The Time and Materials Budget Tracking is for companies that bill customers for the time spent and the materials used and bills the customer at regular intervals for work performed. This functionality is in contrast to the BOM / Estimating / Quoting window which creates a fixed price quote. If you do fixed price quotes for your customers, please skip this section.
The company types this module is intended for are:
Construction Companies
Computer Consultants / Programmers
Pool Service Companies
Law Firms
Before you setup any jobs for time and materials, you will need to set up billable services that you offer to add to the budgets. We will start this section by setting up some billable services.
In the e-manage|ONE main window click on the "Tools" menu, “Billable Time” and choose "Configure Billable Time Services"
The Configure Billable Time Services Window will pop-up as shown below.
On the left side of the screen you will need to make categories for the services you offer. If you have nothing in the tree on the left, you can click the "New Top Level Category". Clicking this button will put a root folder (one that has no parent) in the tree. Give the new folder a deliberate click and it will enter edit mode and you can type a name for the category and press the ENTER key on your keyboard. You can then click on this new folder and add services directly to it, or you can create sub categories by pressing the "New" button with a folder highlighted, this will create a child folder to the selected folder where you can name in the same was as a top level folder.
Once you have the category folder you want to add a service to selected, click the "New Service" button on the right side of the screen and follow the directions below to Add a New Service:
Type in a Service Name (this will be like a part number to the Time and Materials Quote), then type in a Description of the service.
Add an default hourly rate for this service (you can change the rate on a per job basis, this is just a default).
Add an Overtime Rate for this service (you can change the rate on a per job basis, this is just a default).
Add an Estimated Cost Rate per hour (you can change the rate on a per job basis, this is just a default).
Choose whether or not you will charge the customer for overtime (when you add this service to a budget you can change this value on a per job basis).
Choose whether or not you want to allow the budget to overrun. This means that you can go over the budgeted amount. If you do not choose to allow the budget to overrun, no time can be entered once the budgeted dollars have been reached.
Choose whether you want to charge the customer for any budget overrun. If you choose not to charge the customer for any overruns, you will be accumulating cost without billing the customer for the hours spent.
Use Individual Employee Billing Rates bypasses the Hourly Rate and uses the employee's title to look up the rate for the service (You must configure the rates by Title using the "Configure Rates" button on this window after the service is saved).
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 drop down list set in the administrator) and the hourly rate and overtime hourly rate
Require approval before billing requires that the user that is processing the invoices for the budgets approve the hours before they can be invoiced for.
Check the taxable checkbox if this type of service is taxable.
The enabled checkbox lets you disable a service you no longer offer without deleting the service, keeping all history intact.
When the form is completely filled out, click the "Save Service” button.
Repeat these steps for each service your company offers.
Time and Materials Jobs are based on Budgets. Each project can have multiple budgets that can run simultaneously, each with its own billing cycle, billing rates, and thresholds.
Billable time sheets can be created on projects from the Actions Menu and, if configured, can be created while performing an action item request.
To begin or view a Time and Materials Job, click on the Modules Menu of the Project tabbed window and then choose Time and Materials Budgets / Tracking.
The Time and Materials Budget / Tracking tiled window will open and you will see any budgets already configured for this project. Remember that you can have budgets running consecutively (one at a time) or concurrently (more than one at a time).
To begin, you will need to define a budget. There must be at least one budget that is current in order to log billable time sheets.
Click the "New Budget" button right under the budget grid listing.
The "New / Edit Project Budget" window will pop-up. While only one field (Budget Name) is required here, you should fill out all the information you have for this budget. Here's a description of the fields and how they affect Billable Time.
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".
When you have finished filling out this form, click the "Save" button. Your new budget will appear in the Budget Listing grid in the "Time and Materials Budgeting" window.
You can edit the budget by double clicking the corresponding budget row or you can highlight the budget and click the "Edit Budget" button.
You can delete a budget by highlighting the corresponding budget row and clicking the "Delete Budget" button.
To give a budget it's value, you will need to add services that time sheets (and materials) will be added to. With the budget highlighted in the Budget Grid Listing, click the "New Service" button. The "Billable Time Services" window will pop-up.
Note: You can only choose to add services that have been setup using the "Configure Billable Time Services" window.
Choose the Billable Service you want to add to this budget from the tree on the top left. When you click a service the defaults will load into the details of the form, but you can change any of the defaults at this time before saving. Click the "Save Service" button to save the service In this window you can also setup automatic time entries of the budgeted hours every time a bill is created. Here's the scenario. Your customer buys a block of time from you every month to perform the selected service and you give them a special price for buying blocks. You perform the services during the billing cycle and the hours are detailed on the invoice but not charged for at the regular rate until the block of hours is used up. Checking the "Make Automatic Time Entries of Budgeted Hours Every Billing Cycle will add an automatic time sheet to the bill using the Employee chosen in the drop down list box just below the checkbox for the budgeted hours filled out. The service must be saved before making automated time entries. You can also choose not to bill the customer for billable hours until the number of budgeted hours created by the automated time entry have been reached.
When the service has been saved, it will show up in the Services Grid on the lower half of the Billable Time Budgets / Tracking tiled window.
You can add parts to the service that you will be using while performing the service for people to add to their time sheets or you can add recurring parts that will automatically add every time you process the invoices for time billing services. To do so, double click on your newly created service and then click on the "Parts" tab on the bottom of The Billable Service window. You can add parts to the service just like you would on a Quick Quote or in the Bill of Materials module using the “Search For”, Project Spec button and/or Importing. Finally, select Save Service.
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.
