Rave's Timesheets Advanced provides a significant number of enhancements to Rave's current Timesheet workflows, including the ability to create and backtest 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


Building a Labour Budget aka your Labour Task List

Your journey with Rave's Timesheets Advanced starts via your project's Timesheets sub-tab - opening to the Project Timesheets / Summary sub-tab. 


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
  • Estimate Sub 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, e.g., changing the task name, the estimated number of hours, and the 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 team's timesheet widget. For example, a 'Directors Wages' task may be one to keep hidden from your team.



Task Templates

Once you have created your first timesheet tasks budget, either manually or via CSV import, you can use the Templates button to save it as a template for the next time.


  1. Click the templates button and select Save Tasks. 

    This will open a Save as Template model pop up. 

  2. Name the template, then press Proceed to save.


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 you will get an average hourly rate per person. 


Alternatively, you can work out your true cost, including things like phone plans, fuel, apprenticeship, and ACC costs, and include that in your hourly rate. However, this will push up your cost price, which in turn will raise your sell price and could price you out of the market. It's better to have an overhead recovery line in your quotes so you are separating actual labour costs from the 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 on Rave's FMS side. Once approved, it will appear in your backcosting and other Rave reporting features. Once you have clicked on convert to Quote the button will change to say "View Quote" where 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. 

To go back to The overview for ALL Timesheets Advanced features, click here