Implementation for Professional Services Organizations

Time sheets, project cost, payroll, orders and change orders are easy to set up and manage for small businesses looking to get a quick start organizing data. For example, an engineering services organization of 50 employees can easily be up and running with only a few hours setup.

1. Add time entry codes used for service personnel time entries by your payroll and accounting system
2. Add customer organization names for your first customer(s)
3. Add team member user access for each resource required on your first project(s)
4. Optional* Set up resource billable rates or rate cards to track billable time in real time
5. Add the customer order (called Proposals in PI)
6. Add a project with the tasks required by the team to complete the customer’s order
7. Get to work! Team members can update their task progress and the time entries on their mobile phones or dashboard

These simple steps provide data to payroll and accounting to record your resources’ work. You can even see real-time cost comparisons between the order and the time used to fulfill the order.

Gather Information for Setup

The primary data you will need:

1. Time entry codes for payroll and accounting
   • If time entry codes are not required, we address that below
2. Billable rates for customers
   • These rates could be managed a few ways, all of which can be applied as needed on a project-by-project basis:
     • The skills used for the work, such as architect or engineer
     • The individual performing the work
     • The individual work or task assignment (least common)
3. Resource (user) information
   • Name
   • Email address

Company (customer) Names

Add each customer to the Company list with the following settings:

1. Name
2. Project Assignment
3. Active

Leave all other settings disabled. (Yes, this includes leaving “Time & Exp. Entry Enabled” as disabled. Project time will track to the customer without this setting.)

Add your own company if it was not already added during your initial setup.

In addition to the above settings, edit your company by clicking the company name hyperlink and then click the Edit icon in the upper-right to expose these additional settings we want for your company.

1. Indicate the company is internal
2. Enable company members to automatically communicate

Add Resources (Users)

User administration can include a lot of information about each user.

Let’s focus on those few required fields which are most important to help make your resources productive.

There are several tabs on the user form with this detailed information, most of which we’ll skip and leave with the default settings.

1. General Tab
   • First and Last Name
   • Company (your organization as added above)
   • Email Address
   • Username (pre-populates with email address which can be optionally changed)
   • Active
2. Resource Info
   • Default Bill Rate for hourly billable rate (optional)
   • Enable Time Entry
   • Enable Expense Entry is default on, but should be removed for simplicity

Time Entry Codes

Time entry technically requires a time entry code, but don't worry if you don’t use time entry codes.

Place a single time entry code, such as “Work” in as your only option and it will auto-populate every entry with no interaction from the resource.

1. In the time entry code setup, give each code the following values:
   • Name
   • Enable billable (use Yes for all unless some are NEVER billable)
   • Active
2. Usually ignore the Custom Code column
   • It's used for data mapping with accounting and payroll codes if they are not an exact match between PI and the other software
   • This is usually not required because most accounting and payroll systems allow mapping to be customized during import

Billable Rates

Rates calculation are very flexible for various projects, such as time and materials versus fixed bid.

To maintain our commitment to quick startup, we're not going to cover every possibility. You can build more structure later (or call our PI#Pros for individual help).

Let’s cover the basics:

1. Rates by user
   • Can be easily maintained at the user profile
   • We will cover this setting when we add your users

If you're choosing Rates set at the User level, then jump down to the Adding Users section and skip the remainder of this Billable Rates section.

If you need to manage rates in a case by case basis or by skill set, you'll need to use Rate Cards by skill set

1. To add Rate Cards, you will first need to prepare additional configuration:
   • You can use an unlimited number of Rate Cards for clients
   • Let’s just add the standard rates for now or choose the rates for your first project
     • Resource Types (skill sets)
     • Rates associated with each resource type
2. Let’s add your first contract to your company:
   • Click on your company as you did earlier to set additional settings
   • Click on “Add a new contract to this company”
     • Name
     • Default Bill Rate, if applicable
     • Active
3. Save and view the contract to continue setting up rates
4. Add your Resource Types and Billable Rates needed to complete the billable rates by resource type

This contract is now ready to be applied for rate calculations on any project. You can add and use an unlimited number of contracts.

Customer Orders and Proposals

A customer order is known as a Proposal in PI.

A proposal is used to propose to a customer, track the customer order for billing and to add a change order to an existing project.

The number of proposals you can add to a project is unlimited. Track as many change orders as necessary throughout the course of the project.

(You can skip this step or add the proposal after adding the project, if you prefer. You will find that it will differ based on whether you propose pricing and delivery to your customer based on adding work to a project to determine what the order should communicate or vice-versa.)

1. Add the proposal as an Add-in (in the Administration)
   • It’s a free (and optional) feature!
2. Navigate to the folder for your first order and add a proposal
   • Name
   • Company (customer)
3. Enter the services and/or materials for the order
   • Just as you currently line item the details on your customers’ orders
   • Do not be concerned if this order is communicated far differently from the way you manage the work items in the project
   • Order line items and project tasks do not have to match and often don’t
   • Use the Add Time button to add each line item:
     • Line # to control the display order (alphanumeric by name otherwise)
     • Name
     • Hours
     • Rate
     • Total will calculate or can be manually filled in without using Hours and Rate
     • Description of the deliverable
4. Your proposal is now ready for a project

Add a Project

From the proposal details, click [Create Project] to fill in the project form.

Include the following:

1. Name
2. Status, as Active
3. Sch Start Date which defaults to today
4. Companies for the customer which will auto-populate from the proposal
5. Company Contracts, which you created that nifty Rate Card with the correct rates

Add Tasks to the Project

Task are work items that your resources see for updating the time they spent and the completion of the tasks from their device (phone) or the PI dashboard.

1. Add each task
   • Name
     • The task name and not the resource assignment
   • Duration
     • The estimated working days for the task
     • Skip this if you just want to add start and end dates instead
   • Start Date and End Date
     • If you want these dates to calculate the duration
     • Skip this field if you want to use dependencies and duration
   • Resource assignments
     • As many resources per task as needed to complete the work
   • Resource Type
     • If using Resource Type to determine billable rates
   • Predecessors
     • If you choose to calculate schedule dates using duration
     • These are the dependency relationships
     • Saving you from "hard coding" start and end dates
2. Review your project to make important the dates, and optionally budget, is aligned
3. Resources will now see tasks they should be working on using our mobile app or desktop application home screens

Get to Work

Resources will find updating tasks and entering time to be self-explanatory, especially if the names and dates of tasks are accurate and up-to-date. Reschedule tasks with new dates as necessary to make sure the resources have reasonable tasks on their displays.

Resources will perform the following:

1. Add time entry for tasks
2. Update tasks with progress, such as Started or Done
3. Provide Comments on tasks to alert the project manager of updates or problems

But what about all of these other things I need?

You're getting started with the right platform.

Not only do you have access to many other features and functions you undoubtedly noticed during this initial setup, the PI platform allows full integration with many other systems and processes.

PI is designed to be at the at the center of work in your company.