Clients & Profits Online User Guide

Glossary Contents

The need to keep detailed, accurate records of how everyone in the shop spends their time is vital to staffing, billing, productivity, and profitability Time Sheet Features Feature How it works, how it's used Users enter time for entire week Unlike the daily time card, time sheets let users enter their hours for the entire week at the same time. Entering weekly time sheets is fast and easy, even for the most computer-phobic creative. Batch time entry Time sheets are designed for batch entry, which lets one person enter the time from many people. If users insist on keeping paper time slips, their hours can be enter weekly by an accounting clerk quickly and easily. Importing time The integrated Import Time window imports specially-formatted text files from Excel, FileMaker, and any other custom time keeping program. These time entries are verified for accuracy during the importing process, and bad entries (i.e., entries with invalid clients, jobs, tasks, etc.) are flagged. Only accurate time entries are then posted to time sheets. Bad entries can be fixed then posted. C&P TimeCop Each morning the C&P TimeCop checks every user’s previous day’s time card/time sheet, comparing their actual hours worked with their planned hours. Users who haven’t logged enough hours are notified by e-mail to finish yesterday’s time card (and so is their supervisor). The C&P TimeCop can be set to check a user’s daily time card/time sheet when they quit Clients & Profits, prompting them to finish entering their hours before the application can quit. Budget warnings Every user can have an automatic budget alert that warns them when they’re spending too much time on any particular job task. Every user’s budget setting can be customized, so different users can have different kinds of warnings (i.e., some more hostile than others, depending on the person). Overtime Any time entry can be marked as overtime. Special overtime rates can be set up for each user, which are applied to overtime entries. Overtime reports will show who’s working the most overtime. Time entry notes Every time entry can contain a long description to explain the work performed. These notes appear on job cost and invoice detail reports. They can be invaluable for documenting your hours to clients. Show/hide cost/bill rates Users have special access privilege settings to time sheets, including the ability to see (or not see) and change their billing rates. Customizable billing rates If a user can see billing rates on time sheets, he or she can enter custom billing rates on particular time entries. This flexibility gives you precise control over how time is billed to clients. Freelance time tracking Time sheets for freelancers can be summarized on special time and productivity reports, helping you analyze the value of freelance time vs. staff time on each client. Clone time sheets Routine time sheets for administrative staff can be cloned into the current week. For people who’s time keeping doesn’t vary much, cloning saves the effort of rekeying the same hours every week. Billing status Every time entry tracks its billing status. Billable time tracks when it was billed, displaying the client’s A/R invoice number, billed date, and billing amount. When the client eventually pays the invoice, the payment date is posted back to the time sheet. Time, productivity reports Time and productivity reports analyze staff time from many perspectives, for any day, week, month, or year. These reports provide invaluable insights into how people spend their time. Time sheets, freelancers, and the General Ledger In most shops, freelancers are treated like employees -- their hours are added into time sheets. But what about the freelancer's invoice? The answer depends on the freelancer's time sheets: if you give the freelancer a billing rate, but no cost rate, then just his or her billable hours are posted to the job as an unbilled cost. Since the billable time is already on the job, the freelancer's invoice is added as a non-billable A/P invoice (it will only have a cost amount). The freelancer is added as both a staff member and a vendor, but with different numbers (ex: staff initials ABC vs. vendor number AC) to keep them separate on cost reports. Time sheets don't affect the General Ledger. Clients & Profits uses time sheets for productivity and job costing, but not payroll. Your financial statements show payroll costs from the checkbook or manual journal entries. Time sheets and billing rates Clients & Profits gives you a variety of ways to program rates on time sheets, especially billing rates. This means you have the flexibility to set rates by staff member, job task, or client. They are applied automatically, making your time accounting more accurate. Cost rates: Cost rates are set by staff member. Each staffer has a standard cost rate plus an overtime cost rate. Cost rates don't vary by client, job, or task (since someone usually makes the same salary regardless of what they do). You can change the cost rate while adding a time sheet if you have the proper access privileges. Billing rates: Billing rates are much more variable. To accommodate different clients, you can create special rates for staff members or clients. Or, job tasks can have special rates that guarantee the same billing rates regardless of who works on the task. Jobs are assigned a billing rate based on the option always pull billing rate from task, staff or client. This option can be set up as a default in general Preferences, as well as by job type and even job task. This rate is then used on time sheets.