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Timers

Best Practices: Time, Timers & WIP

Recording Timers

On the left hand side of your Workspace, there are the following tiles.

Tips and Tricks – it is beneficial to open “My Time” in a separate tab and leave it open throughout your day. This way you can bounce back and forth between your workspace and open timers easily, without having to re-open the “My Time” tab each time.

The My Time will look like the above image. At the top of screen, there are different colored tabs. The blue tabs are used to move forward or backward to different weeks to see the time recorded or open timers. The green tabs are used for starting timers.

Start Timer (Silent) – this will start a blank timer. This timer will then run as you work on a project. You will have to open the timer an manually add the client name, project, service item before releasing this timer.

Start Timer (Edit) – this will open a time entry. At this point you would enter the client, project, service item, and any necessary description. Once you select “save” This timer will show in your unrecorded timers.

Enter Time – This function is used when you did not use a timer to track your time. You can enter the client, project, service item, description, and actual duration. In this function your are actually entering the time you spent on a project, as opposed to letting a timer run.

All active timers will accumulate on the My Time screen like above. When you are ready to record the timer, you will select “Stop” and then “Record”. If the timer is already stopped, like the 2nd and 3rd above, but there is no “record” option, that means you do not have the timer properly filled out. You must have the following fields filled out to be able to record a timer: Client, Project, Service Item, Billing Description).

Now that the timer is filled out properly, you can see the 3rd timer now allows you to record your time.

You will also notice on the top of the timers section there is “Unrecorded Time” and “Recorded Time” tabs. This can be used to go back and forth between what you have actaully recorded vs what timers are unrecorded.

Best Practice

Timers Within Projects

When recording time and using timers, then most efficient and effective way to record your time is by using a timer withing a project.

Once you click on the view icon and open a project, there will be a green box at the top of your screen that says “Start Time”. Before you begin a project, select the “Start Time” box and your timer will start.

Once a timer is started, that box will change to “Stop Timer”. If you would like to stop the timer, you can simply select “Stop Timer”, or if you start a new timer in a different project, your previous timer will automatically stop.

If you stop the timer, the box will change to “Resume Timer”. You can select this box if you want to resume your timer on this project.

Best Practices: Time, Timers & WIP

Enter Time from a Project: Best Practice

Before you Enter Time from a Project you need to update the Project Status from No Info In to the next update status, then the Task on the time entry will always be populated. The Task field is required to record time associated with a project.

Recorded Time Entry: Best Practices

If you have to modify a recorded time record, you can edit the time record IF it is in an unlocked accounting period. In an unlocked period, you can modify these fields on the Recorded time record:

If you have to cancel a time record, you can cancel the record if it is in an unlocked accounting period. To do this, you would enter “0” in the Duration field on the time record to cancel an incorrect time entry. Changing the Duration to zero will cancel the WIP associated with this time entry.

When Recorded time is incorrect and the accounting period has been closed and locked, the time cannot be edited or canceled. You will need to create a Write Up or Write Down adjustment through the billing process.

Note: The Timer View (Start & Stop) saved search in the My Workspace menu within My Time, will not reflect any modifications after the time record was Recorded in PracticeERP.

Time Entry: Best Practice

Do not modify any information on the Timestamps tab on the Timer record.

WIP: Best Practice

The only roles that can modify a WIP record in PracticeERP is the Controller or Administrator. This feature is locked down for all other roles after the update to PracticeERP on December 3rd, 2023.