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Interview: Customize Client Invoices

Make invoices your own with Standard Time®. Put your company logo, company style in every invoice sent out to clients.

Scroll down to watch the video

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

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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.

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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:

  1. You import all your customers, jobs, and service items from QB
  2. Those jobs and service items show up on your employee timesheet in ST
  3. Enter hours for any job, on a service item row
  4. Export all time, for all employees at once, to QB
  5. Put those QB hours onto a client invoice, or pay employees

Click there to try ST: http://www.stdtime.com/download.htm

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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.

Scroll down for video.

Scan a barcode on each item during manufacturing, and you will get the following information:

  1. Time spent for each part
  2. Time for each project
  3. Time for each task
  4. Time that each employee spent on manufacturing

With this information you can:

  1. Reduce the cost for each part
  2. Reduce project time
  3. report employee efficiency

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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.

http://www.stdtime.com/videos/earnedvalue.htm

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Interview: Utilization Rates

There is a report that can be run in Standard Time® that tells how much money you’re making per scheduled work hour.

Such a report is called a Utilization Report.

A utilization report contains several things:

  1. The number of scheduled hours for the given time period
  2. The percentage of billable hours for each employee, for that same time period
  3. The effective billing rate for each employee

With such information, you can tell which employees are making the most revenue for your organization.

Take a look at this video for more info.

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Interview: Microsoft Project

MS Project schedules without ‘Actual Work’ from employees are dead.  They are little more than a list of tasks, and soon become out of date because employees complete some or portions of them, and the schedule doesn’t reflect that input.

You need a timesheet to supply those employee hours.

Take a look at this video.  It describes the issue and suggest a possible solution.

 

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Interview: Better than a Spreadsheet

A spreadsheet looks really inviting; free! If you have a small business with a few employees and don’t have to send any invoices, then it probably is OK. But multiple projects, many employees and different billing rates for them all is when you need a professional timesheet.

All true…

But here are some reasons spreadsheet are not the best tool for tracking client hours.

  1. You can easily make the mistake of entering hours into the wrong employee.
  2. Same with the wrong project
  3. Same with the wrong client
  4. You can’t sync with a neato time tracking app like Standard Time®.
  5. You can’t easily share the spreadsheet on the web without collisions.
  6. You don’t get any email notifications when things are wrong.
  7. You don’t get any real project status.

So… that free timesheet may be costing you more than you think.

Check this out.

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Interview: Quickbooks Timesheets

Standard Time, the best timesheet on the planet and QuickBooks, the best accounts receivable app can now be joined!

You can send your time and expenses directly to QuickBooks with a special link.  Or, you can still export to IIF files that can be imported to QB.

The time you send to QB will be placed into the employee timesheet, where it can be used for payrol or client billing.

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Interview: Five Timesheet Features

Project tasks, graphical timesheet, track expenses, client invoicing and time off accruals. Five favorite features available in Standard Time®.

Scroll down for the video.

This product is more than a timesheet.  It is more than a project management app.  In fact, there is enough here to run a good portion of your business.  That is, if your business is engineering, manufacturing, or consulting.

Start by jumping into project tasks.  Build projects that represent your client jobs.  The tasks will show up in employee timesheet.  Track hours to them with the graphical timesheet, or spreadsheet-style interface.  Track expenses to those same projects.  Add your mileage and vehicles.  When you’re done, invoice your clients, all within the same software.

Did I forget project proposals?  Or project revenue estimates?  Or resource allocation?  Yep, sure did… but that’s for another day.  🙂

Actually, it doesn’t end there.  Employees can enter time off and PTO requests.  When their vacation or personal or sick time is approved, those hours are subtracted from their bank.  But… wait a few weeks, and those hours are automatically replenished by the time off accural mechanism.  Now you’re ready for some more time off!

Take a look here.