automatically appear in user’s timesheets on the appropriate day.
  • TimeControl’s business Validation Rules lets you configure the rules that are appropriate for using entitlements like vacation time or personal time off so that users don’t accidentally take sick leave on a weekend or vacation time that wasn’t approved or personal time off that exceeds the time in their bank.

The free TimeControl and Human Resources Portal has extensive information on the non-project use of TimeControl including white papers, webcasts, factsheets and video lessons to help you understand how TimeControl timesheets can play and important role far beyond your project management needs.

 

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Why are there so many types of timesheets?

TooManyChoices_300x300If you do an Internet search for the word “timesheet” you’re going to find hundreds of thousands of timesheets.  That makes the search essentially useless.  If you start looking at what you might need in a timesheet you’re still going to find hundreds of options.  Why does the market support so many different timesheets?  Are they all the same?

They’re not.

One of the reasons so many timesheet systems survive in the market is that many of them are targeted at specific uses.  By far the most popular timesheet type is for time and attendance.  This tracks how much time each employee spends at the office and, if they’re absent, why.  This allows payroll to be calculated and for the HR department, allows banks of vacation, sick leave and time off to be update.

The next most popular type is almost certainly time and billing.  Popular with professionals like accountants, lawyer, engineers and consultants, time and billing timesheets need to track the company name for which work was done, the rate at which time was billed and enough description to justify the invoice later.

Project manager systems also have timesheets, they are designed to update the actual time spent against planned tasks.

And there are other timesheets for other purposes such as government programs that require particular kinds of timesheet reporting to be compliant.

The challenge with so many types of timesheet systems is that different parts of an organization can end up selecting something very different to meet their particular needs.  That can result in deploying multiple timesheets in the same place and in a worst-case situation, employees might have to fill in one, two or even more timesheets to complete their week.

We’ve recently updated our webcast and produced both a white paper and presentation on this phenomena and how TimeControl can be used to overcome the multiple timesheet challenge.

You’ll find the webcast at: TimeControl.com/resources/webcasts.
The White paper is at: TimeControl.com/resources/whitepapers.
And the Presentation can be found at: TimeControl.com/resources/presentations.

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Managing what isn’t there – missing timesheets

Nerd_Lost_iStock-906654482_300x200.jpgOn a Monday morning, sometimes the tougest thing to deal with is what isn’t there at all.  Anyone who has ever been a supervisor, timesheet administrator or team leader knows that the most challenging thing on a Monday morning can be locating and managing any missing timesheets.

TimeControl has features and functions to deal with missing timesheets and we’ve just released a new White Paper to help you navigate your many options.  The white paper is organized into three sections:

1. Avoiding Missing Timesheets

That should be the first step of course.  If we didn’t have any missing timesheets we wouldn’t need to manage them!  This section looks at Reminder Emails, TimeControl Reminders, Notifications of Missing Timesheets, Validation Rules and Individual’s Dashboards among other features.

2. Locating Missing Timesheets

If timesheets still turn up missing, TimeControl has numerous methods of locating them and informing users that they’re missing.  This section covers the Missing Timesheet Notifications, Missing Timesheet Reports, Supervisor Dashboards and how to be notified once the missing timesheets are on the way.

3. Managing Missing Timesheets

Timesheets can be missing for many reasons and depending on the cause and the particular situation, TimeControl has tools for managing the timesheets and ensure they get created or completed and released to the appropriate authority.  This section covers Alternate Users and the Change Timesheet Ownership tools.

The White Paper: Managing what you can’t See.  How to manage missing timesheets with TimeControl is available now on the White Paper page of the TimeControl website.

For a complete list of TimeControl White Papers, visit: TimeControl.com/resources/whitepapers.

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A timesheet, is a timesheet, is a timesheet… Isn’t it?

A timesheet is just a timesheet, isn’t it?

Not so much.

What we’ve found here at HMS since 1984 is that timesheet requirements seem to be all the same until you put different departments who need them into the same room. Suddenly, the requirements seem quite different.

In 1984 when we were working on the very first mandate as HMS Software, we had to create a timesheet that would encompass the requirements of payroll and project management at the same time. The design requirements were so different, we ended up almost doubling the effort we had estimated in doing the work originally.

We needed a Time and Attendance timesheet for payroll with numerous requirements from the Finance department.

We also needed a task-based project tracking timesheet with the ability to update the project management schedule.

And, that was complex enough. The project was delivered successfully but the seeds had been planted for what would ultimately become the commercial TimeControl 10 years later.

As we did design on the out-of-the box multi-function TimeControl we realized there were more types of timesheets than just those two.

How about Time and Billing? What about Job Costing?  How about timesheets for R&D tax credit compliance and so on.

We’ve created a short white paper identifying some of the timesheet types that we are most commonly asked about but this is not a theoretical exercise. If no one intervenes in what kind of timesheet to select, the most likely result is that multiple timesheets will be implemented.  Payroll and HR will want a Time and Attendance timesheet.  Finance may require a Time and Billing timesheet or a Job Costing timesheet or both.  There may be requirements from Sales or Contracts to comply with government regulation timesheets in order to successfully comply with a new order or contract.

In some organizations we arrive to find 2, 3, 4 or even more timesheets all deployed at the same time. In a worst case scenario, employees must fill in 2 or 3 timesheets every week to accommodate all the requirements.

The best solution for this dilemma, as we discovered over 3 decades ago, is to create a multi-function timesheet that has a single interface in the front end so it is easy for end users, yet has all the controls that each of these requirements demands in the back end so Administrators can fulfill the different needs from a single source.

You can read the Timesheet Types and TimeControl white paper at: TimeControl.com/pdf/whitepapers/tc_timesheet_types.pdf.  To see our complete list of white papers, visit TimeControl.com/resources/whitepapers.