What is it and what is it for 

This powerful new feature will be for those of you who bill your customer by time, but it can also be used to track time spent on certain tasks - this could be really useful if you’re tracking whether you’re new Outsourcing team are actually value add, or whether a new staff member clearly needs a little more support to get them up to speed. It has multiple uses. 

You can also use this for staff to complete regular timesheet(s)

The first thing we need to do is set up our defaults in Engager - as always, head to Settings - Jobs - Time Tracking

Within this screen, you can dictate whether you’re charging for all time-based actions within your Practice, your rounding-up preference and also what jobs under say 10 minutes, aren’t chargeable:

Next Step - Our Staff

This is where you can enter what your staff hours per week, their cost to you per hour but also what their charge-out rate is for billing purposes. 

Head to Settings - Staff - System Users

Please Note - Want to HIDE staffing costs?

We would recommend considering disabling the staff members access to hourly rate / charge out rates etc - let’s keep the office harmonious 

Head to the User - Edit User - Permissions - Deselect the relevant items 

Also while you’re in Permissions, just make sure you’re happy with the following options relating to Time Tracking and Logs

There are definitely a few things to consider with the above permissions like editing other staff member’s logs, editing their own - we wanted to give you the choice and control over what they can and can’t do, especially with such a subject. 

Now that’s set, how do we actually track time

How to record time tracking 

We’ve created a rather handy time tracking icon on your top bar, for ease of access and to also be a visual reminder, that a timer is running and you could be billing a client!

To start using, select ‘start new quick timer’

Note how the Time goes GREEN to indicate that it has started and is ongoing

You can now see this in your logs

To STOP the timer, select the log and then select the STOP ICON in red

When you STOP the timer, you’re presented with 2 options - input your details about what the purpose was, who was it for and what service, or company back to the log later on to complete

I can then complete enter in the reason for the time log, from service / client / is it billable

So that’s how you do a quick time log, this time around lets select ‘New Time Log’

This is a great way to enter in any time logs that had been missed or forgotten - the example below is a face to face consultation that happened outside of working hours, and I need to update Engager so that we can document and then bill

You can also create and view time logs by going to Time Logs across your top bar

As you can see, you have a whole suite of options and filters to play with here

It’s a great way to filter down into what needs to be billed, in case you miss any - if the Billing Status is Pending, it shows in a handy RED colour

You may find that you need to add more time or more occasions to the logs, that’s all possible within the Edit options - a colleague can even add in their time log against the same record, as there are times it won’t just be one team member working on one particular job. 

Locate your Edit icon on the Actions section

Head down time Timer Blocks - Add Time Block

Don’t forget that you can change the appearance of HOW you view the time logs as well. Perhaps you want to see how your team are performing and see what they’ve billed, or perhaps you want to hone in on an individual's billables

Head oto ‘Change view’ and and select the option you want

Remember, if you want more in-depth reporting, we’ve got the EXPORT feature, so you can have a play and build your own reports in Excel. 

Finally, you can also track time within the job cards, so when you’re working on a specific task or service, you can start a time and this will track against your Estimated Time allotted for this particular Phase

You’ll find that most staff will start their timers here within Job

If you haven’t set up Estimated Time per job phase, head into your Settings - Jobs - Services - Actions - Edit

Head down to your Phases then the final section - ‘Default Budgeted Time’

We’re always looking to expand on our Features and we’ll be looking at Reporting soon, for Time Tracking and Logs