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On the pages that follow, you will find answers and solutions to the questions and problems you may have. Check here first.
• Common Questions
• Tips & Tricks, FAQs
• Site Map
It is easier than ever to get employees to do time sheets in this economy! Huh...Right! We've received incredulous looks and remarks every time we make this statement but it is true.
The bottom line is that times are tough and employees know that now more that ever. A recent conversation that we had with a user about this topic motivated her to have a staff meeting and take a relentless stand on getting employee time sheets done every day. She has 10 billable people. She explained to them that every single second of billable time was important in order for them to stay in business, for them to keep cash flowing for pay checks, and to keep their jobs! She demanded that all employees have their time sheet finished by the end of each-and-every-day because everyone's recollection is better at the end of the day or work session instead of the end of the week or month. She also told them that management was going to check each day and be ruthless. Since they are users of our software her employees already had an easy way to do time sheets and management had an easy way to check and see if time sheets had been filled out. It is just that the motivation was not shared by her employees until she leveraged the thing that means the most to them, the future of their jobs. She called back to say that after the meeting all of her employees immediately started getting their time sheets in on time.
We have had this same conversation now over-and-over with our software users and inquirers. A firm stand by the employer seems to work every time. Have your meeting!
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has been finished and invoiced?
Creative Billing Online: Under the Project menu, select 'Archive.' Check the project to archive and click to archive. You may view them at anytime, but only the Premium Subscription Plan allows you to reactivate or unarchive the project for further use.
Creative Billing Stand Alone(retired): We suggest that you keep your old projects so you can use that information to review your business and aid in producing future estimates for similar projects. DesignSoft is able to archive or copy your project into another folder so it is out your way but still available for future use. To archive a project simply display the project and select Archive under the Display menu. We also have an add on module utility program called Batch Archive & Delete that allows you to archive many projects at once. See our order form for pricing.
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Creative Billing Online: There is quoting feature now built in. Under the Project menu, select Fee, Expense, or Cost entry. At the top of any of those screens, check the quote box. This will earmark the entry to be used in 1) preparing and printing a quote (under the Billing menu), 2) on the Project summary screen, 3) or on the Summary and Quote Comparison screens under the 'Reports' menu. Custom quotes can be prepared by establishing a quote format and then creating and printing or downloading the resulting file.
Creative Billing Stand Alone(retired):
An estimate is produced the same way a regular project is. You initiate the project by giving it a number (some users put the letter "E" at the end of the project to indicate that it is an estimate or proposal.) Then enter the description of the potential project as you wish it to show on the estimate. Once the "estimate" project has been started simply go to the entry screen and go down the list of fee and expense codes and enter the anticipated number of hours or dollars for each category. Once finished click the "Estimate/Report" button on the DesignSoft Navigator and choose your estimate format. (estimate formats are set up exactly like an invoice or statement formats) Once chosen you will see a list of your projects. Select the estimate project you just created and your estimate will appear. You can make any final changes on the estimate itself and you can save it as a document for future use. Once your estimate is finished you may wish to archive it to your archive folder or another folder (if you have Batch Archive & Delete) that holds just estimate projects. You can also use the estimate project to bill from once the projects is finished. Chances are that your real project file will not match the estimate down to the penny. So by restoring the Estimate project and billing from it you have a quick and easy way to bill your client with out making many changes to the invoice.
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Creative Billing Online: On the Project summary screen there is button that will take you to the Adjustment screen. Here you can make additions and subtractions that will appear on the invoice if you wish to document them. Otherwise you can define an invoice format under 'Billing' that just shows the quoted amounts and then use that format to create your invoice.
Creative Billing Stand Alone(retired):
You can use the original estimate project to bill from once the projects is finished. Chances are that your real activity project file will not match the estimate down to the penny. So by restoring the estimate project and billing from it you have a quick and easy way to bill your client with out making many changes to the invoice. For information on creating estimates see the item above.
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How do I
share my accounting data with my accountant?
Creative Billing Online: Because it is an online application, you can
allow access from any location, including your accountant's office. You can create a
user account for them and then restrict their access to the rest of the application
through User Groups under the 'Setup' menu.
Creative Billing Stand Alone(retired):
You can provide your accountant with monthly, quarterly , or annual
accounting information as a print out or a tab spaced text file in Mac or
Windows formats. The Profit and Loss and the Accounting Activity reports
are probably the reports your accountant will be interested in. Simply run
the required report and either print it out between the two dates needed or
select "Export As Text" under the Payables or Receivables menu.
This file can then be E-mailed as an attachment to your accountant or sent
directly on a disk.
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Creative Billing Online: Because all of your data is stored in one place (online) there is nothing to move or rename. The only thing you have to do is to reset your project numbering formula if it contains the year, and therefore is date driven.
Creative Billing Stand Alone(retired):
Year-End Checklist
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How do I keep track of prepayments
or retainers with Time & Billing?
Creative Billing Online: On the Project summary screen there is button that will take
you to the Adjustment screen. Here you can create 'incremental' entries that can be earmarked as
retainers, downpayments, or staged billings. An invoice format can be defined to create invoices
for them.
Creative Billing Stand Alone(retired):
Prepayments or retainers can be entered into the project just like any other time
or expense entry. Simply start a fee or expense code named prepayment or anything
else that best describes it for you and then make the factor or mark up "-1.00000".
If the client prepays $5000 toward the project then make the entry using your prepayment
code and it will send an entry to the project of $ -5000. This will offset $5000 real
time and expenses on your final invoice and show on your invoice listing as a prepayment.
The balance remaining will be correct and will show what the client owes you less the
deposit(s).
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Can more than one person use Time & Billing?
Creative Billing Online: Yes! Creative Billing Online is a full multi-user/multi-location application. Up to 50 users are included at no extra charge with every plan. You just need to create a user account for everyone
that you wish to have access and use the built in user group function to give them as much or as little access as you wish.
Creative Billing Stand Alone(retired):
Yes as long as they use it in turn. We suggest that you either install
the software on the machine of the individual that uses the software 51%
of the time or more or that you install it on a server. In either case have
the remote users make an alias of the all the DesignSoft applications you use
and copy them to the desktop of their machines. If the software is in use by
another user it will ask the user to try again later. If you have multiple
people using the software we suggest that you get in, do what you need to do,
and then quit the application so your associates may access it when needed.
This also brings up an import point and that is are you having billable people
do non-billable work? If so it's best to deem one person responsible for
maintaining the system.
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How do I do scheduling with Time & Billing?
Creative Billing Online: Creative Billing Online has limited scheduling built in. But there are a couple of easy ways to get it to schedule things for you. For quick searching you can set up Status Codes and Start Date entries and search for either from the summary report (see Reports/Summary Report.) For Example if you set up a status code called "RUSH" you could search the system for all projects that have the RUSH code selected. Or you could search the system for all the projects that have a certain start date from that same report.
You can also build a custom schedule report system by creating a Fee code(s) (or expense codes if you rather) for the specific purpose of scheduling. So for example if you created a code called AD-Art Due you could search for it within a certain date range. So if the art needs to be at the printer by Dec 15th you would make an entry to the project with the new schedule code AD and make the date 12/15/2008.
Next you would use the employee time report from Reports/Employee Time (or expenses if you use expense codes instead) and choose the code AD-Art Due from the Code menu and then enter the From Date and To Date as 12-15-2008 or a date range that would include 12/15 if you wanted to search the entire week let's say. Then it will search the data base for all codes marked Art Due for the week that includes 12/15/2008.
You can set up as many of these codes as you wish. However if you use Creative Billing to create an invoice you would need to delete the schedule code entries before billing or mark them as invoiced so they won't show up in the fee listing of the invoice.
Creative Billing Stand Alone(retired):
Scheduling and tracking are easy with Time & Billing but it does require
that you use our DesignSoft Search & Report module available with
the Creative Billing Complete Bundle or by itself. First you need to
set up a fee code for each category of business you will be needing
to schedule. Of course these codes should have a $0 rate as they will
never be used to bill from. To schedule an activity or indicate a due
date simple make an entry into the project you are scheduling for and make
sure that the date entered is the due date that you need the activity
completed. Once entered into the various projects you can use Search and
Report to bring up all the items that are due for today, tomorrow,
all week, actually any date range you can imagine.
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I just got a
new computer, how do I move
Time & Billing with out losing anything?
Creative Billing Online: Another great reason to use the online version—
absolutely nothing to move! It all stays in the same place. You can log in from any computer connected to the web, Mac or PC!
Creative Billing Stand Alone(retired):
The easiest way to move DesignSoft Creative Billing to your new machine is
to copy the entire DesignSoft folder (Be certain the folder is closed and
the application is not running) over the network to the new drive on the
new computer. If you are not connected via network then use a Zip disk or CDR.
There is no reason to reinstall the software and its components.
Everything you need to run DesignSoft Creative Billing and it's modules are contained
inside the DesignSoft folder. There are no extensions or other items outside the
DesignSoft folder that you have to be concerned with.
The only set up necessary is to go to Page Set Up inside the DesignSoft
invoice, estimate, statement, and custom report formats and then save the formats
with the page set up settings.