System Overview

Tempus is a Web-based timesheet management system for staffing firms and their clients.

Using Tempus, consultants working at client sites enter their weekly timesheets and submit them for approval to their client supervisors. When the timesheet is submitted by the consultant, Tempus automatically sends an email notification to the supervisor.

The supervisor clicks a link in the email message to approve the timesheet. Other options, such as disapproval, are also available.

As soon as a timesheet is created, admins and the consultant can see it, reports and queries can use it.

The resulting data can be sliced in many ways to provide information for payroll, billing, and sales analysis.

Startup Overview

Here is a list of the things you need to set up your first consultant on Tempus.

• Create a new Consultant user.
• Create a new Client record for the consultant’s customer.
• Create a new Supervisor record for the consultant’s client supervisor.
• Create a new Contract for the Consultant.

That’s it. Your consultant can start submitting timesheets.

It is recommended that you start slowly for the first couple of timesheet cycles. Enter a small goup of consultants first and add more as you gain experience. This will minimize the impact of early oversights while you gain knowledge, experience, and confidence.

As an Administrator, you can give others on your team access to Tempus by creating User records for them. See the section titled Creating New Users below.

Create a New Consultant and Other Users

From the administrator's start page, choose Users from the Edit Menu. When the Work With Users page is displayed, click New.

Enter the information requested. Choose the Consultant role; enter a UserID of your choice and an initial password. Remember, you are responsible for communicating the UserID and password to your user; the system doesn’t do it automatically. As an option, you can send the Enrollment Letter to the consultant to communicate the userID, password and other details. Finish the setup for clients, supervisors, etc., before sending the letter. Click OK when you’re done.

Create a New Client

Client information is used to help organize and present timesheet data.

To create a new Client, choose Clients from the Editors menu. When the Work With Clients page is displayed, click New.

Enter the client information. All that’s required is client name and client number. It is helpful to use your client’s accounts receivable client number in this place. Later on it will help you match up your timesheets and billing records. Click OK when you’re done.

Create a New Client Supervisor

Client supervisors are a special class of users. Supervisors are employed by your customers. They approve individual timesheets for your consultants.

To create a new Supervisor, choose Supervisors from the Edit Menu. When the Work With Supervisors page is displayed, click New.

Enter the supervisor information. Role is locked and disabled on this form. The email address is used to notify the supervisor when a consultant has submitted his timesheet. The only way a supervisor can approve a timesheet is to click the approval button in the notification email, so the email address has to be accurate.

Supervisors do not have IDs or passwords.

Click OK when you’re done.

Create a New Contract

The Contract assembles all the information about a consulting assignment into one place. Just like a real-world contract, it identifies the client, the consultant, the supervisor, and it records some important details about the deal like the effective date, and the weekly period start day. Billing rates, while logically part of the deal, are handled on the Rate, Cost and Commission form because of space limitations on the Contract page.

To create a new Contract, choose Contracts from the Edit Menu. When the Work With Contracts page is displayed, click New.

Enter the contract information.

The Start Day is the day of the week on which a new timesheet period begins, usually Sunday or Monday.

The Effective Date is the first day for which time can be entered for this contract. This item is vital and it can't be changed after the first timesheet is entered. Read the Documentation Card on your start page that covers this item before you go too far.

Enter optional information if you choose. The PO Number is your client’s PO Number for this contract. The Max Hours/Week defaults to 65, but you can reset this to any number from 1 to 160.

Sales Rep is optional and can be entered later to provide the rep with access to the timesheets created under this contract.

Contract Complete is a security feature that allows you to disable further timesheet entry when a consultant finishes the assignment. It is also used to find open, active contracts. It is used by the Timesheet Control page to determine which timesheets have NOT been submitted for the current week, eliminating your dependence on FAX, email, and checklists to figure out who needs to be reminded to submit.

Click OK when you’re done with the contract. Much of the data is not required, so if you’re missing something, you can always come back and add it.

Enter Rate, Cost and Commission Information

Use the Rate Cost and Commissions page to record financial details about the contract. This information is optional, but it will greatly increase the usefulness of timesheet data because it will allow you to view queries and reports that show revenue, margin and costs.

You do not have to enter this information before your consultant starts submitting timesheets. Tempus will allow you to enter this information later and populate timesheet history with rate, cost and commissions back to the start date. This feature allows your accounting associates to handle this part of the setup process.

If you decide to use this feature, refer to the Document Card titled “Rate, Cost and Commission” available from your start page.

Tell Your Consultant

Use the Enrollment Letter feature of the User Edit page to tell your consultant about Tempus. This email can be sent to your consultant when you are ready to start submitting timesheets. It introduces Tempus to your user, provides her UserID, Password and a link to the Login page. More details about this are provided on the User Edit Page.

Also, contact the client supervisor. Everything she needs to know about the system is available from the “Information For Supervisors” card on your start page.

Create New Users

Now that you have created your first contract, you can create new Managers, Sales Reps and if you want, new Administrators.

Be aware of the fact that different Roles have different access rights and privileges. From a security standpoint, you’ll be pretty safe if you stick to assigning roles based on job title; where salespeople are given Sales Rep roles, for example, not Consultant roles.

Be particularly cautious about providing the Administrator role to any but the most trusted individuals in your firm.

Thank you for using Tempus. We hope your experience with the product is productive and profitable.