Timesheets
A Timesheet is the total number of times an employee has log in to work for completing the each task.
The Timesheet can also be utilized to determine the billable amount for an employee, to determine their salaries, or to monitor an employee's contribution towards a Project or a Task.
In ERPNext, a Timesheet is able to record hours worked by an individual employee on several Tasks or Projects in table format. It facilitates simple segregation of billable and non-billable time, facilitating both internal reporting and client invoicing.
To navigate to Timesheet, go to:
1. Creating a Timesheet
- Navigate to the list of Timesheet and click on New.
- Input the Company name and the Employee Code.
- In the Time Sheets field, input the following information for entry:
Activity Type: Here you can add any activity for which you created the Timesheet. The activity type being recorded.
From Time: In this tab you enter the time when work was started for the task.
Hours: This includes the Total number Hours work on a particular task for this timesheet has been created. Total hours worked in a single Timesheet may include several days, you must enter the from and to time to automatically calculate the Hours.
Project (optional): If you want to add the Timesheet your created to a particular Project, then you can do this by selecting the Project in the Project Tab.
Bill: If you want to bill this Timesheet to the Customer then you need to check this box.
Series: The Series field in the Timesheet specifies how the document will be named. ERPNext applies this to automatically generate a distinctive number (e.g., TS-0001) for a new Timesheet based on the chosen naming series.
Customer: The Customer field enables the Timesheet to be directly associated with a customer from the Customer master. This can be highly valuable when the Timesheet contains billable services or activities undertaken for a client. Linking the Timesheet with a customer provides proper tracking, billing, and reporting against client-related activities. It also provides easy creation of Sales Invoices related to the respective client.
Currency: This helps the organizations with international clients dealings. The currency chosen will affect how the billing amount is computed and presented. The currency should be the one anticipated by the client to avoid errors during invoicing or reporting.
Exchange Rate: The Exchange Rate field is used when the currency of the Timesheet is different from the base currency of the company. The exchange rate can be retrieved automatically based on the date or typed manually for fixed-rate arrangements.
Employee: The Employee field specifies which employee the Timesheet belongs to. Payroll, costing, and performance tracking require this field. ERPNext applies the field to retrieve useful information such as employee rate, role, and department, and associate Timesheets with the corresponding salary slips. This is also beneficial for aggregating work hours and reporting HR for productivity and contribution to projects.
- Press Add Row to add more activity entries if necessary.
- Once you press save, if you have multiple Activity type in a single Timesheet each activity contains different Hours. Then Total Number of Hours will automatically be calculated in the Timesheet and shown to you.
- Click Submit.
ERPNext v15+ auto-saves drafts while making timesheets and flags incorrect input so that it doesn't happen before submitting it.
1.1. Create a Timesheet from a Task (Alternative Method)
- Go to the Task whose time you wish to record.
- In the Task dashboard, find the Activity section and select "Timesheet".
- Select the '+' (plus) icon, which takes you to the Timesheet creation form.
- The form will have the Task, Project, and Employee fields filled in by context.
- Fill in the rest of the timesheet information (activity type, hours, dates, etc.) as in the main form, and then press Save or Submit.
1.2. Timer in Timesheet
A Timer is utilized to capture the actual time an employee spent to complete a specific activity in a Timesheet.
1.2.1. How to Begin a Timer
- In the Timesheet form, click Start Timer to begin recording.
- A dialog box appears that requests:
- Activity Type: Choose the work category being performed (e.g., "Development," "Testing").
- Project: The project context in which the task lies.
- Task: The particular activity this time entry corresponds to.
- Expected Hours: Your expected duration to finish the activity.
- Press Start to start the timer.
- The timer can be paused and resumed whenever needed, allowing precise tracking even for interrupted tasks.
- Especially useful in meetings, breaks, or multitasking.
- If there is a timer running and the time elapsed is more than the Expected Hours, an overrun alert will be shown in order to alert the user.
- This keeps the user in the know and instills discipline in using time.
- When the activity has concluded, click Complete.
- The system automatically creates a new record in the Timesheet's Time Sheets table, recording:
- Actual Start Time
- Actual End Time
- Total Duration
This function provides smooth switches from live tracking to logged entries without requiring date/time input.
1.3. More Options while preparing the Timesheet
The Time Sheet, if you open it up, you are able to input some very important details that add more tracking, costing, and billing features. More powerful validations and automations have been added in ERPNext v15 to enable more accurate project costing and time tracking.
Expected Hours: This field allows you to specify the number of hours estimated to complete the activity or task being logged. It is a planning field used to contrast actual time recorded and estimated time for productivity analysis purposes. It is also a reference field in triggering warnings when recorded time is well over expectation, aiding in early detection of overruns.
To Time: This is a field where the precise date and time of completing the work on a task is entered. It is in conjunction with the 'From Time' field to calculate the real duration. Both of these timestamps are utilized by ERPNext to check for overlapping entries of time to avoid any duplication of entries for the same time span.
Mark this checkbox when the task has been completed within the time allowed in the Timesheet. When this flag is checked, ERPNext automatically updates the Task status in the connected project if Task Completion Tracking is active. It also impacts reports like Task Progress and Utilization Analysis.
Task: Task field gives you the opportunity to connect the timesheet record to a Task in a specific Project. The association establishes traceability, budgeting tracking and resource management at a Specific level. ERPNext takes the extra step of displaying the current status of tasks, estimated completion and remaining hours of the timesheet page itself.
Billing Hours: This is the hours to bill the client for, irrespective of the total hours recorded. It provides for partial billing when needed (e.g., for scope changes or goodwill). The system checks that billing hours do not surpass total hours recorded, except if overridden by authority. It also provides flexibility for fixed-fee or negotiated billing arrangements.
Billing Rate: This is the rate at which the customer will be charged on an hourly basis. It may be retrieved from the default Activity Type rate, manually overridden, or automatically filled according to customer or project rate settings. In ERPNext, this rate can be changed by someone as per role-based permissions, enabling enhanced financial controls.
Costing Rate: This happens to be the internal cost of labor (or activity) to the company. It is automatically retrieved either under Activity Cost (per employee) or under Activity Type. One can also select to automatically synchronize this with the regular rate of the employee with all future postings. It helps in the calculation of project margins and profitability analysis in a more accurate manner.
Billing Amount: This value is calculated automatically as: Billing Hours × Billing Rate. It shows the amount to be billed to the customer. You can use it to include currency-based filters in reports to break down billing amounts by project, region, or customer type.
This is automatically calculated as: Total Hours × Costing Rate, indicating the actual cost incurred by the company. This is used for profitability reports. In ERPNext, when the costing rate is overridden, an audit trail entry is automatically made, recording who changed it and why, assisting in improved audit compliance.
Description: You can enter the why or what was being done into the Description Section for the Timesheet.
ERPNext v15 introduces real-time validation to flag when Billing Hours are not matched by actual recorded time and marks any unusual cost inputs.
2. Features
2.1 Billing Details
Total Billable Hours: This provides the overall picture of how much time is billable to a customer. Based on the Timesheet, the Total Billable Hours will be auto-fetched here.
Total Billable Amount: It is automatically calculated from the total billable hours and respective billing rate. It gives you an immediate idea of the expected revenue from the Timesheet entries.
Total Billed Hours: Once you've submitted a Timesheet, you can create a Sales Invoice. The customer-invoiced billed hours are captured here, so all billable work is accounted for.
Total Billed Amount: This is the amount calculated from the hours charged to the customer.
Total Costing Amount: This is calculated to display the internal cost incurred on the work performed, applying to each activity's costing rate. Based on the Timesheet, the Total Costing Amount, as specified by the Employee, gets tagged here.
% Amount Billed: This tells us the percentage of the Total Billable invoiced amount. It helps in tracking progress when billing.
3. After Saving the Timesheet
This field indicates the proportion of gross billable amount invoiced. This can be useful to track billing against progress entered as billable in the Timesheet.
After a Timesheet is saved and submitted, fields tied to Billing Rate and Costing Rate are secured. This avoids changes to overall cost and bill data for audit and financial reporting purposes.
The below documents can be generated from the Timesheet directly:
ERPNext also allows you to filter, group, and see submitted Timesheets for batch salary creation or invoicing. This enables smooth transition from time tracking to financial reporting.