Benefits

One-click enforcement of DCAA time-tracking requirements simplify auditing

Intuitive software reduces time for employees to learn and use

Easily tailorable workflow can route weekly timesheets to specific supervisors for sign-off

Cellular technology has exploded in recent years as individuals, companies and governments rely on it day-to-day. For more than 20 years, the cellular protocol experts at QRC Technologies have worked at the forefront, bringing cellular services and tools to government, military and law enforcement clients. The company’s software and hardware help organizations with phone forensics, location of mobile phones and cellular base stations, and other proprietary operations. With offices in Stafford, Virginia and Washington, D.C., QRC has 27 employees and two contractors. Until a few years ago, employees tracked their time and attendance on paper.

Challenge

The Challenge
As QRC began pursuing federal government contracts, the company needed to comply with requirements of the Defense Contractor Audit Agency (DCAA), the audit agency of the U.S. Department of Defense, in terms of project documentation. In the event that DCAA were to audit QRC, the company would have to provide detailed time and attendance records.

Moreover, the Department of Defense has mandated that defense agencies move toward a paperless environment, so DCAA requests that contractors provide all information electronically.

“When we began doing government contracts, we quickly needed a way to track and report on time and attendance electronically.” said Tom Callahan, Vice President of Engineering at QRC.

“When we began doing government contracts, we quickly needed a way to track and report on time and attendance electronically. ”

Solution

The Solution
Callahan, who used Replicon solutions at a previous company, introduced Replicon Web TimeSheet Time & Attendance Edition, and Web TimeSheet Project & Billing Edition at QRC. The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions gave employees and managers a much simpler means of logging time, tracking hours and expenses on projects, and reporting for internal or auditing purposes.

With on-premise software, QRC would have to devote IT staff resources to upgrades, server space and security concerns. Instead, Replicon hosts the solution securely on its servers and rolls out updates as they are available. “There’s an inherent benefit in the SaaS model. We don’t have to maintain software and apply patches. Replicon takes care of all that for me.” Callahan said.

Additionally, Callahan finds Replicon products very intuitive, which reduces the time for employees to learn and use the software throughout the day. “I recommended Replicon for QRC because it’s easy to use and the interface looks the way you expect a timesheet to look.” Callahan said.

QRC also values that it can add users as needed, as opposed to in blocks of five with other solutions, reducing the company’s costs.

One Record of all Employee Time
In Web TimeSheet, employees keep detailed records of time and attendance, with all time tracked against either billable projects or general work – all of which have different billing rates connected with them. QRC easily created dozens of project codes, and added new ones as needed, to keep track of the exact time that employees spent on specific contracts.

With one click of the mouse, QRC set up Web TimeSheet to conform with DCAA rules. For example, employees have unique login names and passwords, ensuring only they have access to the labor system. The system also automatically alerts employees when they are assigned a new task.

The company easily tailors the Web TimeSheet workflow to route weekly timesheets to specific supervisors for signoff. Notifications and reminders ensure that employees and managers turn timesheets around within set timeframes. The workflow also requires supervisor authorizations – requiring reasons – for any changes to timesheets.

To ensure enough detail for DCAA audits, Web TimeSheet also requires employees and contractors to use the comment field in the timesheet for all of their activities.

“With detailed comments in Replicon, we know – three months later – what an employee did with ‘widget A’ for eight hours.” Callahan said.

After approvals, QRC uses the export function in Replicon to send payroll data easily to its processing vendor, ADP.

Same-Day Reporting

QRC takes advantage of flexible, detailed reporting capabilities in Replicon to gauge the current status of employee time and projects. Callahan customized a number of built-in Replicon reports to pull the exact information he needs at the click of a few buttons – giving him reports the same day.

In particular, he reports on billable hours to help track project status. Most critically, in the event of a DCAA audit, QRC has the numbers and corresponding notes in a single place to provide to auditors. It’s simply a matter of exporting the data in the format the agency needs. With Replicon, exporting takes less than a day, compared to potentially more than a week without it.

“Replicon lets me make sure – and demonstrate – we’re fully performing on contracts the way we’re supposed to. Without it, that would be much more challenging.” Callahan said.

“Replicon lets me make sure – and demonstrate - we’re fully performing on contracts the way we’re supposed to. Without it, that would be much more challenging. ”

The Results

Reduced IT costs from on-premise software
Same-day reporting for internal project status/audits reduced administrative data collection time
Exporting data in specific format takes less than a day versus over a week