Feature List for the Time and Billing Software

The Time and Billing software provides data entry of timesheets, creation of invoices (usually from timesheets), and management reporting (from timesheets and invoices).

Table of Contents:

Entering Timesheets
  • The software supports both batch data entry from paper timesheets (by your receptionist say), and people entering their own timesheets from their own networked PC.  The Timesheet entry form has an auto-save facility, and can be left open and added to as people progress through their day and finish various items of work.
  • Usually daily timesheets are entered, and this give better resolution of data for management reporting.  But firms that prefer to do so, can entry just summary totals from weekly paper timesheets.
  • Disbursements / expenses (e.g. mileage, parking fees, etc.) can be entered together with chargeable time on the same timesheet.  (This is particularly useful where staff will be reimbursed for use of a private vehicle or expenses they have met out of their own pocket.)
  • Disbursements / expenses that are not related to any particular staff member can be entered on a separate "timesheet".   Note that the Creditors (Accounts Payable) module is able to pass supplier invoices through to the Time & Cost module for on-charging against respective jobs.

Creating Invoices
  • Invoices are usually created from timesheet data.  This automatically builds the "story text" for the invoice according to your preferences.  This process removes the timesheets from "Work in Progress" (WIP) and associates them with the respective invoice.  (Invoiced timesheets are retained indefinitely for reporting purposes.)
  • It is possible to create "Manual Invoices" directly.  These are useful where a "commencement fee" is charged at the start of a job.  They are also handy with small fixed price jobs where you want to give an invoice to the client when he picks up the work, but your timesheets aren't all entered in at that stage.  (Timesheets can be subsequently attached to "Manual Invoices" when they have been entered, to clear them out of WIP and calculate any write-off or write-up.)
  • Invoices can be created in a number of formats:  time and materials, adjusted to fixed price, percentage progress claim, end of job/phase summary invoice, and credit notes
  • You can create a batch of invoices (usually at the end of each month), or just single ones as required during the month, or both
  • The invoice story can be built up from the work codes themselves for the work done, or use standard paragraphs (that you define) which cover a range of workcodes.  (The software will automatically pick up the first matching paragraph.)
  • You can create the invoice lines summarized by workcode (with automatic headings for separate groups of codes), or just list each timesheet in date order.
  • You can build the story based on workcodes or using standard paragraphs, but show the hours/units and dollar values summarized at the bottom by staff type
  • Multiple jobs for the same client, and all be merged together into one invoice (and shown as separate sections - with disbursements either kept with respective jobs or all grouped together in a separate section at the bottom)

Editing Invoice Contents

You can edit the invoices very freely.   You can:

  • Change the existing wording
  • Insert headings and comments
  • Insert standard paragraphs of text
  • Further revise the text in a standard paragraph for this invoice only
  • Write-up or off over the whole invoice to make good a desired total value (all lines are adjusted on a pro-rata basis - you can leave disbursements unchanged and only adjust chargeable time
  • Alter dollar fee for an individual line (and either treat the difference as a write-up/off, send it back to Work in Progess (WIP), or raise a WIP credit)
  • Send a whole line back to Work in Progress
  • Adjust the hours/units
  • Re-allocate write-offs (and write-ups) between the staff that worked on it
  • You can edit dollar values on individual lines, even though you may only print sub-totals or just a single grand total

Print Layout Options

Invoices are usually printed on letterhead stationery.  But you can use special stationery (with perforations for a tear-off remittance advice say), or plain paper.  There are fairly extensive invoice layout controls.  You can control standard settings that are applied by default to all invoices, and over-ride many of these if you wish on individual invoices:

  • International A4, Legal Letter, or other paper size
  • Border widths (top, bottom, left, and right) - so that it fits on your letterhead or invoice stationery
  • Positioning left or right for Invoice number and date, to fit most efficiently with your letterhead
  • Wording of the central "Invoice" heading (if you want one at all)
  • Frames and column headings (some users like them, others prefer to turn them off)
  • If you want a signature block for the director/partner who looks after the client
  • Whether or not you what to include an "Attention" line in the address block
  • How timesheet data is collated for the invoice (by work-code, staff type, or in date order)
  • Whether to automatically use standard paragraphs instead of work-code based text
  • Whether to print headings for sections of work-codes
  • Whether to combine separate lines together (separated with commas) into paragraphs (not to be confused with standard paragraphs)
  • Whether to print the hours and units
  • What you want to do with any zero valued lines (print them, suppress them, or just print the text only (and leave the dollar value column blank)
  • How do you want to print dollar values: on each line, on each line with sub-totals for each section, just sub-totals only, or just a grand total only.
  • Do you want disbursements shown in a separate section (preceded by a sub-total for all chargeable time)
  • Various formatting options for a separate disbursement section
  • Wording for the total sections
  • Whether to show a standard opening paragraph (e.g. "To professional services:")
  • Whether to show a standard closing paragraph (e.g. terms and conditions, or bank account information for payments by direct credit)
  • Whether to print a Remittance slip at the bottom and various options associated with this
  • Your invoice message (which may be your standard terms for payment)

Printing Invoices
  • You can print draft copies of invoices (usually on blank paper) for proof checking
  • When you print a final copy (usually on letterhead), the invoice is flagged as having been finalized, and is then available for importing into the Accounts Receivable module and posting to the respective debtor's balance.
  • Invoices can be previewed and printed on the fly while editing.
  • Draft or final copies of invoices can be printed together as a batch
  • You can re-print an invoice if you need to
  • If you have just finalized an invoice, and then discover something is incorrect in it, you can 

Handy Functions
  • You can add a new job and client on the fly while entering timesheets
  • You can paste results from the calculator into invoices
  • Nice flow chart to help with end-of-month procedures 

Drill down to other data

While editing invoices, you can very easily view data associated with the invoice you are currently displaying.  You can view timesheets, client details (and edit addressee and address information), job details (and edit the addressee and invoice description text). with just two clicks of the mouse.  Any such changes will then be printed on the invoice you are editing if applicable.  The secondary windows displaying this data can be kept open simultaneously, and will all refresh if you move on to another invoice in the primary window.

Reports

The report wizard is very flexible and powerful.  It allows you to specify the desired basic type of report, selection criteria, and sort / total preferences.  Your settings can be saved as a named report definition for use again next time (perhaps with minor changes).  Reports can be previewed on screen.  There are quite a number of reports.  Most of our users have their favorites that they run regularly for management reporting.  The more commonly used ones are:

Timesheet Reports

  • Detailed timesheet listing (for selected clients / jobs)
  • Timesheet Recovery (analysis of Chargeable time showing chargeable & non-chargeable work, 
  • Uninvoiced Totals (Work in Progress Summary)
  • Timesheet Analysis over time (columns giving fees or hours broken down by week, month, or quarter for the period of the report, together with total and percentage analysis), for any permutation of row sort and group sub-totals (e.g. by client and job, job manager and job, staff member, work-code etc.)
  • Daily, weekly, or monthly summaries
  • Missing or incomplete timesheets
  • Over-time
  • Control Report

Invoice Reports

  • Summaries by client, date, or invoice number
  • Analysis over time of invoiced fees, write-offs, and costs for any permutation of sort order and sub-totalling

Job Management Reports

  • Job summary (sorted and sub-totals however you like)
  • Job profit for several jobs
  • Single job status for several jobs

Configuration Options
  • Whether time is recorded in hours (and decimals of an hour e.g. 1.25 hours) or units (e.g. 5 units, where 1 unit is 15 minutes, giving 4 units per hour)
  • Maximum length of timesheet remarks (prevents unnecessarily wasting disk space)
  • Number of charge rates for staff (up to 9)
  • Whether to display rates as dollar values or just a code
  • Whether you want multiple cost rates (if pay time and a half or double time to staff for overtime)
  • Range for non-chargeable work-codes
  • Whether you have tax / GST inclusive disbursements / expenses
  • Whether some work-codes have their own fee and cost rates (e.g. a standard rate for all staff when operating a certain type of equipment)
  • Write-off basis:  Whether tracked to individuals who did the work, or the manager, or not tracked to individuals at all
  • Standard work-codes for various types of write-offs
  • Setup user defined fields

Security

The Time & Cost module has fairly comprehensive security facilities.  You assign each user to an appropriate security group (or groups), and control the privileges for each group.  If you wish, you can assign special additional privileges to certain users (extra ones that they would not have otherwise received from the group(s) to which they have been assigned.

  • You can prevent certain users from accessing the Time & Cost module altogether
  • You may let basic users merely enter their own timesheets and perhaps report on their own timesheet data (e.g. run the Missing Timesheet Report which identifies any days/weeks where their timesheets are missing or incomplete)
  • You may prevent basic users from seeing the dollar rates at which they are being charged out
  • You may allow job managers to view (read-only) timesheets from other staff associated with their own jobs.  You may even let them edit such timesheets (e.g. to correct errors in the work-code, timesheet remarks, or dollar values) prior to invoicing
  • You may let job managers create, edit, and print invoices for their jobs
  • You may let accounts staff create, edit, and print invoices on any jobs
  • You may let job managers and senior accounts personnel write-off work from uninvoiced timesheets.
  • You can control whether users can print reports, and if so what they can report on
  • You may let the office manager perform integrity checks on the data

Data Tables

Data for the Time & Cost module is kept in several separate tables.  These are:  Staff / Personnel, Work-Codes, Timesheets, and Invoices.  It also makes use of data belonging to the Address Book and Jobs modules.

Staff / Personnel
  • Person's name
  • Staff code (for the person concerned - usually a person's initials are used for this, but the software will support numeric staff codes)
  • Type (e.g. Director, Associate, qualified professional, draftsperson, clerical)
  • Whether Principal/Partner, Client manager, and/or Job manager
  • Workgroup or department
  • Hours worked in a normal day
  • Days of the week worked  (used by the Missing Timesheet report)
  • Charge rates for Fees (up to 9 different rates)
  • Hourly (or unit) cost rate (important for calculating profitability of jobs).  The software supports multiple cost rates (e.g. when you pay staff time and a half or double time for overtime or work on public holidays) 
  • Free-form text note
  • User defined fields

Work-Codes
  • Work-Code
  • Description (in terminology to suit in-house use)
  • Text to be used in invoices (if different from the Description)
  • Class (Group heading, Activity, Disbursement/Expense, Sale, Miscellaneous)
  • Scaling that is applied to staff rate when entering timesheets - usually one for normal activities or zero for non-chargeable work, but gives flexibility for special activities

     Disbursements / Expenses have some additional fields

  • Description text for the units (e.g. miles, km, pages, etc.)
  • Charge per unit (to your clients)
  • Cost per unit (what it costs you - useful for tracking profitability of jobs)
  • Percentage mark-up (e.g. for on-charging sub-contracted work)
  • Tax / GST type (e.g. included, excluded, exempt - hidden if not applicable)

Jobs

(See the Jobs Module for details)

Clients

(See the Address Book module for details)

Timesheets
  • Date (usually for daily timesheets, but you can enter a summary timesheet for a whole week)
  • Staff code (for the person who did the work)
  • Job code
  • Client code (usually filled in automatically by the software as per the job)
  • WorkCode
  • Number of hours (or units)
  • Hourly or unit rate (either as a dollar value or rate code)
  • Fee value for the line
  • Remarks:  This is usually used just for internal documentation.  But for certain workcodes, the text will appear verbatim in the respective invoice (particularly useful when the timesheet is early in the month and you are likely to forget the details by the time you eventually create the invoice)
  • Line Cost
  • Invoice number 

Invoices

Invoices involve two tables:  Invoice Header and Invoice lines.

Invoice Header

  • Invoice Number
  • Date of Invoice
  • Client  (actually store links to client records in the Address Book)
  • Job Number (if applicable - Invoices can be direct to a client)
  • Various dollar values for sub-totals and final invoice total
  • Invoice Remarks (to be printed at the bottom)
  • Special layout settings for this invoice only

Invoice Lines

  • Invoice Number
  • Hours / Units
  • Work-Code (if applicable)
  • Line Text
  • Fee Charged
  • Fee amount for associated timesheets
  • WIP Flag (if all the line has been sent back to Work in Progress - for invoicing next month say)

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