Time & Materials Budget / Tracking

Owned by Stephanie Pepper (e-manage|ONE)
Last updated: Sept 11, 2023
6 min read

The Time and Materials Budget Tracking feature is tailored for businesses that invoice customers based on both time spent and materials used. This feature is particularly beneficial for those who bill regularly for work performed. If your company predominantly relies on fixed price quotes for billing, you can bypass this section.

This module is particularly relevant to the following types of companies:

  • Construction Companies

  • Computer Consultants / Programmers

  • Pool Service Companies

  • Law Firms

Before you can set up projects for time and materials billing, you must first establish billable services offered by your company. Let's initiate the process by configuring these billable services.

Configuring Billable Time Services:

  1. Navigate to the "Finance" section in the e-manage|ONE main window.

  2. Select "Billable Time" and then choose "Configure Billable Time Services."

The "Configure Billable Time Services" window will appear. Here's how you can set up your billable services:

  • On the left side, you can create categories for the services you provide. If no categories exist, create a root folder by clicking "New Top Level Category." Name the category and press ENTER.

  • Once you've selected a category, click "New Service" on the right side to add a new service. Complete the service details, which include:

    • Service Name

    • Description

    • Default hourly rate

    • Overtime rate

    • Estimated cost rate per hour

    • Charge for overtime (yes or no)

    • Allow budget to overrun (yes or no)

    • Charge for budget overruns (yes or no)

Note: If you chose to Use Individual Employee Billing Rates, you will need to fill out the Rates by Title by clicking the "Configure Rates" button. Fill out the Title (this is a dropdown list set in the administrator) and the hourly rate and overtime hourly rate.

  • Use Individual Employee Billing Rates (yes or no)

  • Require approval before billing (yes or no)

  • Taxable (yes or no)

  • Enabled (yes or no)

Click "Save Service" when you've filled out the form. Repeat these steps for each service your company offers.

Time and Materials Jobs:

Time and Materials Jobs are structured around budgets. Each project can have multiple budgets that can run concurrently, each with its billing cycle, billing rates, and thresholds. Billable time sheets can be generated for projects from the Actions Menu, and if configured, during action item requests.

To access Time and Materials Jobs, navigate to the Modules Menu within the Project tabbed window and select "Time and Materials Budgets / Tracking."

  1. In the Time and Materials Budget / Tracking window, click the "New Budget" button located under the budget grid listing.

  1. The "New / Edit Project Budget" window will open. Fill in the budget details, including:

  • Start Date - Without a start date for the budget, users will not be able to enter billable time sheets against the budget.

  • End Date - This is the date you want to stop allowing users to enter billable time against the budget. Leaving this blank will leave the budget open ended so users can always enter billable time against it.

  • Billing Cycle - This is a number from 1 to 99 that works with the drop down next to it (day(s), month(s), year(s)) so that the customer can be invoiced for work performed at regular intervals nearly automatically.

  • Next Billing Date - This field automatically updates itself after invoices are created using the "Process Invoices for Billable Time" window based on the last billing date + the billing cycle. It will also fill itself out initially if a start date and a billing cycle are chosen.

  • Terms of Sale - The terms used when creating invoices using the "Process Invoices for Billable Time" window.

  • User Drop Down List - This is used to alert a user when the budget reaches a percentage of capacity. The user can see these budgets from the "Today" pop-out panel and "Budget Capacities".

  • Alert % of Cap - This is the percentage the budget must read before it shows up on the "Today" pop-out panel and "Budget Capacities.”

  1. Click "Save" once you've finished. Your new budget will now appear in the Budget Listing grid.

Editing and Deleting Budgets:

  • To edit a budget, either double-click the corresponding row or click "Edit Budget" when the budget is highlighted.

  • To delete a budget, highlight the respective row and select "Delete Budget.

Adding Services to a Budget:

  1. Highlight the budget in the Budget Grid Listing.

  2. Click the "New Service" button.

  3. Choose a billable service from the top left tree.

  4. Customize service details if necessary.

  5. Click "Save Service."

Note: You can only choose to add services that have been setup using the "Configure Billable Time Services" window.

Setting Up Automatic Time Entries for Budgeted Hours

In this window, you can also establish automatic time entries for budgeted hours whenever an invoice is generated. Here's how it works:

Imagine your customer purchases a monthly block of time from your company to receive a specific service, and you offer them a special rate for these blocks. You provide the service during the billing cycle, and the hours are itemized on the invoice but not billed at the regular rate until the block of hours is exhausted.

To configure this:

  1. Check the "Make Automatic Time Entries of Budgeted Hours Every Billing Cycle" option.

  2. This will add an automated time sheet to the invoice using the employee selected from the drop-down list just below the checkbox for the budgeted hours.

  3. Please note that the service must be saved before enabling automated time entries.

  4. You also have the option to defer billing the customer for billable hours until the number of budgeted hours, as created by the automated time entry, has been reached.

After saving the service with these settings, it will appear in the Services Grid located in the lower half of the Billable Time Budgets / Tracking tiled window.

Adding Parts to a Service:

  1. Double-click the service.

  2. Go to the "Parts" tab at the bottom.

  3. You can manually add parts or use "Search For," "Project Spec," or importing.

  4. Finally, select "Save Service."

Generating Purchase Orders (POs):

You can generate purchase orders for the materials portion of the budget by highlighting the corresponding budget row and clicking the "Generate PO's" button.