In you can use internal jobs to account for non-billable time.
allows you to track time even if you don't need to bill it directly to your clients. You can then generate time sheet reports that will provide valuable information on exactly how each staff member spent their non-billable time, such as for:
- staff meetings
- administration
- annual leave or sick leave
- training and professional development.
This is achieved by setting up an 'Internal job' in with tasks (one task for each area) that are flagged as non-billable. Your staff can then enter time against the internal job by recording time against the specific non-billable task.
To set up a job that your staff can record non-billable time against, complete the following tasks:
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1. Set up your own organisation as a client
Go to the Client Manager and make sure that your own organisation is set up as a client. You can then set up the internal job with your organisation as the client.
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2. Create your list of non-billable tasks
Create a list of the work areas that you want to be able to allocate the non-billable time to. You might consider general areas such as leave or professional development, or be more specific, such as sick leave, annual leave, training, conferences.
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3. Create non-billable tasks
Now create a non-billable task for each work area you listed:
- On the toolbar click the Settings
icon.
- On the General tab, click Tasks > + Create New Task.
- Give the task a suitable name, such as: Internal - Staff Training, and a description.
- Set the Base Rate of 0 and the Billable Rate of 0.
- Complete the other fields as required and Save.
Repeat for each item in your list. For general information about creating tasks, see Create a task.
- On the toolbar click the Settings
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4. Create an internal job
Create the internal job to which you will assign the tasks you have just created.
- In the Jobs menu, click Jobs > + Create New Job.
- Select your business as the client.
- Name the job Internal Job (or similar).
- Set the Start Date and Due Date as the start and finish of your financial year or whatever time period suits your needs.
- Assign all your staff to the job and Save.
For general information about creating jobs, see Create a job from scratch.
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5. Assign tasks to the job
Now assign the tasks to the internal job.
- On the Job Details screen for your internal job, click + Add A Task.
- Leave the Estimated Time as 0.00.
- Toggle the Billable switch
to OFF
.
- Set the Start Date and Due Date to match the dates you specified above for the job itself.
- Select the staff that you want to be able to record non-billable time against the task.
Don't assign any staff to the task if you want all staff on the job to be able to enter time against the task.
- Save and repeat for each internal task.
Using the internal job to record non-billable time
Now when your staff need to enter "internal" non-billable activities they can select the internal job and the specific task, Staff Meetings (for example) and record time against that task.
The idea is to have the one internal time job set up for the year. You can then report per week or month (or any other period) for time entries against the tasks on that job, or by staff member, or as required.
Your staff can enter (for example):
- 8 hours against the task for Annual Leave, for a days holiday taken
- 4 hours against Sick Leave for a half day taken off
- 1 hour against Staff Meetings, and so on.
You can also create custom reports specifically for this non-billable time from the Reports > Reports > + Create Custom Report and select Report Type = Time.
Using the internal job in future
To make the internal job available for next year (or the next period), simply save it as a job template. From the Details tab of the internal job, under Job Actions, select Save Job as Template.
Alternatively, you could use the Duplicate Job option to copy the job.