Timesheet authorisation mode

Accountants Enterprise with Practice Manager only

The Timesheet Authorisation modes enable practices to configure Practice Manager to best suit their business.

The modes are configured using Maintenance > Time Setup > Timesheet Authorisation Mode.

These modes are used to control how timesheet entries are made available for billing to deliver the most efficient billing of time to clients.

The available timesheet authorisation modes are:

Standard Authorisation

The default Standard Authorisation mode requires an employee’s entire timesheet to be authorised and posted before any of the individual timeline entries can be billed. Each timesheet is likely to contain a number of different timeline entries across a combination of different assignments (projects) and tasks (activities), but these can only be billed once the user has submitted the entire sheet for approval (authorisation) and posting.

Typically, timesheets are approved and posted by the employee’s line manager.

Project Based Authorisation

There is often a delay between an employee entering timelines against projects and the entire timesheet being authorised and posted. Under Standard Authorisation, this delay can prevent managers and partners billing the entries against their projects (assignments) as quickly or efficiently as they might like.

Project based authorisation allows managers and partners to authorise individual timelines entered against their assignments before the entire timesheet is approved and posted to the system. The billing interface and Client: Assignment window can be used to select individual (or grouped) timelines and make them available for billing.

Making individual timelines available for billing reduces the impact of the approval/posting process delay, negates the need for estimate bills for unposted time and offers greater flexibility to the billing procedure.

Simplified Authorisation

In smaller practices it can be beneficial to use the simplified authorisation model. Simplified Authorisation removes the requirement for employees to submit their timesheets for approval (authorisation). It also removes the need for an approval employee — such as a line manager — to be established with sufficient rights or task permissions to authorise the timesheet. Whether timelines are available for billing depends on the variation chosen.

Under Simplified Authorisation, employees enter their timesheet entries and click Post to complete it and commit it to the system.

Combination choice to authorise timesheets

Practices can choose from the following five combinations of Time Authorisation to best suit their needs:

Project Based Authorisation and Simplified Authorisation do not apply to disbursement sheets and expense sheets. These are processed using Standard Authorisation.