time tickets

[natalfever]

Hi there, I am just starting to use the time tickets function and it seems like it will work o.k. for us. We were hoping to use this as a billing function without going thru payroll but it seems that it is does not appear in the jobs reports unless we run it thru payroll. Is anyone using this function that could give advice.
Thanks,
Lynn

[tap1946]

I use it for tracking time going into various jobs and ultimately payroll. I believe there is a way to use time tickets to monitor and accumulate time for billing purposes (for instance, a lawyer billing clients on an hourly basis). Like I said, I haven't used or reviewed that exact function; nor do I know your exact requirements, but you might look in PT help or in your manuals under the section covering time tickets. I know when you fill out time tickets, you have to enter a billing amount; and I believe you can carry such amounts directly to billing. It may still be a dual use situation though. You may still have to "use" those time tickets in payroll (how can you bill a client for an employee's time if you haven't paid the employee - or at least that may be the logic in the software) before you can also generate billing. Wish I could be more specific, but this might steer you in the right direction.

Tom

[natalfever]

Thank you Tom. It looks as if we might have to pass the tickets thru the payroll module to get info to the jobs. We are a company with two departments and do a lot of inter departmental journal entries to allocate expenses and we had hoped to use the time tickets as a stand alone function for job costing usage only. I will be trying out various methods this week and I do thank you for your help, it is great that we can all try to help each other, such an interesting site.
Best wishes, Lynn.

[tap1946]

Lynn

Interesting. If you were to put yourself in a dangerously creative mood, you might be able to create some special service or charge item codes in inventory and use those in some creative Bills of Material where those BOM's represented a department's issue or receipt of transferred expenses. By being a little creative when you set up the inventory codes, the BOM's, and the accounts; you could distinguish which items belonged to which department. An idea that first comes to mind is to start each inventory item code with the department number followed by other meaningful sequences (xxx.??? for example). I'd recommend a BOM that built one unit for department a by drawing one or more expenses from department b. When you wanted to transfer expenses, either one of the parties could "build" so many of the appropriate item. As long as you don't make any of the codes stocking items, there is no buildup of physical stock on any inventory report but an accounting transaction is made. It's sort of like a material, labor, and overhead BOM that has been stripped of materials and only processes credit to labor and/or overhead when the top level item is "produced".

I'm sorry I don't have time to test this for you in my "dummy" company; but at least here's the seed. A little unorthodox; but I think it might work for you with some experimentation. Something to think about rather than time tickets and the hassle of involving payroll.

Yes, It is a great site. You can learn so much from talking to other people and reading about their applications for PT.

Tom