Arbutus Ridge
Arbutus Ridge
works with you to find IT-driven ways of making your business run better. Our clients are small business owners who know that growth and value are held back if you depend on one or two key people being there all the time. Everything we do is about helping you improve the systems and processes on which you rely.
Testimonial
"The advice we received from Arbutus Ridge was invaluable and we are very pleased with their Jumpstart package.”
The owner of an Edinburgh glazing company
Want a copy of the case study? Email case-studies@arbutusridge.co.uk
The Doctor's In …
Would you like to meet up for a chat over coffee about your business IT systems?
Perhaps you are struggling to get yours to work properly and could do with an IT advisor to help sort out some problems. Or are you thinking of upgrading your system, but would appreciate some advice on how to go about it and the pitfalls to avoid? We would be delighted to discuss these and other issues in an informal no-sales-pitch environment.
We are resident most Mondays between 5 and 6 pm at BeanScene opposite Haymarket Station in Edinburgh. Look out for the Arbutus Ridge sign. Please call 0131 527 6140 if you would like to confirm an appointment, or to make a different, more convenient arrangement.
Looking forward to meeting you soon.
Keeping on top of your timesheets
Hello everyone. Today’s topic is the important question of timesheets and billable hours. Important because your company’s income could depend on how well you manage your timesheets and billable hours. You know there really might be something you can do to improve your billing system. But it's so easy to put off to some more convenient time to deal with!
Typical billing system
A typical billing system goes like this.
The person responsible for collecting the billing information sends a memo round on Friday reminding staff to
send in their timesheets. By Monday or so, staff have duly filled in a paper form or Excel spreadsheet with a
list of dates, hours, job and customer. The admin person then collates these hours against the bill for each
job. This gets multiplied by the hourly rate and, hey not very presto, you get your bill for labour, which you
invoice to your clients.
We find a number of problems with the traditional approach:
Billing accuracy
If you have weekly timesheets you tend to forget bits of time, which means you bill less than the full amount.
Also, staff tend to “adjust” time after the event. They record the time they think the job ought to take rather
than the time it actually does take. You have little idea of the real costs of each job you take on. It also
makes it difficult to price quotations.
For accuracy, record your hours at least daily. Ensure you capture the previous day’s hours by a set time the
following morning.
Even better, you can invest in some time recording software that records the hours as you go. You set the stop
watch as you start work on that job and switch it off when you pause or move to another job.
Repeated data entry
With traditional timesheets, the admin person has to re-enter all the details a second time and possibly a third time on the actual invoice. Each time they reformat and collate the information. They also must make sure that tickets are entered under the correct and consistent headings. In many cases, they need to refer back to the original staff member to be able to categorise the ticket. This is very time-consuming.
We suggest, at the very least, you adopt formalised timesheets, where staff members select from lists of recognised customers and job items. Excel allows you to do this using drop-down lists in the relevant cells.
A more powerful approach is to setup a CRM, or Customer Relationship Management system for your company. This acts as your company database. The system allows you and your staff members to record tasks and billable time against each of your customers.
A CRM system doesn’t have to be expensive. Indeed, Business Contact Manager comes bundled with certain versions of Microsoft Office and can handle billable tasks in this way. A CRM system should be a worthwhile investment. It also provides you with valuable sales and marketing support as well.
Analysis
Electronic billing and CRM systems also enable you to analyse your billable hours. Perhaps more importantly, they
allow you to track time that couldn’t be billed. Generate reports of billed time and unbilled time against
customer, job and staff member, when costing a job. The analysis ensures you don’t underprice or overprice the
job. It also helps you allocate tasks to the appropriate personnel and use your staff most efficiently.
This kind of analysis is very hard to do with traditional timesheets.
Moving to the next stage
The next step is to review your current time recording arrangement. Decide on how you want to replace it in a formal company-wide system. Also decide on your goals for that system.
Establish the rules you want you and your staff to follow. Make the rules rigorous enough for you to achieve your goals. But ensure they are acceptable by all staff, because you will have to enforce these rules for the system to work properly.
For that reason, you may decide on a staged approach for your billing system. Put the basic infrastructure in place and get the staff using it. Once the basic system is running smoothly, start introducing the specific rules.
Now choose the software you are going to use. This might be Excel spreadsheets, a CRM system, a time management
system, specialised company management software or a combination.
The new system will require setting up. The amount of setup obviously depends on the sophistication of the system
you decide to adopt.
Finally, plan the implementation and roll-out. There should be a period where you are running your existing systems in parallel to the new. You want to be quite sure the new system is running smoothly before switching over, to avoid system failure during transition.
The other major pitfall is the new system doesn’t get used for real, at all. Therefore set a "D" Day for the switch over. After that day no-one must use the old system.
Friendly advice
Arbutus Ridge works with smaller companies in improving their IT systems and business processes. This includes billing systems. Why not give me a call for a friendly chat about your systems? We might to be able to provide some useful pointers.
Happy billing!
Regards,
Francis Candlin
http://www.arbutusridge.co.uk
Better systems for your business™
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