Time, Expenses & Projects

Capture time and expenses against anything, resolve rates from a rate card, and run projects with budgets, capacity and billing plans.

Recording Time, Expenses and Absence

My Time & Expenses is the screen consultants and other staff use to book their own hours, claim expenses with a receipt and request time off. They never type a rate: the bill and cost rate are resolved from the rate cards and stored on each entry when it is booked.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → ERP - Projects & Time:

My Time & Expenses — your own weekly timesheet, timer, expense claims and time off
Time Entries — the hours booked
Timesheets — each week submitted
Expenses — expense claims
Absence — time off

Admin Panel → Projects & Time:

My Time & Expenses — the same screen for staff who are not architects; its badge counts weeks and claims sent back to you that you have not corrected yet

Before someone can use it

Give their security group the ERP: Time & Expenses role (a project manager with ERP: Projects can use it too) and write access to the company, on ERP Setup.
Add them to the resource register and link their user account under Projects & Time → Resourcing → People (see Resource Planning).
Make sure the projects they work on are Active and have a work breakdown.

Without the register link the screen says You are not set up to book time yet; without a company grant it says No company to book time in.

Booking a week

Open My Time & Expenses. The top shows the Company and who you are Booking as, with your grade.
On the Timesheet tab, use Previous week, This week and Next week to choose the week.
Under Add a line, choose the Project (projects you are allocated to are listed first, under Allocated to you; Internal / non-project (not billable) is at the bottom), optionally a Work package, an Activity, tick or untick Billable, and click Add line.
Type hours into each day's cell as decimals (7.5) or hours and minutes (7:30). Each cell saves as soon as you leave it.
To repeat last week, use Copy last week's lines or Copy last week with hours.
Click Submit week for approval. Submitted and approved days are locked.

Time can be submitted only for days already worked: a week with hours on a future day is refused until that day has passed, or until you clear it. The Timer panel offers Start timer against a project and Stop and book to turn the running time into an entry.

Claiming an expense

Go to the Expenses tab.
Enter the Date, Category, Amount paid (incl. tax) and Of which tax.
Choose the Project, and tick Recharge to client if the client pays for it.
Attach the Receipt (a PDF or a photo, up to 10 MB) and write a Description.
Click Submit claim.

My claims lists every claim, filtered by Awaiting approval, Rejected, Approved or Recharged. A claim sent back can be corrected and resubmitted.

Requesting time off

On the Time off tab, choose the Type, First day and Last day, the Length (full days, or a morning or afternoon on a single date), add a Note for your approver and click Request time off. Approved time off comes off your capacity in the resource plan. Leave already taken, or more than 90 days back, is recorded by the manager on the Resourcing tab instead.

Following what you submitted

My submissions lists every week you have submitted, filtered by Awaiting approval, Sent back or Approved. A week sent back comes with the approver's reason; correct it on the Timesheet tab and submit it again.

What goes wrong

"Nothing to submit yet - enter your hours first." or "Nothing new to submit": every hour is already submitted or approved.
"A timer is still running": stop the timer before submitting.
"Time can be submitted only for days already worked.": the week has hours on a day still to come.
"A receipt must be a PDF or a photo (jpg, png, gif, webp or heic).": convert the file and try again.
A project is missing from the list: it is Completed, Closed or Cancelled, or it belongs to another company.
Hours show a rate of zero: no rate card covers the person; see rate cards.

Worked example

On Friday afternoon a consultant opens My Time & Expenses, clicks Copy last week's lines, and fills in 7.5 hours a day across two client projects and a half day of internal training on the non-project line. They add a rail fare of 86.40 with 0.00 tax against the client project, ticks Recharge to client and attaches a photo of the ticket. They click Submit week for approval. On Monday the badge shows 1: their manager sent the week back asking for the training to move to Thursday. They move it and resubmit.

Recommendations

Book non-billable time as well, or utilisation is meaningless.
Attach receipts when you claim; the approver sees which are missing.
Submit weekly so billing and WIP are never waiting on time.
Use the timer for short, interrupted work rather than estimating at the end of the day.

Rate Cards and Capacity

Rate cards answer one question for every hour booked: for this person, doing this kind of work, on this project, on this date, what do we charge and what does it cost us? The answer is stored on the time entry when it is booked, so a later rate change never restates the margin on work already done.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → ERP - Projects & Time:

Projects & Time — the console: Rate cards on the Rates & settings tab, and Rates on this project on each project's Billing section
Rate Cards — the cards themselves
Resource Capacity — optional capacity rows per period

Admin Panel → Projects & Time:

Projects & Time — the same console for project managers

How a rate is chosen

The most specific card that is valid on the date wins. Specificity is scored, so you never have to order the cards by hand:

Person named on the card counts most.
Project named on the card counts next.
Activity counts next.
Grade counts least.

A card naming this person on this project beats a card for their grade, which beats a house card with nothing named. Priority only breaks a tie between equally specific cards, and after that the newest Valid from wins.

The bill rate and the cost rate are resolved separately. A card that leaves one of them at zero has no opinion on it, and the next most specific card that has one decides. So a client's agreed price on a project can be a card with a bill rate only: the hour is priced at the client's rate and still costed at the person's own or grade cost rate.

Setting up rate cards

Open Projects & Time, choose the company and go to Rates & settings.
Click Add a rate card.
Give it a Name. Leave Person as Anyone and Project as Any project for a general card; set a Grade for a grade card, or an Activity for a kind of work.
Enter Bill rate / hour, Cost rate / hour or both, and the Currency (blank uses the company's).
Set Valid from and, if the rate ends, Valid to.
Click Add rate card.

Start with a house card (nothing named) and one card per grade. The list shows each card's Applies to, bill and cost per hour, Margin, Valid dates and Priority, with Current rate cards, Average bill rate and People without a rate above it. Tick Include expired and future cards to see the full history.

For a rate agreed with one client, open the project, go to Billing and use Add a rate for this project in Rates on this project. On an internal project the same card sets the cost rates its budget is measured with.

Changing a rate

Add a new card valid from the change date and give the old one a Valid to of the day before. Entries already booked keep the rate they captured, so editing a card in place leaves you with a card that no longer explains the entries. Dated cards also let you enter a rate rise in advance.

Capacity and targets

Capacity is what utilisation divides by. It comes from rows on the Resource Capacity datastore where you have them (a row either gives the minutes or names a business-hours calendar), otherwise the Hours per week in the resource register, and failing all of those an assumed 7.5 hours a day, which the Resourcing tab labels as assumed. Each person's Target utilisation % is set in the register. Both are covered in Resource Planning.

What goes wrong

"Give the card a bill rate, a cost rate or both.": a card with neither does nothing.
"The card ends before it starts.": check Valid from and Valid to.
People without a rate is above zero: those people's hours are booked at zero. Without any card, every hour is.
A margin of 100% on a project: no card supplies a cost rate for those people. Add cost rates to the grade or house cards.

Worked example

An agency has a house card at 95 bill and 40 cost, a Senior grade card at 120 bill and 55 cost, and for its largest client a project card with a bill rate of 110 and no cost rate. A senior consultant's hour on that client's project resolves its bill rate from the project card (110) and its cost rate from the Senior grade card (55), so the margin is real. When the grade rates rise on 1 April, the old Senior card is given Valid to 31 March and a new one starts on 1 April; March's entries still read 120.

Recommendations

Always fill in cost rates on grade or house cards, using real employment cost.
End and replace cards; never edit a rate that has been used.
Use project cards for client prices with a bill rate only.
Check People without a rate whenever someone joins.

Projects, Budgets and Billing Plans

The Projects & Time console is where a project manager creates a project, breaks the work down, sets the cost budget and chooses how it will be invoiced. Approvals, billing, revenue recognition and resourcing all hang off this set-up.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → ERP - Projects & Time:

Projects & Time — the console
Work Breakdown — work breakdown items
Project Budgets — budget lines
Billing Plans — how each project is invoiced

Admin Panel → Projects & Time:

Projects & Time — the same console for staff who are not architects

Who can use it

ERP: Projects can do everything here. ERP: Finance can do the financial acts (billing, revenue recognition, WIP and expense posting) but not change a project's structure, budget, plan or approvals. ERP: Reporting opens it read-only. Approving needs write access to the company; invoicing and posting need post access (see Getting Started with ERP).

Where projects are kept

The ERP ships its own Projects datastore, connected through the erp.project binding, so projects can be created straight away. An ERP administrator can repoint that binding on ERP Bindings at your own project datastore. No project datastore is connected means the binding is missing or disabled.

Creating a project

Pick the Company, and on the Portfolio tab click New project.
Enter a Code (unique within the company) and a Name.
Set Start, End and Status (Proposed, Active, On hold, Completed, Closed or Cancelled; the last three are not offered for time).
Choose the Client; invoices go to it unless the billing plan says otherwise.
Optionally set Project manager, Cost centre and Customer reference.
Tick Internal project for research, pre-sales or overhead work: it is never invoiced and needs no client or billing plan.
Click Create project. It opens on the Project tab.

The project workspace

An open project shows its key figures (cost budget, actual and committed cost, billed, to bill, margin, CPI and SPI) and six sections: Overview (health, earned value and Record progress), Work breakdown, Budget, Billing, Revenue and Team.

Work breakdown

Click Add top-level item for each phase, then Add below to break a phase into work packages, tasks and milestones. Each item has a Name, a Type, Start, End (or due, for a milestone), Planned hours and a Billable work tick. Time is booked to the lowest level. List and Schedule show the items as a table or a timeline.

Mark complete on a milestone makes its billing events due for the next billing run. Remove is refused for an item with children, booked time, a budget, allocations or billing events.

Budget

Under Add or replace a budget line, choose the Cost type and the Work package (or Whole project), enter Hours / qty, Cost and Revenue, and click Save. There is one line per cost type and work package: saving the same pair again replaces it. A milestone's revenue sets its billing amount. Budget against actual, by cost type shows budget, actual, committed and remaining.

Billing plan

On Billing, choose what the plan Bills from:

Time and materials: approved time and rechargeable expenses at their captured rates; Time and materials, capped never bills past the Cap.
Fixed price: the Fixed price in Instalments at a Frequency.
Milestone billing: each milestone bills its revenue budget, the fixed price split across any that has none.
Retainer: a Retainer per period.

Also set Contract value (what revenue recognition measures against), Payment terms (days), Invoice to, Invoice as (the sales document type), Revenue recognition and Currency, and click Create plan. For a fixed, milestone or retainer plan, Generate schedule creates the billing events. Raising the invoices is covered in Projects, WIP & Revenue Recognition.

What goes wrong

"No sales document type exists": create one first (see Transactional Documents).
The Overview says "Needs attention": it lists why, for example no billing plan, no cost budget, over 85% of the budget used, CPI below 0.9, a negative margin, or approved time unbilled for 45 days. Over budget, low CPI and negative margin mark it At risk; the rest Watch.
Buttons are greyed out: your role is read-only for that action.

Worked example

A consultancy wins a fixed-price implementation. The project manager creates IMP-204, adds phases Discovery, Build and Handover, each ending in a milestone, and saves a labour budget line per phase. The plan is Milestone billing at a fixed price of 60,000, recognised by percentage of completion. Generate schedule creates three billing events; when Discovery's milestone is marked complete, the next billing run invoices it.

Recommendations

Set a cost budget on every project, or variance and earned value cannot be measured.
Keep the work breakdown to about three levels.
Choose the billing plan before work starts; a project with no plan cannot be invoiced.
Mark internal projects as internal so they do not appear as loss-making client work.

Approving Time, Expenses and Time Off

Approval is the gate between what people book and what the business acts on. Approved time becomes billable and counts in project actuals; approved expenses count in project cost and, if rechargeable, become billable; approved time off comes off a person's capacity. Project managers decide all three on the Approvals tab of Projects & Time.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → ERP - Projects & Time:

Projects & Time — the console: the Approvals tab (its badge counts timesheets waiting)
Timesheets — every timesheet with its status, who submitted it and who decided it

Admin Panel → Projects & Time:

Projects & Time — the same console; its badge counts submitted timesheets in your companies other than your own

Who can approve

Approving needs the ERP: Projects role and write access to the company. Nobody approves their own work: the console marks your own timesheets, claims and requests Your own - another approver must decide and shows no buttons for them, and the engine refuses even if someone tries another way. The check uses who actually submitted the item, recorded on the item when it was submitted, not just the current link in the resource register, so changing that link does not get round it.

Deciding what is waiting

Open Projects & Time, choose the company and go to Approvals.
Read the three figures at the top: Timesheets waiting (with hours and value), Expenses waiting and Time off waiting.
Narrow the lists with Person and Project, or click Refresh.
In Timesheets, click Show N entries on a week to see each day's project, work, hours, rate, value and notes.
Click Approve or Send back on a row, or tick several rows and use Approve selected or Send back selected.
Do the same in Expenses (check the Receipt column: View opens it, Missing means none was attached) and in Time off, where the buttons are Approve and Decline.

Sending back or declining always needs a Reason (required). The person sees it on My Time & Expenses, and their menu badge counts what has come back to them until they correct it.

Reopening an approved week

Decided in the last six weeks lists recent decisions with their reason. Reopen sends an approved week back to its person to correct and resubmit, with a required reason; its time stops counting as approved and billable until then. A week with invoiced time cannot be reopened: credit the invoice first.

Statuses

Submitted: waiting for a decision.
Approved: billable and counted in actuals.
Rejected: shown to the person as Sent back; they correct and resubmit it as a new submission.
Invoiced: billed by a billing run (shown on recent decisions).

The status columns on the Timesheets, Time Entries and Expenses datastores are hidden from editing in the generic datastore editor (only an architect can write them there), along with rates and invoice links. Approvals, billing and reopening happen through the consoles, so nobody can type an "approved" status onto time that was never approved.

What goes wrong

"You submitted this …, so you cannot approve or reject it. Another approver has to decide it.": ask a colleague with ERP: Projects.
"Say why it is being rejected, so it can be corrected and resubmitted.": a reason is required.
"Only an approved timesheet can be reopened": the week is not approved yet; decide it instead.
Buttons are disabled: you hold ERP: Reporting or ERP: Finance only, or lack write access to the company.

Worked example

On Monday a project manager opens Approvals and sees nine timesheets waiting, 312 hours worth 27,450. They filter to their project, expand each week, and spot one consultant who booked a day of training as billable. They send that week back with the reason "Move Thursday's training to the internal line" and approve the other eight together. Their own week is listed as Your own - another approver must decide, so their director approves it.

Recommendations

Approve weekly, before billing runs and month-end WIP.
Expand before approving a week that looks unusual in hours or value.
Give specific reasons when sending back; they are what the person acts on.
Make sure every approver also has an approver, since nobody can approve their own time.