Helpful Tips
October 2007
Should I use Total Cost Reports or Rate Reports to report on my billable time?
Both Total Cost Reports (Reports → Standard Reports) and Rate Reports (Reports → Rate Reports) provide information on billable time and dollar amounts. Determining which type of report is best depends on how complicated your billing calculations are.
To include dollar amount calculations based on hours worked in a Total Cost Report adding User Bill Rates in the User profile is all that is required. Total Cost Reports then simply take the user's bill rate and multiply it by the billable hours worked. If you add Project Bill Rates to the Project profiles, you also have the option to multiply the individual project rates by the hours worked for that project. The Total Cost Report includes options to use User or Project Bill Rates only, prefer one or the other (which looks for example at the Project Bill Rate field and moves on to the User Bill Rate field if it is blank), or take the greater or lesser of the two. Total Cost Reports are part of the standard Timesheet product and are available to Managers, Reporters and Administrators.
To include dollar amount calculations in Rate Reports, some up front configuration is required. However, you can apply a variety of rules for calculating dollar amounts (e.g., User Bill Rate multiplied by 2 when a day's hours exceed a defined limit). Rate Reports will only display data if Rules have been created and included in Policies, and Policies have been assigned to users. Like Total Cost Reports, there must also be numeric values in the User Bill Rate or Project Bill Rate custom fields. Rules and Policies allow you to apply custom billing calculations based on specific projects, work types or hour amounts for a given period. Rate Reports are only available if you have purchased the optional Rate Manager module. By default, only Administrators have access to Rate Reports. However, custom Manager roles can be configured to include the Rate Reporting ability.
Update - How can I view the approval process audit log for a selected time or expense sheet?
Time and expense sheets are identified by the period that is assigned to the sheet/user. For each sheet/period, there is a Sheet History report that includes the date the sheet was created, as well as the information for all approval actions related to the sheet. The Sheet History report includes the date/time of the action and the name of the person taking the action for: creation of the sheet, submission for approval, resubmission for approval, rejections for all levels, approvals for all levels, and reopening of sheets.
A user can view the Sheet History report for his time or expense sheet by clicking on the "Sheet History" link at the foot of the entry grid accessed via the Time, Expense, or Mileage tabs. Approvers and Timekeepers can also view this report by viewing a user's sheet and clicking on the same link at the foot of the submitted sheet/entry grid for timekeeping screens via the Approvals or Management → Users → Timekeeping tabs.
Update - As of the release of Timesheet v7.5m2, you can also report on this approval audit log information in standard time and expense reports. Approval Fields for the following can be added to the list to display in Time and Expense Reports: Level 1 Approver ID (configured), Level 1 Approver Name (configured), Level 1 Approver ID (actual), Level 1 Approver Name (actual), Level 1 Approval Date. Including these fields in standard Time and Expense Reports allows you to view approval audit log information for multiple users in a single report.
