How do I supply staff to customers and bill them by the hour or by the month?
Each customer site is a project on a contract. The contract's Rate Card holds the hourly rates, or a billing line holds the monthly fee. Each month the staff's hours go on a time sheet, which costs them against what the staff are owed; the billing proposal bills the customer and makes the invoice; a General Entry pays the staff; hours not billed by the month end are accrued.
Set up once
- A Category per role (guard, driver, technician), with its project accounts.
- A pool Resource with the staff on its Employees tab, each with Date From and Date To. A time sheet line with no resource takes the person's pool resource.
- Cost rates on Category Pricing: what each person, resource or role is paid per hour, from a date.
- Accounts on Project Ledger Posting: Cost, Payroll Allocation (what the staff are owed), Revenue, and Accrued Revenue and Accrued Offset for the month-end accrual.
- On Project Accounting Setting, the Invoice Journal so billing proposals make the invoice, and the Accrual Journal so unbilled hours are accrued.
- A Project per customer site.
- Project Billing rules: Time and Material for hourly billing, Fixed Monthly for a monthly fee.
- A Project Contract for the customer with Date From and Date To. Add each project with its billing rule. For hourly billing, type the rates on the Rate Card tab; for a monthly fee, one billing line with the number of months as Quantity and the fee as Price.
- Optional. Plan who works where on Resource Assignment.
Every month
- Time Sheet for the month, with a Transaction Journal: one line per person, the Category, Billable, the hours per day. Save costs and posts the hours.
- Billing Proposal dated the month end: the unbilled hours come in at the contract rate, or the month due on a fixed monthly line. Save makes and posts the customer invoice.
- Pay the staff on a General Entry: debit the staff payable account per person, credit the bank. Staff Payable Balance shows what each person is still owed.
- Month-end accrual runs by itself on the first night of the next month: billable hours not yet billed are accrued on the last day of the month and reversed on the 1st.
Check it worked
- Unbilled Hours lists hours posted but not billed.
- Contract Billing Summary shows per contract and month what was worked, billed and still unbilled.
- Manpower Profitability shows per project and month the staff cost, what was billed and what is still unbilled, and the margin.
- Staff Earnings and Staff Payable Balance show what each person earned and is still owed.
What posts
| Document | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Time Sheet | Cost | Staff payable |
| Billing Proposal, as a customer invoice | Customer receivable | Revenue and tax |
| General Entry, staff pay | Staff payable | Bank or cash |
| Month-end accrual | Accrued Revenue | Accrued Offset, reversed on the 1st |
See What posts.
Good to know
- Staff paid this way are never paid by payroll. Do not give them a salary record as well, or they are paid twice.
- Attendance is not read. The time sheet hours are what is costed and billed.
- A rate change is a new Rate Card line from the new date, with Date To on the old one. The rate is read on the time sheet's Date From.
- A fixed monthly line bills one month for each month since the contract's Date From, up to its quantity.
If something looks wrong
- The invoice price is the category's price, not the contract's. No Rate Card line covers the time sheet's Date From for that project and role.
- Hours are missing from the proposal. They are not posted, not Billable, already billed, or on a sheet that starts after the proposal date.
- "Time Sheet ... is on a billing proposal - reverse the proposal first". Delete the proposal before reversing the sheet.