Timesheet & Project Management Blog

The goal of this blog is to provide tips and ideas for improving time tracking and project managment for our customers and other interested people.

Quick Questions: Linking Project Tasks

Details: Category: Blog; Published: Tuesday, 01 December 2015 14:21; Written by Ray White

Mike: Mike with Standard Time® with Ray White of Scoutwest the developers of Standard Time. And we’re answering your questions about how to use Standard Time just a little bit more efficiently. How you doing Ray?

Ray: All right.

We got a question from someone who has all these projects that need to start one after another because they’re all linked together. How do we do that within Standard Time?

OK. You’re probably talking about tasks; you have one task that has to start only when the other one has completed. Like a house with a foundation, you can’t do the roofing until you have a foundation and framing and so on.

Right.

So those tasks have to end before another one starts. OK. Let’s switch over to the screen, I’m going to show you real quick how that’s done. I’m going to click on the project tasks tab. I’ve got the Gantt chart display just so you can see the graphical representation of these tasks. I’ll be working on these two; you see these bars, I’m going to go over and select these two tasks. I’m going to right click on those, choose link tasks and what I’ve done here is linked them. Now you can see that this task cannot start until this one ends. You see a couple icons over here that show that those are linked. And that’s really all you have to do.

So you’ve just made a lot of people’s lives easier; more organized that’s a good thing. Go to the website and download it if you haven’t. You’re not going to regret it. Let us know what you think. If you have more questions submit them there and we’ll answer them right here in the land of the interwebs.

Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKz1pme4rH0

Quick Questions: Gantt chart

Details: Category: Blog; Published: Monday, 30 November 2015 15:31; Written by Ray White

Mike: Mike with Standard Time® back with Ray White of Scoutwest the developers of Standard Time. We’re answering your questions about how to utilize Standard Time just a little bit better. How’s it going Ray?

Ray: All right.

In a previous video I noticed that you just went over Gantt charts. Didn’t even really explain it but I now know Standard Time has them so I’m going to bring it up. Why don’t you explain how Gantt charts work within Standard Time?

All right. Let’s switch over to the screen here and I will show them. I’m looking at the timesheet right now; I’m going to click on the first tab, you see these six tabs along the top. I’m going to click on the project tasks tab and we’re now looking at an area that is typically used for managing projects and tasks. So you see a list of tasks here, those are the same tasks that you would see in your timesheet. Often administrators, managers would go in here to set up your project tasks. The column you’re seeing right here on the right side is a Gantt chart. This was invented during the 1910’s by a guy named Henry Gantt. Basically the idea here was to create a bar chart that shows you these bars that represent the starting and stopping time for every task. I click on a task here, select it you can see which bar belongs to that one.

Essentially you can scroll back and forth in time just to see these bars. If you open up Standard Time for the first time you may not see this column. So what you should do is go to the view menu choose columns you’ll see Gantt listed here in this list. You can click on it then click add and that will add it to your view and you’ll see it. That’s really it, that’s the Gantt chart.

That’s awesome. I see you have blue lines and red lines. What do those red lines represent?

OK. These red bars represent tasks that are overdue. So the blue ones are normal ones, you see the percent complete. The little bar in the middle, the red bar, represents tasks that are overdue that you should take a look at.

Gantt charts and Standard Time, it’s a really good thing. Go to the website submit your questions and let us know what you think.

Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNp2cKeWJnE

Quick Questions: Milestone Invoicing

Details: Category: Blog; Published: Wednesday, 25 November 2015 14:16; Written by Ray White

Mike: Mike with Standard Time® back with Ray White of Scoutwest and we are answering your questions on Standard Time. Welcome back Ray.

Ray: Hi Mike.

I have a questions about milestone billing. Can I within Standard Time bill 1/3 up front, 1/3 in the middle, 1/3 at completion. Is that possible in Standard Time?

That’s a very popular method of billing projects that consulting firms use. The client agrees I will pay you up front but you get started on this, pay you a third. Then I want to see you meet a milestone. Somewhere in the middle, usually a beta and then I’ll pay you a completion. That’s what you’re asking, right?

Correct.

Let’s switch over to the screen I’ll show you how it works. You’re looking at the timesheet now, I’m going to switch to a new screen. Go to the tools menu choose projects. Because this is on a project by project basis. I’m going to click on a project here and first of all draw your attention to the cost. This is a $10,000 deal and you want to be paid in three installments. I’m going to go here to milestones and show you how that’s done. This milestone payment is how it’s done. You simply set up the percentage to 33 1/3 and you can bill a third of the project. So the $10,000 project will be chopped up into thirds; first at signing, then somewhere in the middle and then at the end of completion. So that is how you would do that.

While we’re here I just want to point out a couple other ways you can bill your clients and bill jobs; these are usually for fixed fee projects. So one of those is a fixed amount in this case when I meet a certain milestone the clients says yes, go ahead and bill me it’s going to be $11,000 and the client has agreed to pay. Another way you can do it is with a date range. In this case I’m looking through all the time and expenses I’m going to bill that date range for the project. To answer your question; 1/3 here’s how you do it. We have this $10,000 project I’m going to go ahead and switch over to another screen. I’m going to the insert menu and choose new invoice. I have to have a client, so I’ve chosen the client, I then have to choose the project because these milestones are on a project by project basis. Then I’m going to choose the project here and you can see that $10,000 project is now billed on my first installment, $3,333. That’s how it’s done, milestones.

Also in milestones, we all have that one client who has weird billing techniques. So with the milestones we can compensate how they want…

Yes, you customize exactly how that client wants it. You set it up on the project and away you go.

Thanks Ray. We’re answering more of your questions. Go to the website and submit them there, while you’re there download your free version and let us know what you think.

Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV6J5_dEZqc

Quick Questions: Task Warnings

Details: Category: Blog; Published: Tuesday, 24 November 2015 14:25; Written by Ray White