QuickStart

Introduction

Timesheet Portal can be set up with minimal information. This guide provides an outline of the steps and minimum fields required for your internal teams to set up the submission and approval of timesheets. This guide includes the following sections:
  • 1Logging in
  • 2Create a client
  • 3Create an approver
  • 4Create a contractor
  • 5Create a placement
  • 6Submit and approve timesheets
  • 7Grant access to your colleagues

Logging In

You should already have received an email with your login details, either when you created your trial account or directly from your sales advisor.

The link to your login page will be in the form of: https://yourcompany.timesheetportal.com, but you can also use your username and password  to access the system from our generic login page: https://login.timesheetportal.com.

Forgotten your login details? You can request a password reset email by clicking on Forgotten your password on your login page.

Create a client

We suggest that the first step is to create your client records in Timesheet Portal. You can view and manage your list of clients from the Timesheet Portal Clients page. Client records hold the information on the entity your contractors/temps are working.

Follow these steps to create your first client:
  • 1In the left-hand menu click on System Management then select Clients.
  • 2Click the Create New Client button at the top of the page.
  • 3Add basic information to Main Details tab.
  • 4Enter billing information in the Invoicing Options tab (if you plan on using our client invoicing module).
  • 5Click the Insert button at the bottom left to create your client.


Client Billing

If you have enabled or plan to enable the client billing module, you will need to enter the company billing details in the Invoicing Options tab. The address details you enter here will appear on invoices raised for this client and the email address you enter in the Accounts payable email field will become the address which client invoices are sent to.

Create an approver

Approvers are designated individuals for timesheet approval. This section details how to create an approver associated to a specific client - although it’s worth noting that you can also set one of your internal administrators / contractors to be an approver, or even the contractor themselves (see the Create placements section, below).
  • 1Click System Management in the left-hand menu, and select Approvers
  • 2At the top of the page, click on Create New Approver
  • 3In the Main Details tab, enter the First name, Last name and Email
  • 4To complete the process and create a new approver, click the Insert button on the bottom left.

Note: Under Permissions the default setting is that the box marked Send email with username/password when user account is created is ticked. This means that the approver you are about to create will receive an email containing their username (email address), temporary password and a link to the Login page as soon as you finalise the record. If you do not want this to happen, untick this box before clicking Insert.

Create a contractor

Contractors are designated people who can submit timesheets. Please note that Timesheet Portal refers to these users as ‘contractors’, however your organisation may have a different terminology, and you can alter the terminology (for example to ‘workers’ or ‘temps’) by going to the Settings tab.
Follow these steps to create a new contractor record:
  • 1Click on System management in the left-hand menu, and then select Contractors.
  • 2Click on Create new contractor at the top of the page.
  • 3In the Main Details tab, enter the new contractor’s First name, Last name and Email.
  • 4Click on the Insert button on the bottom left of the contractor form.

Note: Next to the First name field is a Join date field which, like First name, Last name and Email, must be completed before you can save the page. By default the join date is set to the date on which you are creating this new contractor account, but please note that you have the ability to set it to an earlier or later date, if required.




Self Billing If you have enabled, or plan to enable, the self billing module, you will need to enter the contractor’s employment information in the Employment tab of the applicable contractor record. Alternatively, you can turn off the self billing facility on a per-contractor basis by opening the contractor’s record, going to the Self Billing Details tab, and unticking the box titled Enable self billing for this contractor.

Create a placement

This is the final step in the process. 

In Timesheet Portal, placements are simply records of a type of work being performed. (Depending on how your organisation works, you may refer to placements as placements or bookings.) You need to create a placement so that you can define the work that your contractor is logging time against, as well as the pay and charge rates for the work. You will also need to link your placement to a contractor and a client approver.

Follow these steps to set up a new placement:
  • 1Click on System Management in the left-hand menu, and then select Placements.
  • 2At the top of the page, click on Create new placement
  • 3Click the Main Details tab, go to the Description field, and enter a description for the placement.

Note: Under Email options at the bottom right of the form, there is a field titled Allow timesheets to be approved by email. Ticking this box will mean that, when a contractor submits a timesheet, the timesheet will be embedded in an email and sent direct to the relevant approver, along with buttons within the email allowing them to Approve or Reject the timesheet. In other words, ticking this box allows approvers to monitor timesheets without needing to be logged into the Timesheet Portal system.
  • 4Click on the Rates and Billing tab. This tab allows you a) to set how the time is to be recorded in the timesheet, b) to align the applicable pay & charge rates to the time recording method chosen.

The system comes with five default time-recording options, although these can be extensively customised, or added to, in order to fit your company’s requirements. Simply go to the table at the bottom of the page and select the option type most relevant to the way your contractors currently enter their time by ticking one of the boxes under the Rate heading, and then enter the applicable pay & charge values in boxes in the same row.
  • 5Now click on the Assigned Approvers tab. This is where you select an approver for this placement. First, click on the drop-down menu in the Client field. The client you select will determine which individual approvers become available in the list of individual approvers which appears directly below. Select a name from the Approver drop-down menu and click Add improver. The name you have chosen will appear in the square box underneath the fields. This box is here because a placement may have more than one approver, and the box allows you to arrange the approvers into the correct approvals hierarchy.
  • 6Next you need to assign a contractor to this placement and give them the ability to log time against it. Click on the Assigned Contractors tab at the top of the page. Click on the Group drop-down menu to select the group the contractor is part of (if necessary). Then click the Contractors drop-down and select the name of the contractor you want to assign to this placement.
  • 7Complete the process by clicking Insert on the bottom left of the page.



Rate Dates Please note that the start and end dates visible next to the various rate options can be changed and can be very useful for forward defining when a change in Pay and/or charge rate takes effect, for example due to AWR. They are not mandatory fields.

Submit and approve timesheets

When you created the new contractor record the system will have sent the new contractor an email containing their login details. They will be invited to log in using a temporary password, and then immediately prompted to create their own, unique password. Upon logging in the contractor will be presented with the following screen and prompted to fill in their timesheet.



The system is designed to keep the options for the contractor to a minimum. They are required simply to confirm the period covered and to fill in the correct hours/days worked. (To make it even easier, the contractor has an option to copy the previous week’s timesheet.)

Once the timesheet is completed, the contractor must select an approver who the timesheet will be sent to. Then they press Submit.

Clicking Submit triggers an email being sent to the designated approver. If, during the placement setup process, you enabled email approval (as recommended in the previous section), then the email the approver receives will display the timesheet within it, along with an option to either approve or reject the timesheet. If you have not enabled this functionality, the approver must log into the Timesheet Portal system in order to approve or reject the timesheet.

Grant access to your colleagues

Timesheet Portal allows you to create additional administrator accounts and to define the access levels and system abilities you give to them, for example the ability to manage timesheets, create new placements, or generate client and self billing invoices.

Follow these steps to create a new administrator / consultant:
  • 1Under System Management in the left-hand menu, click on Administrators.
  • 2Click Create New Administrator at the top of the page. The new page defaults to the Main details tab.
  • 3Enter the new administrator’s First name, Last name and Email address.
  • 4In the General Permissions section tick the permission levels you wish to assign to the new administrator.
  • 5To complete the process click Create User at the bottom left of the page.