Office Timesheets is indeed a highly sophisticated application using the latest technologies available like AJAX and the Microsoft .NET Framework. However, we’ve developed the product with the latest and greatest software development architecture, not for technology’s sake, but with the single purpose of making Office Timesheets the best time tracking application the market has to offer. In fact, Office Timesheets has been developed with these six (6) goals in mind:
- Easy to use, recognizable interface
- Affordable pricing for all businesses (large and small)
- 100% web-based architecture for anywhere, anytime employee access
- Totally customizable time tracking terminology, hierarchy and time collection process
- Easy and robust reporting for slicing and dicing time tracking data for cost analysis
- Simple and effective integration with other applications including QuickBooks and Microsoft Project
You can learn more about how we’ve accomplished each to these goals throughout our website.
The problem with QuickBooks time tracking
QuickBooks is North America’s most widely distributed and used business accounting software application with an estimated 3+ million users. QuickBooks is a comprehensive financial management application that’s both affordable and easy-to-use; and has become widely accepted by the business community and accountants alike as the de-facto standard in accounting for small to medium size businesses. However, many professional organizations find employee time tracking in QuickBooks unable to meet to their requirements for employee timesheet collection and reporting. This issue stems from the fact that QuickBooks is an accounting application primarily designed to be accessed by bookkeepers, accountants and/or financial professionals; and not for employees on the front lines performing day-to-day operational activities. And, while QuickBooks does include some employee time tracking functions, it will never be a fully functioning and customizable timesheet collection system because of its design legacy.
Furthermore, QuickBooks contains an inherently flawed architecture when it comes to tracking Customers and Jobs by not allowing them to be tracked as separate entities. This particular design issue within QuickBooks makes the task of job (or project) tracking and reporting inflexible and, in many cases, unusable for organizations whose primary focus is the efficient delivery of services revolving around projects and/or jobs.
While designing the Office Timesheets integration we talked to many people currently using QuickBooks, and we found that practically everyone had encountered what is often referred to as the dreaded Customer:Job issue as well as many other limitations. Furthermore, we’ve also found that most, if not all, other time tracking software applications on the market that offer integration with QuickBooks have adapted to QuickBooks flawed Customer:Job structure to make their integration work properly, which essentially defeats the purpose of using their application to solve QuickBooks time tracking problems.
At Lookout Software we view these issues as a major opportunity, and thus the Office Timesheets QBLink application was developed.
The comprehensive integrated employee time tracking solution for QuickBooks
Having recognized the unique challenges faced by QuickBooks users with regards to project tracking and employee timesheet collection, Lookout Software set out to address these issues while designing and developing the QBLink for Office Timesheets. The Office Timesheets QBLink not only addresses QuickBooks’ Customer:Job issues, but a host of other issues and limitations of QuickBooks with regards to employee time tracking as well.
Map your own unique time tracking hierarchy to QuickBooks precisely the way you want
First, we start by letting you setup and define your own unique time tracking elements (commonly referred to as buckets) within Office Timesheets to allow you perform time and cost analysis at any level of detail your organization desires. Office Timesheets’ capabilities, with regards to time tracking elements is far more sophisticated, customizable, and extensible than QuickBooks with 10 user definable levels. Thus, you are not restrained by using QuickBooks’ limited time tracking element hierarchy and/or terminology. Once you’ve defined your own unique terminology and time tracking hierarchy for your Office Timesheets installation, you can then map it to how Office Timesheets data will overlay with QuickBooks using the QuickBooks preference settings within Office Timesheets.
In fact, you can use Office Timesheets to track time against additional time tracking elements not available within QuickBooks, and Office Timesheets will roll up time entries properly into QuickBooks for performing accounting functions.
Office Timesheets allows you to map data directly to all time tracking elements available in QuickBooks, which include:
- Employees and Vendors
- Customers
- Jobs
- Service Items
- Payroll Items
Once mapping is defined and the synchronization has begun, Office Timesheets will be populated with these items from QuickBooks. All of these items (with the exception of Payroll Items, which can only be modified from within QuickBooks) will remain fully synchronized. Items can be added/edited/deleted from either Office Timesheet or QuickBooks and the Office Timesheet QBLink application will keep both applications fully synchronized. In fact, Office Timesheets QBLink application logs all synchronization transactions between Office Timesheets and QuickBooks.
Items stored at other time tracking element levels or buckets you create within Office Timesheets that do not pertain to QuickBooks will be ignored by the QBLink sync. However, even time entries with non-related items will sync to QuickBooks, rolled up to the pertinent items within QuickBooks and transfer to QuickBooks properly.
Time entries always stay in sync between Office Timesheets and QuickBooks
Office Timesheets’ QBLink application also keeps time entries between QuickBooks and Office Timesheets fully synchronized. Thus, you can modify an existing time entry record in ether QuickBooks or Office Timesheets and the modification will be updated in both applications.
Why Office Timesheets?
Office Timesheets is a comprehensive employee time and expense tracking application that can be easily configured to meet the specialized needs of practically any business. But what specific advantages would your ogranization gain by choosing Office Timesheets over QuickBooks and/or other time tracking applications? Here are a few of the advantages Office Timesheets offers over QuickBooks and other time tracking applications:
- Customizable Terminology – your business uses its own unique terminology so why should you be forced to use someone else’s. Practically, every data tracking field within Office Timesheets can be changed to reflect your busines's unique terminology.
- Employee Groups – organize employees into groups, departments, teams, etc. and use for grouping, sorting, and more in reports, task assignments, etc.
- Element Level Groups - organize item lists into groups and use for grouping, sorting, and more in reports, task assignments, etc.
- Customizable Task and Entry Status Fields - for tracking the status of tasks and time entries.
- Customizable Approval Process with Timesheet notifications and reminders
- Assign tasks to employee timesheets – Office Timesheets allows you to assign tasks to employee’s timesheets so that employees always know what tasks they are expected to work on.
- Tasks rules – want to enforce what activities (tasks) can be performed for a specified Client or Project; or what Clients can a specified employee work with? Office Timesheets Task Rules allow you to handle these types of scenarios and more with Level Dependencies, Required Levels, and more.
- Track time against 10 customizable levels – need to track time against data levels beyond what QuickBooks allows? Office Timesheets goes well beyond the Customer, Job, Service Item, and Payroll Items fields by allowing you to define additional time tracking levels and determine how they fit within your time tracking hierarchy.
- Summary and Detail reports to for time and cost analysis – the sky is the limit with Office Timesheets reporting. Included within Office Timesheets are both a spreadsheet-style summary report writer and a detail report writer using Microsoft Reporting Services with many pre-defined reports.
- Mass Updates of time/expense entry and task statuses – ever need to mark all time entries within time period as “billable” for a specified client? With QuickBooks and other applications this is a time consuming process that has to be done by one entry at a time. However, Office Timesheets can accomplish this task and more within a matter of seconds with its’ Mass Update functions.
- Employee rate tables – track up to 6 different rate types by effective date with both standard and overtime rate tracking.
- Multiple task rates and budgets – track rates for billing, estimating, budgeting, overhead costs, and more at the task level.
- Time Entry Rates – apply a unique rate for each individual time entry.
- Customizable timesheet reporting periods – what is your timesheet reporting period driven by: payroll, billing or project reporting? Many organizations have the need for something other than the standard weekly reporting period. With Office Timesheets, you can define your own unique reporting periods.
- Comprehensive security – define your own security policies and assign them to employees to control what each user can do and see within Office Timesheets.
- Microsoft Project Integration – import employee task assignments from Microsoft Project and export actual hours back to keep your project plans updated with actual tracking data.
- Audit Trails – are you in a situation where your organization must comply with regulatory agencies and/or special laws like DCAA (Defense Contract Auditing Agency) , SOX (Sarbanes Oxley), or FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act)? Chances are, you are required to have Audit Trails in place. With Office Timesheets, audit trails are easily enabled; and pre-formatted reports will give you the documentation needed if and when regulatory agencies request them.
- Custom Import/Export templates - to import data from and export data to other systems.
