Summary - Accounting for TW time (long but worth a look)

["Laura A Mac Lemale" <lmaclemale -at- paychex -dot- com>]

Hello,

First, thanks to Karen Black, Megan Golding, Margaret Beilby, Jo Baer,
Sean O'Donoghue-Hayes, Susan Gallagher, Rebecca Downey, Dana Worley, Jim
shaeffer, and Kevin McLauchlan for your responses to my questions last
week.  I am not able to reply to all of you personally, but I appreciate
the time you took to share your thoughts.  (_Please feel free to chime
in if I misrepresent your comments in any way._)
****************
_Karen wrote:_ Medium-sized company "(about 800 across Canada)"; captive
employee with benefits; ever'body from directors down required to track
time; lone TW and 1st in company; located in Toronto, ON, Canada;
status info used to track client, tasks, projects, and categories.
********
_Megan wrote:_ Small company; captive employee; status required "but not
followed religiously by others;" lone TW; located in Atlanta, GA U.S.A.
_Quote:_ "TQM was the original reason but I've continued it for project
management purposes. I frequently work for other departments and use my
exact accounting to show how much time I spent helping others. Helps
show my value AND make my estimates better in the future.  I use a
stopwatch-type application in Linux called GNOME Time Tracker to keep
exact accounting of my tasks. I add projects to the timer and switch the
timer over when I switch my work. Easy, keeps exact accounting, etc.

The hardest thing to get a handle on was how to categorize the time.
I've settled on:
1. End user documentation
2. Internal documentation
3. Support (of various internal depts)
4. Administrative
5. Web site updates
etc...
Tweaking the categories took some experimentation, but I'm happy with
the way things break down. "<snipped for brevity>
***************
_Margaret wrote:_  Small company; captive employee; status required of
others; TW in a group; located in Southern CA, U.S.A.; yes, status
reports used to measure stats.
Quote: "We are consultants who work on both fixed price and T&E
projects. Most of this information is used to measure productivity (for
hiring, layoffs, etc.) and to make better project/cost estimates.
However, I've been doing this 20 years and have always had to provide
time sheet information whether the company was a consulting group or
not."
***************
_Jo Baer wrote:_  "a medium-size division of a medium-size Midwestern
bank;" captive employee; weekly status report and meeting with manager
required since starting; status required of all in the division (I.T.);
located in Minnesota, U.S.A.; stats used to measure both productivity
and ROI.
_Quote:_ "Also used to assess accuracy of project estimation; improve
future estimates. Managers at each level use these status reports to do
a roll-up status report for the department or division, so that the
people who earn the real bucks are kept informed of overall project
status."
***************
_Sean wrote:_  Company size:  "a colossus!;" captive employee
("kidnapped by gypsies"); status required of everyone; TW in group of
two; located in Melbourne, Australia; stats used to measure both
productivity and ROI.
_Quote:_ "It does make those "no work" times hard to handle - usually
there is "stuff" you can do - but with everyone watching a budget areas
can be negative about a TW reporting against them...." <snipped for
brevity>
*******************
_Sue wrote:_ "I have worked in the software industry since 1983 --
always in Southern California, always in small to medium size companies
(4 to 250 employees). The only times I have ever had to record time is
when I was working on a federally funded project or a federal contract.
Even when a company had time sheets firmly in place, requirements for
recording time stopped when federal money stopped."
******************
_Rebecca wrote:_  captive employee; small group "...in small division of
large parent company;" 1000 employees plus 500+ worldwide; using MS
Project Central but may switch to Outlook; lone TW, "manager of a team
of one (me);" located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada."
Quote: (used to measure productivity and ROI?)"In our case - yes. Matrox
receives a fair amount of money through research grants from the
Canadian government. I believe it's similar for other divisions in
Matrox." <some snipped for brevity>
*****************
_Dana wrote (TW in software support group, Utah, U.S.A.):_ "As a
full-time employee, I am required to fill out a time card weekly.  On
the time card, I record time in/time out for each day, and the percent
of time that I spent on any particular task. All of our projects are
given an accounting code, whether they are engineering or marketing
related. In a given day, I may charge to customer support, training,
development on a project (help files), or testing a project.Our company
has right around 200 people. Everyone in the company fills out a time
card (well, maybe the execs are exempt from this...). Accounting uses
this information to determine how much a project costs to complete, and
I know that my manager looks at the card to determine where I am
spending my time." <snipped for brevity>
******************
_Jim wrote:_ "My situation parallels Dana's (see snip below). At our
40-person company we are all tied into an online time tracking system
(my time card looks like an electronic spread sheet). It's used to
determine project costs and billable vs. non-billable time. It's set up
primarily for the developers but everybody's pay check is based on it.
I'm a lone writer.
We're in Florida."
*****************
_Kevin wrote:_ Small company, about 75; captive employee; status
required of all groups; lone TW; located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada;
status used more as a "general: "How much
do we spend in various departments to make these kinds of projects
happen."
_Quote:_ "I do TWO reports each week. One is a timesheet, in which I
list daily chunks of time against charge codes. The other is a wee bit
of prose, in which I summarize what I actually did during that week.
It's supposed to justify any charges I might have made against
"qualifying"
projects, and to give the bosses a notion of where I'm at, what problems
I might encounter, and what I expect to do in the coming week...
sometimes the "week that was" actually bears some resemblance to the
previous week's "The Week That's Yet to Come"... sometimes.  :-)"
<snipped for brevity>
****************
_Laura's stats:_  captive employee; medium-sized company; TW in group of
24 in two locations (TWs, trainers, 4 publishers, 2 supervisors, 1
manager, 2 admins); formal status _not_ yet a requirement, although I do
keep my own status doc (more to keep myself organized); located in
beautiful upstate New York, U.S.A.; report not really used formally at
this time; I've heard talk of a dept. database that may be in
consideration.  If so, it will probably be tied in with ROI and
productivity measurements.

****************
Thank you for reading this far!

Regards,
Laura

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this message represent those of the
sender and not of Paychex, Inc.

--


--
Laura MacLemale
Technical Writer, EDV
Paychex HRS Operations
(585) 336-6515
lmaclemale -at- paychex -dot- com



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