JOB COSTING

Most professional practices have a need to track costs against individual Projects or Clients.

The starting point for this has to be the logging of both time spent and any incidental expenses incurred.

Our Inform system incorporates a commercial time and expenses system called Journyx® , a package we selected after an assessment of most of the systems currently on the market.

Journyx® is versatile and comprehensive with clear screens and a reporting system that makes it easy to create a rich variety of reports without any need for technical skills.

TIMESHEETS

Filling in timesheets has never been the most popular of tasks! That’s why logging time has to be made simple and painless.

With the Journyx® system, timesheets are entered via a user-friendly screen, invoked by clicking an icon from any PC, Mac or even over the Internet, which is very useful for companies with multiple sites or home-based workers.

Each user has their own login and password so can only access their own data and individually tailor their own timesheet e.g. default selections or the number of blank lines displayed.

Projects have to be selected from a drop-down list. New projects can only be added by an Administrator. A useful search facility allows a project to be easily located if your project list is long, but in any case individual users can easily tailor their own project lists.

Time can be broken down further within sub-categories of Projects. These are also selected from drop-down lists which can be customised to whatever is appropriate to your practice e.g. Stages and Charge Categories as in the illustration, or the extra columns can be hidden if not required. It all depends on the detail of reporting used by your organization.

EXPENSES

Expenses are entered via a screen which is very similar to the timesheet entry screen. They can only be entered against existing Project codes and, if required, be broken down by Expense Code, as illustrated.

Expense codes are selected from a drop-down list and can be customized to those already being used in your practice. A further sub-division is possible by means of an extra column not shown here.

As with the Timesheet screen, the optional Comment column offers free text entry to provide any additional detail as required, useful for example, when presenting billing reports to clients.

The Calendar allows easy access to previous periods so that amendments can easily be made to timesheets entered last week, last month or whenever (subject to any limitations imposed by the Approvals process – see below).

There is a Memory facility which allows details to be automatically entered. This can be useful when the same information is being entered from one week to the next.

Both Timesheets and Expenses can be sent for approval to an Approvals Manager. Once they have been approved they cannot be amended (unless the Approval Manager reverses the approval).

An Emailing facility allows email reminders to be sent to users who are behind with filling in their timesheets, or when their times or expenses have been rejected by the Approvals Manager.