Before you begin
Before you set up or change any staff details in , please read about how staff base rates, billable rates and security privileges are used—and why they are important.
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Staff base rates and billable rates
Each staff member has a base rate and a billable rate, which are both used by for important financial calculations.
A staff member's Staff Base Rate is critically important as it will be used to calculate the 'actual cost' to you of all timesheet entries written by the staff member. It also affects all actual profit calculations. The Staff Base Rate is the FULL cost to you of employing a staff member.
To calculate the rate, start with their base hourly rate (say $40.00 per hour). Then add on allowances for annual leave, sick leave, public holidays, bonuses, accident levies, superannuation and anything else that will affect their overall cost to the business. This may, for example increase the value you put into the Staff Base Rate field from $40/hour to (for example) $48.52. The more accurate this number, the more accurate will be your profitability reporting.
A staff member's Staff Billable Rate answers the question 'If someone came to you and asked to buy one hour of Mary's time (irrespective of what task/work Mary did), what would you charge them?' The value you use for a staff member's Staff Billable Rate also depends on whether you are using staff or task billing:
- Staff billing. If your Task Invoice Rate is set to Staff Billable, then the Staff Billable Rate is also a critical setting, as it will be used to calculate all Quotable and Billable values involving this staff member.
- Task billing. If your Task Invoice Rate is set to Task Billable, then the Staff Billable Rate for all staff may be set to 0.00. However we recommend that you do populate this field with a meaningful number, in case you should ever need to switch an individual job's Task Invoice Rate from Task Billable to Staff Billable, which can be done on the Financial tab of any job.
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Security privileges and permissions
Security privileges and their associated permissions control what users are able to do in . Typical privileges allow the user to work with clients, quotes, invoices or jobs, and to create or run custom reports.
By changing the user's permissions settings on a privilege-by-privilege basis, or by role, you can control the access that each user has to each privilege.
Available permissions vary, depending on the privilege. Some privileges (using Collaboration Manager, for example) are either Full or No Access, while other privileges (Client, for example) can be controlled much more closely, with progressive levels of access, ranging from no access to full access:
- No Access
- View Only Access
- Create/Edit Access
- Create/Edit/Delete Access
- Full Access.
Before you set up or change a staff member's security permissions settings, please review these examples.
- For a basic staff member, do not change any permissions (No Access is the default). They can view the Dashboard screen and run reports they have been given access to. They can also view jobs they are assigned to, and enter time against those jobs (in the Timesheets tab of the job). However, they cannot access the Clients or Business menus. This means that they cannot create or view clients; or view, edit and create quotes or invoices or view financial information.
- For the owner and business manager who require full access to all features, select full access to all privileges, or apply a role that does that.
- For the office administrator, who requires only administrative access, select full access to financial privileges, or apply a role that does that.
Several privileges include a Delete permission. We recommend that you select the Delete permission only for staff with full access to the Administrator privilege.
Limiting visibility of staff base rates
To prevent a staff member from being able to view staff base rates for other staff, select No Access to the following privileges on their staff record.
- Administrator, which allows staff to view or edit all staff base rates.
- Financial Reports, which gives access to Reports > Standard Reports Tab.
- Report Builder, which gives access to create and run custom reports.
- Job Financial Summary, which gives access to the Job financial summary report, which contains information that can be used to work out staff base rates for other staff.
For full details about working with privileges and permissions, see the section at the end of this article.
Add a staff member
To add a staff member to :
- On the toolbar click the Settings
icon.
- On the General Settings tab, make sure that the Staff section is selected.
- On the Staff screen, make sure that the Staff tile is selected.
- Click the + Create New Staff button.
- On the Adding a Staff Member screen:
- Provide information as required (see Data field reference, Staff member information, below).
- (optional) Select a role to pre-populate permissions settings based on the staff member's job role. If you select the role None, all permissions are set to No Access.
- Select permissions as required (see Data field reference, Privileges and permissions, below).
- Save your changes. The staff member is added to . If you specified an email address, an email is sent to that address, inviting them to log in.
If you need to re-send an invitation, select the checkbox to the left of the staff member's name on the > General Settings > Staff screen and click the Re-send invite button on the toolbar. Note that if the staff member has accepted the invite then the Re-send Invite button will not appear.
Edit a staff member
To view or edit information for a specific staff member:
- On the toolbar click the Settings
- On the General Settings tab, make sure that the Staff section is selected.
- On the Staff screen, make sure that the Staff tile is selected.
- Drill down on the Name of the staff member you wish to edit.
- On the staff detail screen:
- View or change information as required (see Data field reference, Staff member information, below).
- (optional) Select a role to pre-populate permissions settings based on the staff member's job role. If you select the role None, all permissions are set to No Access.
- View or select permissions as required (see Data field reference, Privileges and permissions, below).
- Save your changes.
Data field reference
Staff member information
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General Information
Field Description First Name Employee's first name. Last Name Employee's family name. Email The employee's email address, which they will use to log in to .
Each staff member must have their own unique email address.
Currently Working? If an employee temporarily leaves the company (on unpaid leave for example), but plans to return later, deselect this checkbox to indicate they are not currently available. Their name will not appear in the list of available resources when allocating staff to a job.
Deselecting this checkbox does not prevent the staff member from accessing their account.
A staff member is counted towards your total number of subscribed users regardless of the setting of this checkbox. So, if you are currently on a 10 user subscription plan, deselecting any users who are not currently working will not affect your subscription.
Notes Any notes specific to this employee.
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Financial Information
Field Description Base Rate The hourly cost of employing this staff member. This is not just their hourly rate, but may include an allowance for other costs you need to meet in relation to employing that person, such as annual leave, sick leave, ACC and superannuation. will use this rate to determine the profits made on each job, so it is important that this is value is correct.
If the base rate is incorrect during timesheet entry, you will need to delete the time entry, correct the base rate and then re-enter the time.
Billable Rate The hourly rate that the employee is charged out at. The Billable Rate is required only if the Organisation Settings > Task Invoice Rate is configured as Staff Billable Rate. Payroll Code The payroll code used in your payroll system software for this employee. This is required only if you will be interfacing with a payroll system that integrates with .
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Contact Information
Field Description Phone Number Home or other contact telephone number. Mobile Number Mobile telephone number. Address Physical address.
Privileges and permissions
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General Privileges
Privilege Purpose and permissions Client Use the Client Manager screen. No Access: The Client menu is hidden. View Only Access: Create/Edit Access: Create/Edit/Delete Access: Full Access: Collaboration Manager Use the Collaboration manager. No Access: The Collaboration Manager icon is not displayed in the toolbar.
Full Access: Completed Jobs Edit completed jobs. No Access: Cannot edit jobs with status = Completed Full Access: Edit access to jobs with status = Completed Job Use the Job manager. View Assigned Jobs: Can view jobs but not edit jobs with status ≠ completed. Create/Edit Access:
- Create new jobs, and for jobs with status ≠ completed: access to editing job details and assigning or removing staff, client manager and job manager on one or more jobs.
- Access to the Jobs > Schedule option or Jobs > Jobs > Schedule, which allow you to change the overall job schedule and dates for tasks and milestones.
- Access to apply additional templates, copy the job, move timesheets.
- Add and edit job tasks and change staff allocation to tasks.
Create/Edit/Delete Access: Create, view, edit and delete jobs with status ≠ completed. Full Access: Job Archive View the job archive under Jobs > Jobs > All Jobs tab. No Access: Hides jobs with Status of Completed and Cancelled. Full Access: Displays jobs with any Status. Job – Complete Milestones, Tasks and To-do Items Mark job milestones, tasks and to-do items as complete. No Access: Full Access: Job Costs Work with job costs. No Access: View but not create or edit job costs. View Only Access: View but not create or edit job costs.
To prevent a user from adding new costs to a job, set Job Costs to View Only Access and also set the Financial Privileges > Financial privilege to No Access. If these options are not set as described here, the user will still be able to add new costs to a job.
Create/Edit Access: View, create, edit job costs. Full Access: View, create, edit, delete job costs. Job Documents View, create, edit job documents. In the job details screen (Jobs > Jobs > job#), the Documents tab is visible only if View Only Access, Create/Edit Access or Full Access permission is selected. No Access: View Only Access: Create/Edit Access: Job Estimated Billings View job estimated billings. No Access: Full Access: Job Management Reports Run three job management reports (coming soon). No Access: The Print PDF button is not displayed on the Job Manager screen. Full Access: The following reports are available under the Print PDF button on the Job Record screen: Job Deadline Report, Job Status Report, Staff Allocation Report. Job Manager (staff can see all jobs, not just those they are assigned to) View jobs on the job manager screen. View Assigned Jobs: Staff can see only the jobs they are assigned to. Full Access: Staff can see all jobs, not just those they are assigned to. Job Financial Summary Access the job financial summary report in:
- Jobs > Jobs > (select job) > Print PDF
- Reports > Reports
No Access: The job financial summary report is not visible. Full Access: View, Filter, Send, Export job financial summary report. Job Milestones Work with job milestones. No Access: The Milestones tab is not displayed on the job details screen (Jobs > Jobs > job#). Create/Edit Access: Create, edit job milestones. Full Access: Create, edit, delete job milestones. Job Notes Work with job notes. No Access: The Notes tab is not displayed on the job details screen (Jobs > Jobs >job#). Create/Edit Access: View, create, edit job notes. Full Access: View, create, edit, delete job notes. Job Quick Edit Access the Status drop-down button on the Job Manager screen to change a job's job status. No Access: It is not possible to use the Status drop-down button on the Job Manager screen. Job status can still be changed from within a job's details screen. Full Access: Job Schedule View and edit the job schedule (Jobs > Jobs > Schedule). No Access: Full Access: Full access is required to be able to work with the job schedule. See Privileges and permissions for job and task scheduling. Job To-do items Work with job to-do items. No Access: The To-Dos tab is not displayed for job tasks (Jobs > Jobs > job# > Tasks > drill down on a task). Full Access: Create, edit, delete job to-do items. Job Timesheets Work with job timesheets using a job's Timesheets tab. No Access: View job timesheets and enter time for yourself only. Full Access: View job timesheets and enter time for yourself and other staff. Recurring Jobs Work with recurring jobs. No Access: The Recurring Jobs tab is not displayed for jobs (Jobs > Job > job#). Full Access: View, create, edit, delete recurring jobs. Staff Schedule View and edit the staff schedule (Jobs > Jobs > Schedule). No Access: Full Access: Full access is required to be able to work with the staff schedule. See Privileges and permissions for job and task scheduling. Supplier Work with suppliers. No Access: View Only Access: Create/Edit Access: Create/Edit/Delete Access: View, create, edit, delete suppliers. Full Access: Report Builder Use the report builder. No Access: Full Access:
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Admin Privileges
Privilege Purpose and permissions Administrator Work as system administrator. No Access: The settings icon Full Access: Work as administrator with full access to system settings (excluding costs). Cost Admin Work with cost admin database ( No Access: The Costs menu item is hidden. Full Access: Create, edit and delete costs. Job Template Work with job templates ( No Access: The Job Template tile is hidden. Full Access: Create, edit and delete job templates. Task Admin Work with tasks database ( No Access: The Tasks menu item is hidden. Full Access: Create, edit and delete tasks.
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Financial Privileges
Privilege Purpose and permissions Job/Quote/Invoice Costs – Edit Unit Price Work with unit price field in job/quote/invoice costs. No Access: The unit price is displayed but cannot be changed. Full Access: Edit the unit price of job/quote/invoice costs. Financial Work with specific items of financial information. If the Admin Privileges > Administrator privilege is set to:
- Full Access, the Financial privilege lets you see and use: the Business > Timesheets menu, the Settings > Billing menu, and the Budget field in a job. If the General Privileges > Job Costs > Create/Edit Access option is not already selected, the Financial privilege also switches on/off the ability to add new costs to a job.
- No Access, the Settings > Billing menu is not available, regardless of the setting of the Financial privilege.
Work In Progress (WIP) No Access: WIP manager cannot be accessed View Only Access: Can view WIP manager, but cannot write-off or invoice WIP Full Access: Write-off and invoice WIP Financial Reports View and run 'standard' financial reports listed under the Reports > Reports menu. No Access: None of the 'standard' financial reports are available. Full Access: View and run the 'standard' financial reports. Flag timesheet entries as billable or non-billable at time of entry Allow users to flag their timesheets as billable or non billable. This is a very significant feature as it can directly affect income and would normally be used only by the owner or business manager. Flagging time as unbillable on a timesheet has no audit trail – so for larger organisations (not simply an owner operator, for example), it's recommended to flag tasks as unbillable instead. No Access: The Billable toggle is not shown on the timesheet, so time cannot be flagged as unbillable. Full Access: The Billable toggle is shown on the timesheet, so time can be flagged as billable or unbillable, as required.
Invoices Work with invoices. No Access: Create/Edit/Cancel Access: As there is no audit trail when deleting invoices, you may select Create/Edit/Cancel Access rather than Full Access (which enables delete) to prevent staff from deleting invoices (rather than raising a credit note, which is recommended). Full Access: View, create, edit, cancel, delete invoices. If the Invoices privilege is set to Full Access, the Work in Progress Manager option is available in the Business menu and any available invoices are listed in the Financials tab of each job. Approve Invoices Control approval of invoices. No Access: Full Access: View, create, edit, delete approval for invoices. Lead Management Work with leads. No Access: Create/Edit Access: Full Access: View, create, edit, delete leads. Purchase Orders Work with purchase orders. No Access: Full Access: View, create, edit, delete purchase orders. Quotes Work with quotes and estimates. No Access: Full Access: View, create, edit, delete quotes and estimates.
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API Access Privileges
Privilege Purpose and permissions Authorise 3rd Party Full Access Allows you to connect your account to third-party add-ons. This privilege is available only if the staff member has Administrator access set to Full Access (see Admin Privileges). No Access: Full Access: