ClickTime Blog

Increase your Profitability - Part 2

We've talked in the past about how saving a few minutes with every timesheet can significantly improve the profitability of your company. By saving 2 minutes per employee per week for 20 employees over the course of a calendar year, you get nearly a full week's worth of time that could be better spent on productive or billable work. Here are more ways you can reduce administrative overhead costs by letting ClickTime automatically fill out your timesheet for you:

Auto Fill - This feature pre-fills your current timesheet's client, project and task selections from the prior week's timesheet entries. If you work on projects that last more than a couple of days, this significantly speeds up timesheet completion each week.

Quick Day -  When filling out your timesheet one day at a time, this option allows you to completely copy the previous day's time entries to the current day. For people who are working full-time on a specific project for multiple days in a row, this makes filling in your timesheet a fast one-click process.

Quick Week - For employees whose timesheet look nearly identical from one week to the next, this button will copy last week's time entries to the current week. This can dramatically reduce the time required to fill out a week's timesheet from minutes to seconds.

These three time-saving features built into ClickTime help your employees be more productive and reduce administrative overhead costs so your company can increase profitability.

Mileage Reimbursement Rate for 2012

For our U.S. customers, we want to let you know that the IRS announced the federal mileage reimbursement rates for 2012. As of January 1, 2012, the federal mileage reimbursement rate will be 55.5 cents per mile (see the IRS web site for details).

We recommend that you verify your company's mileage reimbursement rate is set correctly in ClickTime. In order to edit your company's mileage rate, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to ClickTime (you need to be an administrator).
2. Click the "Expenses" link on the menu bar under the Company tab.
3. Click the "Expense Types" link.
4. Click on the name or "edit pencil" icon of your "mileage" expense type.
5. Edit the rate value. For example, enter 0.555 for the new federal rate.
6. Choose whether to apply the rate change to expenses that haven't been approved.
7. Save your changes.

If your company has multiple mileage expense types, remember to repeat steps 4-7 above for each appropriate expense type. You can also choose to apply the rate change to expenses that haven't yet been approved.

Check out this Wikipedia article if you're interested in how the federal mileage rate has fluctuated over time.

Take Some Time Off!

Can your employees work 365 days a year without taking time off for vacation, sick leave, or holidays? The reality is that everyone needs time off. And with different accrual rates, various time off categories, and ever-changing schedules, tracking non-worked time can be a work-flow nightmare for everyone involved—employees, managers, and HR.

There's an easier way!

ClickTime Web Timesheet tracks your employees' time off just as easily as it tracks the worked Client, Project and Task hours. There's no separate system to log into, and you don't even need to leave the time entry page. ClickTime's Time Off Module offers incredible convenience, simplifying and streamlining the entire time tracking process by tracking time off and worked time side by side. 

Automate your accruals

"How much sick leave has Bob accrued? What is Sally's current vacation balance?" You'll never have to worry about divining the numbers from calendars and Excel spreadsheets ever again. All the important totals and figures are at your fingertips with ClickTime's automated accruals. Employees can check their accrued time with the click of a button, and managers can easily generate full-featured Time Off reports for employees, divisions or the entire company!

Check Your Mileage Reimbursement Rates

As the year comes to a close, people start submitting expenses that have piled up on their desks and in their wallets from the past several months. That makes this a good time for our U.S. customers to confirm that their mileage reimbursement rates are set correctly. As of July 1, 2011, the federal mileage reimbursement rate increased from 51 cents per mile to 55.5 cents/mile (see the IRS web site for details).

We recommend that you change your company's mileage reimbursement rate in ClickTime if you haven't already done so. In order to edit your company's mileage rate, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to ClickTime (you need to be an administrator).
2. Click the "Expenses" link on the menu bar under the Company tab.
3. Click the "Expense Types" link.
4. Click on the name or "edit pencil" icon of your "mileage" expense type.
5. Edit the rate value. For example, enter 0.555 for the new federal rate.
6. Choose whether to apply the rate change to expenses that haven't been approved.
7. Save your changes.

If your company has multiple mileage expense types, remember to repeat steps 4-7 above for each appropriate expense type. You can also choose to apply the rate change to expenses that haven't yet been approved.

Check out this Wikipedia article if you're interested in how the federal mileage rate has fluctuated over time.

If you want to start tracking reimbursable expenses in your ClickTime account, contact us to get a free trial of the Expenses module.

Timesheets the Way You Want Them

Timesheets are not a "one size fits all" business system. Different companies track different types of information and each company wants a timesheet that can adapt to its business needs. This is why ClickTime can be configured just the way you want it. Our customization options include:

• Separate Client and Project Options - Allow people to select from a list of clients before specifying the job/project. This is especially helpful for people with long customer and project lists. If you want fewer options to enter on your timesheet, we can combine these two values into one column.
  
  
• Tasks - Track the type of work someone does. You may refer to this as the activity, service item or function. If you don't care about these details, they can be removed from your timesheet.*
  
  
• Custom Terminology - Do you call the entity to whom you provide services a "client", "customer", "cost center" or something else? Use whatever term fits your business best. You can also customize projects (job, matter, milestone, case, etc.) and tasks with your industry's proper terms.
  
  
• Custom Fields - Track anything you want on your timesheet. Add extra fields with formatting options that work best for you. These include providing a list of pre-defined values for the employee to pick from, a yes/no checkbox or an extra field for the employee to enter anything you need (location, case number, etc.).
  
  
• Abbreviations, Numbers or Full Names* - Define how each client, project and task appear to your employees. You can show the entire project name, add the project number or use a client abbreviation or code name.
  
  
• Resize the Width of Timesheet Columns - Employees have monitors of varying sizes. Each person can customize how wide each column is for selecting the client, project and task.
  
  
• Phases and Sub-Phases* - You can break down some or all of your projects into smaller entities like phases and sub-phases.
  
  
• Stopwatch - Each employee can choose whether to use a stopwatch to record their time as they do the work. Alternatively, the administrator can require specific employees to use the stopwatch to mimic a punch-clock system.
  
  
• Start and End Times - You can require specific employees to enter the start and end times for each timesheet entry. Employees who are not required to enter the start/end time may choose to enter their time this way to help them identify any missing gaps in their day.
  
  
• Notes and Comments - Each time entry on the timesheet can have additional comments or notes added. You can also require specific employees to enter notes with each timesheet entry.
  
  
• Weekends - Each person can choose whether to show or hide weekends from a timesheet. This makes filling out the timesheet faster and more accurate.
  
  
• Zero-Hour Time Entries* - Do you need your employees to add notes to a project on their timesheet even when they don't work on the project? Enabling "zero-hour time entries" adds this ability to your company's timesheets.

There are many ways to customize your company's ClickTime timesheet entry screens. Most of these options are configurable in your Company Preferences, including custom terminology, and job and task list controls. There are also several advanced customization options (identified above with a *) that your account representative or our support department can configure for you at your request.

If you'd like help customizing your ClickTime account for your business, please let us know.

Do More–with Automated Notifications!

Remind employees to complete their hours on every timesheet without lifting a finger! Here are five ways Automated Notifications will boost your productivity:

1. No More Sticky Notes… We've got enough on our minds without having to remember to send out employee reminders. With Automated Notifications, included with our timesheet approval system, your employees will always get timely reminders to complete or submit their timesheets.
   
   
2. Do Things Your Way…Our Automated Notification system allows you to customize your e-mail message to best suit the way you do business. You can add special instructions or procedures right into your customized note!
   
   
3. Before or After? - Want to remind your employees before the timesheet's due date? What about reminding them after the timesheet's due date? ClickTime offers the flexibility to do both and more!
   
   
4. Save Time - Don't waste time manually evaluating your employee's timesheets for timesheet reminders. Let ClickTime's Automated Notification take care of the dirty work so you can keep on top of your more important business.
   
   
5. Smart Reminders - Are irrelevant company emails clogging up inboxes at your workplace? You'll be doing your part in keeping mailbox clutter down when you send reminders to just the employees who haven't completed or submitted their timesheets.

Shave hours off the time you spend on timesheet administration. Try Automated Notifications today!

Get Control Over Your Projects

Would you like to keep some projects and clients private so that the names aren't visible to every person who fills out a timesheet? Whether it's because there's a new prospective client that isn't public knowledge yet or you just want to make sure that employees can't accidentally enter time for the wrong project, ClickTime offers multiple ways to manage your project list so people don't see more than you want them to.

The "Project List Controls" feature gives you the flexibility to determine which clients and projects are visible to people when entering time on their timesheet. First, you select whether you want to define different lists for each person or for groups of people (divisions, departments, offices, etc.). Then, you drill into each person, group, client or project to configure who can see and enter time for each client and project.

Project List Controls are available to all customers on Corporate and Enterprise plans. If you're on the Basic plan and want to add Project List Controls to your ClickTime account or just need help configuring your project list, please contact us and let us know.

Make Your iPad Dance with Two Fingers

Your iPad may not exactly dance but it will certainly scroll if you apply two fingers to it. When logged into ClickTime with your iPad, if using one finger won't get your iPad to scroll through a list or move the page up, down, left or right, try using two fingers together. This should get the Quick View, project list, client list, employee list and other lists scrolling for you.

This two-finger trick also frequently works on other websites too. Next time you're using your iPad and run into some text, a list or other section on a web page that won't scroll for you, apply two fingers and start scrolling along.

List View Features

One of the best new features when viewing and managing lists of clients, projects and people is the ability to customize which columns of information to display. For example, you can add a person's timesheet and expense approvers as well as custom fields to your list of people. After adding extra columns, you can rearrange the position of them relative to other columns by clicking-and-dragging the column heading. Additionally, you can sort the list by clicking once on the column heading.

To add new columns to your lists, click on the "columns" button at the top right of the list and then check the values you want to add to the list view.

For more information on using the features in our new list views, check out our feature tour (2 minutes).

QuickBooks Pro 2011 R4 and R5 Issues

We have uncovered a bug with the QuickBooks Pro 2011 R4 and R5 updates. The ClickTime Connector for use with QuickBooks® will appear to freeze while trying to communicate with your QuickBooks file if R4 or R5 are installed.

We're actively working with Intuit's QuickBooks support team to find a solution to this issue. In the meantime, we recommend that you do not upgrade QuickBooks Pro 2011 to R4 or R5.