Rave's Timesheets Advanced provides a significant number of enhancements to Rave's current Timesheet workflows with the ability to now create and backcost your Labour Budget. This article steps you through what you can expect with Timesheets Advanced - and to kick things off here are a few of the highlights.
Rave's Timesheets Advanced allows you to:
- Create a Labour Budget for your project - either manually, via a previously saved Labour Budget template or a CSV upload
- Easily create a Labour Quote for FMS back costing reporting
- Backcost your Labour Budget in real-time and easily identify how your Labour Budget has blown out - by task and by your team's timesheet entries
- Approve your team's timesheet entries - and receive a daily notification for timesheet approvals
- Charge your team's timesheet breaks to your client - if required
- Consolidate your labour timesheet entries to a single labour line, or by task on your Labour Bill(s)
- Choose whether you want your Labour Bill to be sent to Xero - this is NOW turned OFF by default
Rave's Timesheets Advanced
Your journey with Rave's Timesheets Advanced starts via your project's Timesheets sub-tab - opening to the Project Timesheets / Summary sub-tab.
The Summary sub-tab
The summary sub-tab provides a top-level view of timesheet entries for a given date range period - displaying all users with any entries for that period, their total hours logged in, their total break time, and their net total time - less breaks.
The Details sub-tab
The details sub-tab provides a lot more information and is the home of your project's timesheet details.
You can search/filter by a selected date range, user group (i.e. timesheet users and/or site staff vs other roles), user, task (or tags), and the approval status of the timesheet entries.
This page will list each entry sorted by date, for the given filters selected. Each entry will display the date and day, user, any associated task or tag, the start and finish time, total time logged, any break duration, the total net time excluding breaks, and the ability to read any timesheet notes.
If the 'Enable timesheets approval' option is turned on in your branch settings under 'Timesheet', and with the add/edit timesheet entry permissions, an orange 'Pending - click to approve' or green 'Approved - click to unapprove' tick icon will also display - allowing you to approve (lockdown) a pending timesheet entry.
Note: When an approved entry is locked down, it can not be edited - it must be changed back to a pending/unapproved state for editing.
When a timesheet entry is approved or moved back to pending - the person whose timesheet entry it is, will be sent a notification email letting them know the updated status.
To the left of each entry is a tick box allowing you to approve, or convert the selected timesheet entry(s) to a bill. Or you can push the 'A' icon to auto-select all entries that are not yet approved for you to bulk approve.
Anyone with permission to add/edit entries can edit or delete an unapproved entry (via the 3 dot action dropdown to the right), or add an entry via the 'Add an entry:' section to the left of the page.
Note: Anyone with timesheet approval permissions within the business will receive an email daily at 6pm with all of the new timesheet entries to be approved.
The Settings sub-tab
The settings sub-tab includes the 'Override Branch Breaks Billing' option - which when ticked, presents the ability to 'Include Breaks When Converting a Timesheet to a Bill' i.e. passing on the cost of the breaks to your client.
Note: There is a branch-level setting (under Branch Settings/Timesheet) that allows you to 'Include Breaks When Converting a Timesheet to a Bill'. The 'Override Branch Breaks Billing' will overwrite that setting at a project level.
The Manage Tasks sub-tab
The Manage Tasks function allows you to set up your Labour Budget, and several other actions described below.
Tip: While you can enable both Timesheet Tasks and Timesheet Tags for your team members to select when adding their timesheet entry - we recommend selecting one only i.e. Timesheet Tasks if set-up - as including both presents an extra thing your staff have to select from when adding their timesheet entry.
Building a Labour Budget aka your Labour Task List
You can build your labour budget/labour task list manually by clicking the '+ New Task' button and filling in each task's:
- Task Name
- Estimated number of Hours to complete the task
- Estimate Category
- Average Cost Per Hour*
- Sell Per Hour rate - which can be set per task i.e. some tasks might need more experienced (expensive) staff to complete them
- The Total Estimated Cost will auto-calculate from the Estimated Hours and Per Hour Cost
- Account Code
Or you can click the CSV Import button to upload a CSV version, using the 'example file' template as a guide, or load a previously saved Template via the 'Templates' button - selecting your desired template via the 'Apply template' magic wand.
Once loaded you can make whatever edits you need to i.e. changing the task name, the estimated number of hours, and sell per hour - selecting multiple lines allows you to bulk apply their estimate category or cost code. Once done, you can lock in the changes by clicking the 'Save Changes' button.
The 'Task is currently visible' or 'hidden', 'eye' icon to the left of each line - allows you to hide the timesheet task option from your teams' timesheet widget i.e. a 'Directors Wages' task may be one to keep hidden from your team.
Task Templates
Once you have created your first timesheets tasks budget either manually or Via CSV import you can use the Templates button to save as a template for next time.
Click the templates button and select Save Tasks which pops up a model to Name the template then press Proceed.
You can also click this same Templates button to:
- Load a template using the magic wand icon
- Edit a template using the pencil icon
- Delete a template using the trash can icon
NOTE: Per Hour Cost - is your ACTUAL or AVERAGE hourly cost
A quick way of calculating this is to total the hourly rates paid to your full team, divide this by the number of team members working on that job and it will give you an average hourly rate per person.
Alternatively you can work out your true cost including things like phone plans, fuel, apprenticeship, ACC costs and include that in your hourly rate. Although this will push up your cost price and in turn your sell price and could price you out of the market. Its better to have an overhead recovery line in your quotes so you are separating actual labour costs from additional costs of having employees.
The Create/View Quote Button i.e. moving your Labour Budget to your Back Costing report
Once you have created your 'Labour Budget', you can click the 'Convert to Quote' button to generate a quote for your labour. This will create a pending quote in the FMS side of Rave. Once approved will appear in your backcosting and other reporting features of Rave. Once you have clicked on convert to Quote the button will change to say "View Quote" were you can click to view the labour quote any time from within TimeSheets.
Note: because it is Labour there is no GST on the quote itself or the line items.
Note: Anywhere you see the Timesheet Widget within a project - clicking on it will take you to the Summary sub-tab of your Project's Timesheets page. You will find this on Quotes created from timesheets, Bills and Credit Notes created from timesheets and client invoices and credit notes created from timesheets.
The Budget sub-tab
The Budget sub-tab is essentially your back-costing screen for Labour. To the top right of the page is a Simplified and Advanced view of your Labour Budget. If you cannot see this Tab you need to enable the permission under manage users. The permission is called Timesheet Budget.
The Simplified view (default) will display for each labour budget task, it's;
- Estimated Total - the estimated budgeted amount for this task
- Timesheet Total - the total cost of what your team have clocked in against the task
- Total Invoiced - what you have converted to invoice, charged out to your client
- Markup - calculated on the Timesheet Total vs Total Invoiced
- Profit - calculated by the Total Invoiced less the Timesheet Total
The Advanced view displays everything and details the calculations from the Simplified view i.e.
- Hours Estimated * Per Hour Cost = Estimated Total
- Timesheet Hours * Timesheet Average Cost = Timesheet Total
- Variance Hours = Hours Estimated - Timesheet Total
- Variance Budget = Estimated Total - Timesheet Total
- Invoiced Hours * Invoiced Sell = Total Invoiced
- Markup % = Total Invoiced vs Timesheet Total
- Profit $ = Total Invoiced - Timesheet Total
- The Variance Hours and Variance Budget allows you to see where your Labour Budget has blown out.
- If you want to see who has added timesheet entries to a task, click on the 'Person' icon right of the Task Name to expand this information out - the detail is displayed to the right i.e. how many hours, their hourly rate, and their timesheet total.
- You can click on the 'Expand/Hide User Breakdowns' plus/minus people icon headers to display or hide all of your teams' entries on the page.
The bottom of the report displays the totals i.e.
- The Estimated Total total is your current Total Labour Budget
- The Timesheet Total total is how much you've spent on Labour so far from your timesheet entries
- The Variance Budget is the difference between your estimate and actual amounts
- Invoice Total is how much you have invoiced to date
- Markup is the total markup %
- Profit is the total Profit made to date
The Bills In and Invoices Out sub-tabs
The Bills In and Invoices Out sub-tabs are short-cuts allowing you to see the Labour Bills and Invoices created via the timesheets sub-tab i.e. only Bills/Invoices/Credit Notes created via the timesheet sub-tab display on this shortcut.
When on the FMS Bills In and Invoices Out sub-tab, any document created via the timesheet feature will have a small timesheets 'clock' icon - clicking on this allows you to quickly short-cut back to the project's timesheets page.
Consolidating your Labour Bill line details
Previously, our FMS timesheet entry users were generating a Bill from their timesheet entries - then consolidating the line details down on the bills or converted invoices page within Rave - effectively breaking the connection of timesheets to the back costing Bills In or Invoices Out.
Now, when you want to charge your timesheet entries to your client, going to your project timesheets sub-tab's Details page - you can select your approved timesheet entries (those entries with the green tick to the far right of each entry) by clicking the 'Select Billable' dollar icon (to the left of the Date header) then clicking the 'Convert to Bill' option within the floating footer.
This will open a 'Convert to Bill' pop-up, allowing you to choose how you want to create your labour bill, via the 'Create as*' drop-down before selecting the 'Convert to Bill' button to complete i.e. do I want to display the entries as:
- Individual Items - which creates each timesheet entry as individual lines items on the bill.
- With this option you can also choose to include notes which will append to the end of the description.
- Single Line Items - which combines all timesheet entries into a single line item on the bill. This will add up all of the hours, cost and sell price and average this out to ensure it's one clean bill line. There may be small rounding differences here due to needing to add all of the different totals.
- Grouped by Tasks - which groups timesheet entries by task - as single line items for each task on the bill. There may be small rounding differences here due to needing to add all of the different totals.
Clicking the 'Convert to Bill' button creates a Labour Bill - displaying:
- Labour - as the line Description(s)
- Hour(s) - as the Unit of Measure
- Number of Hours - as the Qty
- The Timesheet Average Cost - as the Hourly Rate
- The Markup % = Total Invoiced vs Timesheet Total
- The Sell Price = Total Invoiced vs Qty
- Tax Rate = No Tax
- The Total Invoiced - as the line Total
NOTE: Labour Bills created within the timesheets feature are no longer sent to Xero by default - however you can select the 'Enable Sending to Xero' option of any labour bill, clicking the 'Enable' button to send it through as a draft Labour Bill in Xero. Credit notes created from Bills will not automatically send to Xero unless the Bill had been enabled to send to Xero.
Creating a Client Invoice from a Labour Bill
Now that we have Billed the timesheet entries we have the ability to create a client Invoice.
- Simply click on the Bills in Tab from within the timesheets modal
- Select the bill/s you wish to create an invoice for
- The Convert to Invoice bar will pop up down the bottom select this and it will take you to the invoice creation page
- You can now check everything is in order and proceed to create the client invoice and send to Xero.
Financial Status Column and Filter
Back on the project timesheets Details page, a Financial Status Column shows whether timesheet entries have been billed and/or invoiced. While the Financial Status filter allows you to filter the timesheet entries by All, Billed, Not Billed, Billed but Not Invoiced, and Invoiced - to easily find entries in a specific state to action i.e. add to a labour bill.
Permissions for Timesheets Advanced
There are new permission associated with these new features which need to be enabled by someone with Manage Users permissions.
Under Manage Users, in the Timesheets section of permissions, you will now see three new permissions.
- Timesheet to Tasks - allows the user to create/edit the Timesheet entries to Tasks or View only
- Timesheet Budget - allows the user to see the reporting feature of Timesheets to Tasks
- Timesheet Approval - allows the user to approve/unapproved timesheet entries
Are you ready to use Rave's Timesheets Advanced?
If you would like to add the Timesheets Advanced module on to your Rave set-up, please contact us via [email protected]
