Challenge

As a Christian relief and development organization with staff working all over the world, some in remote towns or infrastructure-poor cities, the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC) must be as efficient as possible in how it uses staff time. For tracking employee time, the organization found that a timetracking system based on Excel, which required many faxes and emails to obtain the appropriate signatures, and then a recompilation of all the data by the Finance department for creation of financial reports for grantors, was wasting this valuable time. Too much time was spent compiling reports manually and tracking down delinquent reports, and it was always a challenge to send scanned documents from locations with poor internet connectivity.

Solution

Before CRWRC could make the switch to an automated timetracking system, they had to find out whether the U.S. government grantors would allow electronic signatures. They discovered that electronically submitting and approving timesheets with unique user ID’s and passwords, known only to the staff person or supervisor, met the requirements for signatures. Therefore, supervisors in another country could more easily retrieve and approved timesheets, and data only had to be entered once and could be compiled automatically through an electronic database.

CRWRC chose Journyx as it met their criteria for low band-width requirements, allowed for electronic signatures and provided back-up data (including sheet histories) as a valid audit trail. Journyx was also flexible enough to configure to their unique set of grant reporting needs for various U.S. government grants in multiple countries and for a large grant from the Canadian government (CIDA).

Journyx Timesheet is used by CRWRC for tracking hours worked on government grant programs. Compiled reports of hours worked are used either in charging the cost of program personnel to a grant or in providing proof of CRWRC’s match (of personnel costs) to a grant program.

Benefit

“With Journyx Timesheet, we can see areas where staff members are overloaded with grant program work – either working on too many grants or working too many hours, even weekends. We can address these specific situations by writing more personnel costs into subsequent grant applications to hire local support staff,” said Laura Musoke, Training and Development Coordinator, CRWRC. “Timesheet has decreased the amount of staff time involved in compiling time-keeping data and eliminated time spent chasing signatures.”

According to Musoke, “Once the database is set-up, changes can be easily made to accommodate our needs, like setting up a special report for a manager, creating additional reporting categories for a grant project sub-team, etc. What is most helpful about Timesheet is its adaptability."