Founded in 1994, The Finance Project is a specialized non-profit research, technical assistance, consulting and training firm based in Washington D.C. The company helps public- and private-sector leaders make smart investment decisions, develop sound financing strategies and build solid partnerships that benefit children, families and communities. The Finance Project offers a valuable intellectual and technical resource to policy makers, program developers, fund providers and community leaders, including federal, state and local officials, foundation executives, academic researchers, service providers and advocates.
Challenge
Several employees at The Finance Project travel frequently. Until now, these employees entered their time and expenses on paper, and then faxed or mailed this information to the office. Administrators entered the data into spreadsheets and manually calculated time off balances and accruals. It soon became apparent to The Finance Project team that they needed a centralized and automated timesheet tracking solution.
Terry Holthause, Director of Finance and Administration at The Finance Project, identified some time discrepancies and inaccuracies with their former system. “We used to calculate leave balances manually in an Excel spreadsheet, which was time consuming and error prone.” said Holthause. “We [also] used to make our employees redo their timesheets because they were always forgetting holidays.”
Manually tracking timesheet and expenses resulted in drawn-out approval cycles, inefficient production of financial statements, and the additional task of issuing e-mail reminders.
“We used to calculate leave balances manually in an Excel spreadsheet, which was time consuming and error prone. We [also] used to make our employees redo their timesheets because they were always forgetting holidays. ”
Solution
Holthause explained that Replicon, Inc. was their vendor of choice because Web TimeSheet comprised all of the significant features they needed.
“It is more convenient for our employees to enter their time online …Staff who travel frequently are able to submit their timesheets and leave requests remotely.” said Holthause. “When managers travel, they can approve them online.”
According to Holthause, submitting and approving timesheets in one centralized system “speeds up the entire process and enables the production of monthly financial statements more quickly.”
Since implementing Web TimeSheet, Holthause recognizes more time-saving benefits for administrators. They no longer have to issue e-mail reminders because the system automatically does it for them. Web TimeSheet also helps them efficiently administer time off balances and accruals while enabling employees to view their balances independently – no longer tying up administrators’ time on this task.
“It is more convenient for our employees to enter their time online ...staff who travel frequently are able to submit their timesheets and leave requests remotely. ”
The Results
- No longer have to issue e-mail reminders because the system automatically does it
- Helped efficiently administer time off balances and accruals
- Provides employee self-service by enabling them to view balances independently
"Submitting and approving timesheets in one centralized system speeds up the entire process and enables the production of monthly financial statements more quickly."
Terry Holthause
Director of Finance and Administration, The Finance Project
