Explains what timesheets are, and what they are typically used for
Timesheets are ...
Timesheets record how you spent your time. They are generally used by professional services firms to bill for labor services provided to clients on "time and materials" projects. Timesheets can also be used to:
- Record how much time and therefore what cost has been incurred to complete various projects and tasks
- Record total work-time or attendance for the purpose of calculating payroll, benefits or contractor payments
- Provide a signed off audit trail of how each person spent their time.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) in the US requires companies with more than 50 full-time employees to provide benefits to part time workers who work more than 30 hours per week. Many organizations who did not formerly record time for part-time workers will find iBE.net's timesheets ideal for tracking part-time worker hours, to assess benefits eligibility and provide an audit trail of who is eligible under different federal and state regulations.
What Kinds of Timesheets are there?
There are two views of timesheets in iBE.net: a timesheet overview, and the details or list.
- The timesheet overview shown at the top provides one row per client / project / task combination also separating billable vs. non-billable time with the actual hours worked each day recorded in cells across the page. The duration of each time-sheet is typically a week though this can be varied based on each company's policy
- The timesheet details or list shown directly above has one row per entry (per task / date combination) with details in the list about the customer or project you were working on, when you worked and for how long, and additional information such as remarks or location or delivered quantities on tasks.
What Features are Available?
iBE.net allows you to have different groups of employees record time different ways. For example depending on your time capture method you can have different groups record:
- Total hours worked split by customer, project & task or department
- Exceptions only such as overtime and time-off
- Attendance only (clock in/out)
There are multiple ways for employees to record their time such as:
- Recording timesheets or time details via the web application
- Recording time entries on their mobile phone
- Using the task timer to record start and stop times on different tasks
- Clocking in or out using an approved clocking device or biometric scanner
- Delegating time entry to a central administrator.
In addition to recording the time spent on various tasks or client projects you can record:
- The exact time you started or stopped a task (including break times)
- Remarks for each day, which can be optionally copied across to client invoices
- Where you were located when you did the work
- Whether you were working normal hours, overtime or on a special pay-rate or billing code
- Vacation, sick-leave or time-off
- How much work is still remaining for you to do on each task (or marking the task as complete)
- If you worked on a quantity based task you can record how many "things" you delivered during that time (e.g. number of classes taught, number of interviews held, number of surveys completed and so on).