Title: Timesheet Best Practices: Driving down the cost and increasing the efficiency of time capture
1Timesheet Best PracticesDriving down the cost
and increasing the efficiency of time capture
2Automating timesheets
- Challenges of automating timesheets
- Best practices solutions
- The payoff
- Return on investment
3The Timesheets Business Challenge
Addressing multiple business needs with one
solution
4Challenges of Timesheet Collection
- Lengthy Turn-around Times and Procedures
- Time and costs of tracking down late or missing
time sheets - Manual, paper-based approval process
- Drains on employee and project manager
productivity - Errors and Inefficiencies
- Time reporting errors due to inaccurate project
codes and time data - Re-key often required in Payroll or Billing
- Delayed billing cycles slow turn-around on
receivables - Lack of Real-Time Data
- Inability to capture real-time billing and
revenue data - Difficulty tracking project status and cost
- Lead times in obtaining employee utilization
information
5The path of the timesheet today
6Typical problems with the process
Late
Incorrect Approver
Illegible Signature
Missing Info
Paper Lost!
Re-key
Old Codes
Invalid Codes
7Best Practice Solutions for timesheets
Streamline and automateVisibility Increase
accountabilityPerformance improvement
8Streamlined and Automated timesheets
- Automated time capture increases efficiency and
reduces the cost of - Managing projects and activities that utilize
cross-departmental teams - Project resource allocation and utilization
- Internal cost allocation and/or charge-backs
- Time and attendance tracking
9Why automate time reporting?
Provides real time visibility into time recorded
Eliminates paper forms and manual processing
- Reduces time collection and accounting costs
Improves management of project costs
Increases reporting accuracy
Increases employee productivity
10Process improvements
2. Employee complete electronic timesheet
Clockware timesheets
5. System sends approved timesheet to
appropriate back office system
11Improvement points
Eliminate Delays
Eliminate Paper
Clockware timesheets
Automated Workflow
Valid Codes
No Re-keying
12Timesheets to Manage Projects
Project managers should be able to answer the
following questions
13To manage internal costs
Empowers managers throughout the organization to
answer the following questions
timesheets is a great complement to ABC or ABM
14Core System Features
Billing/ Payroll
Employee
Manager
15Process Improvements Benefits
- Increased productivity
- Any time, anywhere access
- Project and tasks code default based on employee
- Easy access to valid and active project codes
Employee
- Streamlines and automates timesheet collection
and reminder process - Timesheet data is validated on entry
- System ensures that proper approvals are obtained
Timesheet Admin
16Process Improvements Benefits
- Real-time visibility to time recorded
- Timely billing and revenue recognition
- Improved management of project resources
- Increased focus on strategic activities
Manager
- Elimination of re-key activities
- Accelerated billing cycles and cash flow
- Timely and accurate payroll processing
Billing Payroll
17Case Study Atex Media Solutions
Provides content and information management
solutions for publishers. Over 300 employees in
20 locations world-wide, many of whom are
telecommuters.
Project Objectives
Results
- Extremely easy to deploy
- Very user-intuitive minimal training required
- Easy fit with SQL database
- Managers able to view data in many different ways
- Replace paper-based timesheets process
- Improve effectiveness of management reporting
tools
Core Requirements
- Fully web-based solution due to high number of
remote employees - Ease-of-use and ease-of-deployment
- Compatibility with the companys existing SQL
database - Flexibility and ability to customize
18Case Study Volvo IT North America
Formerly the IT division within Volvo, became an
independent subsidiary in 1998. As a result, the
2500 employees in this centralized service
organization needed the ability to track and bill
time.
Project Objectives
Results
- 100 deployed in 60 days
- Able to collect real-time performance and
employee utilization data - Automated payroll data collection
- Helps organization prioritize time
- Employees bill time more effectively
- Implement centralized timesheets solution
- Establish billing procedures to bill other Volvo
organizations for products services
Core Requirements
- System must be easy to install and manage
- Easy to deploy
- Easily accessible to all employees
19What is your organizational readiness for
automated timesheets? Questions for internal
discussion
20Key questions for internal discussion
- Do we require employees/contractors to track time
on paper or Excel timesheets? - Are managers responsible for authorizing
timesheets before they are routed to the
appropriate back office system for processing? - Do we have administrative employees who manage
the timesheet process? - Do we need to be able to track time so that we
can understand how much it costs us to develop
and deliver products or services? - Would an automated timesheets solution would help
us execute our Activity Based Costing/Management
strategy more effectively?
21Key questions for internal discussion
- 6. Which employees are required to record
attendance data on a daily or weekly basis? - 7. Do project managers frequently manage
resources who do not report to them? - 8. Is timesheet data is manually entered into the
appropriate back office system by staff in our
accounting, finance, payroll and/or billing
departments? - 9. Is time incurred by overhead departments is
charged back to the departments for whom the work
was performed? - 10. Do we charge third parties for work performed
by our employees/contractors?
22Costs of business as usual (BAU)
- What are the costs of our current timesheets
process? - What are our true costs for timesheet data
collection and approval process? That is
employee, managers, accounting/payroll, billing - Do we have double data entry costs?
- Are we losing money from
- selling unprofitable products (not knowing our
true costs) - being over budget on fixed-bid contracts (not
knowing our project costs from one phase to the
next) - Opportunity cost of
- project budget over-runs
- poor resource allocation
23Timesheets system savings
- Quick hit savings challenges
- Timesheet data entry, submissions and approvals
take an average of 2 hours per employee per
month. Can you reducing these costs by 50? - Timesheet data entry errors and double key entry
can cost 40,000 per year for every 100
employees. Can you reduce these costs by 80? - Timesheet lateness and change edits can slow
billings or charge-backs. How much are we losing
from late timesheets? - A certain percentage of projects run over-budget
because of poor visibility into project progress
and costs. What percentage of our projects can
be better managed from real-time project
information? - A certain percentage of projects miss deadlines
because of inadequate resource allocation. What
percentage of our projects would benefit from
easier project monitoring and resource management?