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Milestone Billing

Many consultants and freelancers bill clients by date range. In other words, all the time and materials for a chosen date range are included on invoices. But did you know you can use invoicing milestones instead?

Scroll down for a video on the topic

Let’s say you have a flat-rate project. The client has agreed to pay a fixed amount for the entire job. Plus, you and the client have agreed on a payment schedule. Such schedules commonly include some amount up-front, sometimes an amount in the middle, and the remainder at completion. Those are payment milestones are a contractual agreement.

Now that you have agreed to the milestone payments, you can put them into your timesheet software and bill accordingly. The video below demonstrates three ways to bill clients by milestone.

1. Bill clients by date range

Just choose a date range, and the software will find all the time and materials that fall in between those dates. Those will be totaled up for the invoice.

2. Bill clients a fixed amount of the project

Enter a dollar amount, and the invoice will include that amount. The time and material may also be included on the invoice, but the invoice subtotal will use this specified amount.

3. Bill clients a percentage of the project

Enter a percentage of the total project amount. The invoice subtotal will be a percentage of the total fixed bid. Time and materials may also be included, but their costs will not be used for the invoice subtotal.

 

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Why the PMO Needs a Timesheet

Here’s what to do when the PMO office is asking for a timesheet on every desk.  (Yes, it’s not really PMO Office is it? It’s Project Management Office, so I don’t need the extra office after it. Well gosh, it just sounds better that way. 🙂 )

Okay, with that out of the way… The PMO is probably wanting to get employee hours so they can compare with task estimates. After all, there’s not much point in predicting task completions, and scheduling tasks without timesheet hours from employees.

Scroll down for a video (it’s a long ways down there)

Huge things happen when you inject actual employee hours into project schedules. It’s turning loose a basket of cats. Things happen you never thought of. Employees work on projects and tasks you didn’t expect. They finish up tasks, or cancel them altogether. They spend ten times as long as they should on others. Tasks get switched to other employees. And those employees send them back because they don’t have the resources to complete them. Sometimes team leaders jump into tasks they aren’t assigned to. Or split tasks into two or three new ones.

See how confusing this can get?

A project schedule alone is almost useless. It needs employee hours to bring it to life. And, it needs employee input. Employees should have the ability to modify tasks, create tasks, and delete them. If they don’t get that privilege, they should at least have the ability to suggest such changes, because they are the boots on the ground and usually know best what’s going on.

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Colors Signify Project Status

Do you like to use colors to signify project status? Here’s a way to do it.

Let’s say you use green to indicate that a project is a go. And Red to signify no-go. Maybe yellow means proceed with caution while we wait for final client approval. Or, maybe you use colors for project priority to help employees remember which projects are the most important ones to work on. In any case, you have the ability to colorize projects for your purposes.

Project colors are applied to

  1. Timesheet projects
  2. Project Task headers
  3. Gantt task bar (which can also be overridden with their own task color)

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Timesheet or Project Management

What if you had a time tracking and project management app you could run your whole business from? That would be pretty unique. A lot of people do it. Of course, you’ll need a lot of other software like browsers and word processors and spreadsheets, but ST can be used for the core processes. Here are those processes that can be run from a timesheet with PM.

  1. Collecting client hours
  2. Tracking tasks and projects
  3. Collecting time and expenses
  4. Handling PTO and time off accruals
  5. Approving timesheets and client billables
  6. Invoicing clients
  7. Receiving client payments
  8. Viewing future project revenue

That’s a lot of core business processes. You can run a lot of your business from this timesheet.

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Barcode Scanning in Manufacturing

No texting on the shop floor, or you’re all fired!

No barcode scanning unit labels either! That would tell management exactly how long each unit took to manufacture, and how long each project took, and how much time employees are working.

No! We can’t have that!

Do you want to drag us out of the dark iron age, and into the modern world? Because that’s exactly what barcode scanning on the shop floor would do. We’d no longer enjoy the dark, unlit manufacturing environment where workers sling hot steel and toil long hours until after nightfall, and come in Christmas morning to catch up on stuff they didn’t finish Christmas Eve. Instead, efficiency would climb, and workers would have more time for simpler tasks and family and lunches. Nope, that would just not do.

Manufacturing barcoding is just too dangerous for this shop floor!

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How Consultants Track Time

Successful consultants track time a certain way. That’s probably one reason they are successful. The video below describes a few of those ways. Use this to inspire you. You may find something that works for you.

For instance, are you using a linked task list to define your projects? Or, do you just go at it with all your talents and efforts? Consider that a project task list help you remember everything that needs to be done. You don’t forget things and look incompetent in front of the client. Trust me… they notice.

If you are using project tasks, the next question is: how good are you at estimating hours? Have you ever compared the actual time your tasks took with your estimates? Doing that also makes you look good in front of the client. You can speak from authority, siting many other similar projects where certain tasks took X number of hours. Clients are more willing to pay extra when they know you’ve done your homework. Turns out comparing estimates with actuals is virtually free in ST. There’s a dashboard where you’ll see those numbers.

Watch the video and become inspired!

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Bad Construction Foreman

Don’t worry it’s all government funded! This foreman does all the fun stuff for his employees and they love him. (watch below)

Hey, sometimes you just have to ignore all the prudent project management advice and use your track hoe as a swing. Or have jousting matches with your boring machines. So what if a few shoring boxes collapse and cripple your crews! Or a crew member flies off the track hoe swing and crashes into a building. You gotta get loose!

Hope you know we’re kidding! Don’t try this at home. Warning, warning, Extreme danger!

Seriously, breaking a few rules can be a good thing. It mixes things up and loosens people up. But the basic project tracking and management rules still apply, even if you change things up a little. You’ve got tasks that need to be completed. Budgets you must stay within. And deliverables people are expecting. In fact, those three competing demands will occupy most of your project management decisions. Time, Cost, and Scope.

You decide: is this a bad foreman?

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Old-Timey: Time Tracking Apps

There are better ways to track project time than punch clocks, spreadsheets, and scraps of paper. (Scroll down to see how they do it in the modern world.)

The ladies in this video hope to get new timekeeping apps for their Android and iOS smartphones. But the boss is so stingy it may not happen for another hundred years. Problem is, he is wasting valuable human resources on standing in line and punching clocks. Couldn’t those human resources be used more efficiently for his core competencies?

Couldn’t they be contributing to the social media buzz around the company and it’s products? After all, these ladies have all proven to spin a good tale when in the company of prolific spinsters of their type.

Or couldn’t the ladies clean up the company website with those extra hours?  It is well known that the female constitution is best suited for cleaning and washing. Why not put the lady’s natural talents to good use?

In any case, the old methods of spreadsheets and hand-built timekeeping apps are out. Get a modern timesheet and the apps to support it.

Are we in deep doo-doo yet?  🙂

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Whiteboard: Timesheet Approvals

There’s one really big advantage to timesheet approvals. In other words, having managers check employee timesheets for correctness. That advantage is the value you get from another set of eyes. Mistakes are easy to make; everyone does it. But having a backup eliminates most of them. That’s what timesheet approvals are all about.

Scroll down for video

Here is the process:

  1. Employee fills in timesheet
  2. Or, if the employee forgets to fill in the timesheet by Monday, an email reminder is sent
  3. Employee re-checks the numbers, and clicks “Submit for Approval”
  4. An email is sent to the manager
  5. Managers view a list of everyone who have submitted their timesheets
  6. Managers view each employee timesheet
  7. Numbers are re-checked
  8. Managers approve or reject timesheets
  9. Employees optionally fix rejected timesheets
  10. Managers lock timesheets so no more changes can be made
  11. Employee receive an error when attempting to change a locked timesheet

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Old-Timey: Who Uses Time Tracking

Have a little fun with this old-timey video. Who tracks there time in the modern world?

Consultants track their time. Client billing and profitability depend on it. Here’s an easy app to track your billable hours, and bill clients for those hours.

Engineers track their time. Find out how many engineering hours are spent on each project and task. Compare actuals with estimates. Find out which projects you’re spending the most time on, and compare that with your priorities.

Manufacturing companies track time. Learn how much time is spent on each product, on each product line, and each item. Employee timesheets and manufacturing barcode systems answer the questions of how much time, who, and where the time is spent. Are you meeting planned objectives?