Time Tracking and Billing System for Professional Services Firms

Need: Time Tracking, Attendance, Billing and Decision Support Software

In any professional services firm the employees' time is the firm's most valuable asset. By increasing the "debitable rate" (the percentage of hours billed out of total hours available) the firm can boost its profitability considerably. The aim of this business software is to help management with analysis of the debitable rate and give management the information which will let them take decisions for improved profitability.

Solution: Easily Accessible Web-based Business Software

By utilizing modern web technology like PHP5, MySQL 5 and jQuery LiteBreeze has developed a user-friendly business application that allows management to plan better and make better decisions.

The system comprises a customer management module, project management, to-do list management, work order management, time tracking, billing management, staff self service portal, customer self-service portal, financial reports and more:

The CRM Module

Through the customer management module the user can set up default hourly rates for clients.

Project Management Module

To each client a number of projects can be set up. A default hourly rate, if it differs from the client default rate, can be set up for the project.

Project Structure Management

Each project consists of a project structure (basically list of things to do). For a software development project, the project structure can look like this:

• Project planning
• Prototype development
• Admin panel
  • User management module
  • Product management
  • Reports
• Web design
• Quality assurance testing

Each item in the project structure is called a project segment.

Work Order Management / To-do Item Management

Once the project structure is set up, a work order can be registered for the project. When adding a work order the user will assign one or many project segments to the work order, thereby creating a to-do item. A to-do item is the combination of a work order and project segment.

The reason for this set-up is that it allows the company to accept multiple work orders for the same application structure. It may be, for example, that the client requires a new web design to be implemented in the project three months after completion of the project. Instead of having to create a new project segment for this requirement, which would become quite messy if repeated, the user just need to add a new work order. The user would assign the segment "web design" to the work order, thereby creating the new to-do item.

There are many more advantages with the work order set-up:

• Hourly rates can easily be hiked for a work order, keeping tracability of prices.
• Reports of profitability can be generated based on work order or full project.
• The project structure does not get cluttered with long lists of to-do items that don't make sense.

It is on the to-do items that employees book time. The to-do items can have different hourly rates.

Different billing types can be assigned to to-do items such as:

• Fixed price: the client is charged a fixed price for the to-do item.
• Time and material: the client is charged on an hourly basis for work done on the to-do item.
• Unpaid: the client is not charged for time booked on the to-do item.

In addition, a specific hourly rate can be set for an employee. E.g., the company may want to charge the client more for time spent by senior employees.

Validation Against Time Clock

The business software is linked to the company's time clock system. This allows the system to make sure that all time that employees' clock are booked. When the employee, through the staff self service portal, books time the employee must account for how all clocked in time has been spent (even though some of it, such as additional breaks, may be booked as "employee unpaid").

Invoice Management

The business software is also linked to the invoice management software. This way a client financial statement can be generated consisting of paid invoices (credits) and bills (debits). This allows management and administration to see when it's time to send a new invoice.

Report Generation

The company is now storing all information on what employees should get paid for, what clients should get charged for and how exactly time has been spent; so the company has got a great opportunity to do data mining and analysis. Some of the reports that have been included in the business software are:

• Employee worked hours overview: Displaying paid and unpaid time on monthly basis.
• Client financial statement: Showing how much a client owes based on previous bills, paid invoices and work reported by the employees which is not yet billed for.
• Paid and unpaid work report (screenshot): Shows in great detail what each employee has worked on a particular day and also the total paid/unpaid hours for that day. Through this report management can find out if any time has been incorrectly booked and if there are issues keeping the budget in a specific project.
• Project overview report: The user can see how much time has been spent by each employee on each segment in the project/work order. A great tool for conducting post-project reviews and see where the company was successful and where issues occured.
• Receivable report: An overview of all clients and how much each owes.

Benefits Delivered by LiteBreeze India

The system is scalable and neatly structured. Even if your company is working for the same client for years, the to-do list will stay clean and uncluttered, and you will still have 100% control of the budget of specific tasks.

As budgeted tasks are grouped together into work orders it is easy to keep track of profitability of a specific work order.

As all time (both billable and non-billable) will be linked to a client you will be able to analyze profitability of a client for any given time period.

Contact LiteBreeze today to learn how a time and billing management module can be developed and customized for your business!