- Want better clients?
- Money burned… where did it all go?
- Which projects mean the most to me?
Those are questions a timesheet can answer for you.
Interview: Project Portfolios
What is a project portfolio?
It is a collection of projects with some common element you care about. For instance, you might have a collection of consulting projects. Or a collection of in-house jobs. Those collections are portfolios.
Look down for a video
Think of the portfolio as a packing crate. Inside the crate are many projects. But you can’t see them. They are packed tightly inside. All you can see is the crate… the portfolio. So you manage the crate, not the contents.
What is project portfolio management?
Project portfolio management is handling entire collections of projects for the purposes of proper execution and education.
You are managing the whole collection, not just individual projects. Your reporting, your graphing, your searches, and even setting status is done on the entire collection. The portfolio is a ‘black box’. You don’t look inside at the individual projects. You don’t manage individuals, you manage the entire portfolio as if it were a packing crate.
Interview: Customer Login and App
Clients want project status — all the time! they want to know who is working on it… what is being done… how much it is costing them… and when it will be done. Drilling into that, clients want to know the status of every task, which ones are finished or near completion, and which ones are upcoming.
That is the purpose of the ‘client login’ feature in your timesheet. Clients have a special login they can use to check progress without bugging you. They will see every project you’re doing for them, and all the hours logged. They can also see expenses. This becomes their own little project portal.
Download the ProjectBot app from the Google Play Store to do the same thing.
ProjectBot runs on Android. It’s the same thing as the client project portal mentioned above, but runs on smartphones. Just another convenience for checking project status.
Interview: DCAA Compliance
If you’re a government contractor, don’t worry about Defense Contract Audit Agency compliance. Standard Time® has you covered. ST follows all the rules of DCAA. With just a few clicks your timesheet can be set up to become DCAA compliant.
Scroll down for a video
Here are just some things you should consider:
- Employees must have their own login id
- Employees can only enter time for themselves, not for other employees
- Time should only be entered on the day it occurred, not past or future
- Notes are required for any changes to past entries
- Timesheets must be submitted and approved by a manager
Here are some additional links that may help:
http://www.stdtime.com/dcaa.htm
Interview: Microsoft Project Integration
Make your life easier with MS Project. Integrate with Standard Time® to follow your projects.
Interview: Customize Client Invoices
Make invoices your own with Standard Time®. Put your company logo, company style in every invoice sent out to clients.
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Invoice templates in ST at simple RTF documents. That means you can edit them any way you like. Open them in your favorite word processor and go to work! Add your logo, motto, corporate colors and style. Add anything you like. When you’re done, save it in the Invoices\Templates folder. Now you use it in ST.
Place these tags in your document to serve as placeholders for data.
| [INV_NUM] | Invoice number |
| [INV_SUBTOTAL] | Total, before taxes |
| [INV_TOTAL] | Total, after taxes |
| [INV_TAX_RATE] | Percentage of tax on goods and services |
| [INV_TAX] | Total taxes |
| [INV_DATE] | Date the invoice was produced |
| [INV_PO] | Purchase order number |
| [INV_TERMS] | NET30, or other payment terms |
| [INV_DUE] | Due date |
| [INV_REP] | Representative |
| [INV_PROJECT] | The project this invoice was billed against |
| [INV_SUBSYSTEM] | The subsystem this invoice was billed against |
| [INV_USER] | The user the time and expenses belonged to |
| [INV_NOTE] | Note to display on the invoice |
| [INV_STARTDATE] | Starting date range for time and expenses |
| [INV_ENDDATE] | Ending date for time and expense records |
| [INV_TASK_DETAIL] | A pre-built block that describes all the time logs |
| [INV_EXPENSE_DETAIL] | Pre-built block of expense records |
| [INV_TAXID] | Federal tax id of the consulting firm |
| [INV_ADDRESS] | Address of consulting firm |
| [INV_CLIENT] | Client name and address, displayed anywhere you like |
| [INV_TASK_TOTAL_ACTUAL] | Total hours for all time logs |
| [INV_TASK_TOTAL_CLIENT] | Calculated time log cost to client |
| [INV_TASK_TOTAL_SALARY] | Calculated cost to consulting firm |
| [INV_EXP_TOTAL_AMOUNT] | Total expenses |
| [INV_EXP_TOTAL_DISTANCE] | Total distance for all mileage records |
| [INV_TASK_] | Prefix for any time log field |
| [INV_EXP_] | Prefix for any expense field |
| [INV_EMBED_RTF:] | Prefix for embedding a report into the invoice |
Blocks of Support Time
Clients can buy blocks of support time from their vendors. Project tasks can be set up in Standard Time® to follow the time used in support. When the time runs out a new contract is then negotiated.
QuickBooks Timesheet Integration
Standard Time® integrates with Intuit QuickBooks. That means, your employee timesheets can be sent to QB for payroll or client billing.
Here’s the scenario:
- You import all your customers, jobs, and service items from QB
- Those jobs and service items show up on your employee timesheet in ST
- Enter hours for any job, on a service item row
- Export all time, for all employees at once, to QB
- Put those QB hours onto a client invoice, or pay employees
Click there to try ST: http://www.stdtime.com/download.htm
Manufacturing Barcode Scanning
If you’re a manufacturer using Standard Time® for your time tracking needs, it is significant to your business. You can affix barcodes to the products that will be manufactured and be able to follow it in every aspect of production. Know how long the assembly took to produce and also know which employee was working on it.
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Scan a barcode on each item during manufacturing, and you will get the following information:
- Time spent for each part
- Time for each project
- Time for each task
- Time that each employee spent on manufacturing
With this information you can:
- Reduce the cost for each part
- Reduce project time
- report employee efficiency
Earned Value Explained
Standard Time® allows a project manager to keep track of how much money the company is making on a project. Each time an engineer enters his time it will accumulate and have an earned value for that project.
Scroll down for the video. Plus, here’s another page that describes earned value using ‘actual work’ and ‘percent complete’. After going to this page, scroll down below it for a detailed description.