Timesheets

General

• Different employees in my organisation need to see different timesheets, and different payment types. Is this possible?

  Yes absolutely. Many organisations need this. And yet we’re pretty sure no-one else handles this properly, despite it being so critical in our view.

  For example you might have some employees who enter time on a quantity basis, and some on a start and finish time basis. And then you might have different groups that need to enter additional information on their timesheet such as the work area they worked in, or they might have to tick a box or two that you have defined that relate to Recalls, or Higher Duties. The list of possibilities is endless, but they all need to be catered for.

  TimeFiler also provides the ability to show different reasons and payment types to different groups of employees. You choose who sees what, which of course will help ensure the employee fills in the timesheet correctly from the very start.

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• How does the timesheet data create payments in payroll? Or GL data in my accounting software?

  Each payroll vendor typically has their own format that resolves around a csv, or database file of some kind. We’ve already got a number of interfaces to deal with this including one that is highly generic and supports the vast majority of payroll vendors.

  But there are always a few that surprise us in their creativity, and we are happy to add to repository of payroll vendors that we support. Unless your payroll system is a hugely bespoke system, we would typically do this at no charge.

  Our approach to accounting systems is similar, although these interfaces tend to be more unique. We make sure that the GL interface is configured correctly for you, and that it can be run from TimeFiler with a simple click of a button.

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• How does TimeFiler know who is supposed to approve each employee’s timesheet?

  TimeFiler has a work area based security model. Employees are attached to a work area, and there are manager(s) specified in each work area. An employee can manage more than one work area if necessary.

  At its most basic, this is the minimum you have to worry about in order to know who will approve whose timesheet and leave requests.

  Additionally if you want the extra functionality, there is the ability to specify a hierarchy of work areas to reflect the organisational ‘tree’ in its entirety. This is what would allow a CEO to drill down several levels below their immediate reports if they wanted to.

  To complete the security model, you are also able to optionally use date sensitive fields in TimeFiler to deal with employees changing work areas at different points in time as well as the manager(s) of each work area changing over time. This allows smoother transitions for changes, and loading those changes in advance.

  So from this work area based security, any employee logging in will see only the employees they are allowed to see. And with the hierarchal side of work areas, we can make sure a manager can see either their immediate reports or others further down the chain if they want to look further.

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• How does TimeFiler create warnings on the timesheet as it gets filled in by the employee?

  Mostly this comes down to the business rules of your organisation which we can assist in creating for you. If they are rules that an employee, manager, or payroll manager would have to think about when deciding whether a timesheet is valid, then we think they really should be built into the timesheet, and the timesheet alerts you as soon as it knows something is wrong (ie immediately as you are typing).

  We can deal with a huge range of conditions, including the very complex. After all, if it is complex for the computer to figure out, it must be extremely difficult for employees, managers, and payroll managers to figure out. Of course it is also much more cost effective for software to figure it out correctly every time, removing subjective interpretation and error.

  And we ensure that the rules are built in a highly maintainable way so that the rules themselves don’t necessarily have to change if relatively minor details should change in future (which they will). So there are in effect two levels of rules: there is the backbone of the rules specific to your organisation, which then reference defined parameters that are values affecting the backbone that are most likely to change over time.

  It is this second set that customers end up thinking as ‘the rules’, and it is these rules that authorised users can easily change without having to touch a slightly more complex backbone of rules. The backbone of rules is typically changed by a TimeFiler consultant, or someone in your organisation trained in this area. A developer is not required to change business rules.

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• As payroll manager, can I change incorrect timesheet data if required so it recalculates correctly before sending to payroll?

  Yes of course. You just unsubmit the timesheet, change it, and then submit it again. The timesheet is recalculated as you key it in, so no further processing needs to be done.

  Since changes have been made, the status log will reflect that you have made changes, and typically a notification email will be sent to the employee and manager depending on how your company wishes to handle e-mail notifications.

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• How does TimeFiler know when a Public Holiday falls? What if it’s a Public Holiday for only some employees in my organisation?

  TimeFiler keeps a calendar of public holidays, and you can have different employees linked to different public holidays. Public holidays have a great impact on payments, so validation conditions and payment business rules are therefore a critical part of TimeFiler and the rules engine.

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Functionality

• Our company pays overtime. The problem though is that different overtime rules apply to different groups of employees. How is this handled in TimeFiler?
  Any overtime rules may be incorporated into the TImeFiler business rules, for example:
  • Overtime payments can be applied after x hours worked per day
  • Overtime payments can be applied after x hours worked per week (plus a combination of the two)
  • Applicable overtime payments can be applied on Public Holidays, including only those hours falling on a Public Holiday
  • Recall overtime can be applied via a check box on the timesheet, and TimeFiler is able to validate that such payments are actually valid for the day or employee
  • Californian overtime rules
  

  In summary, any overtime condition can be applied in TimeFiler. The business rules engine also ensures that overtime is payable to selected groups of employees only; or different overtime rules to different employee groups within the same organisation

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