AREA 06 / 06·Timecards and delivered cost

The week as it was delivered, against the plan.

Timecards is optional and switched on per firm. When it is on, each person's week arrives already knowing which projects they are assigned to, so for most people, most weeks, it is a confirmation, a small adjustment, or a leave entry, done on a phone. Accepted time becomes delivered cost on the project. It never becomes revenue.

The question this answers

Do you need timecards to know where profit is heading?

No. The outlook is built from the deal models, the project plans and what people cost, and it is there whether or not anyone submits a week. Timecards add the other half: what was actually delivered against that plan, per person and project, at cost. If your people already fill in a timesheet somewhere, the question is what it feeds. If it feeds billing and payroll and nothing else, the plan and the delivery are drifting apart where nobody is looking.

If your people fill in a timesheet today, it most likely goes to billing or payroll and stops there. It is filled in on Friday from memory, chased at month end, and never compared with the plan the project was staffed on.

So the plan and the delivery drift apart where nobody is looking. A senior planned at four days a week is doing five. A phase that was meant to finish in March is still absorbing days in May. The project manager knows, roughly. Finance finds out when the invoice is smaller than the outlook said it would be.

Profitdrive makes time capture cheap enough to do every week, and puts what was delivered beside what was planned, per person, per project, per month. The outlook is still built from the plan. Timecards tell you how the plan is turning out.

Weekly capture, manager completeness, a month close, and one export.

Timecards is the delivery side of the plan. Because the Project Plan already knows who is assigned to what, a person's week arrives with the right project rows on it. They enter hours against those rows, add any leave, save as they go, and submit once. Rows for other active projects can be added. Internal projects arrive as non-billable.

Whether the capability is on at all is a setting for your firm. If you do not use it, nothing else changes: the outlook is built from the deal models, the project plans and what people cost, not from time. Whether a manager has to confirm submitted weeks is a second setting, off by default. By default the person's submission is the record, and the manager's job is completeness and exceptions, not approval. A 40-plus person IT services firm already runs on Profitdrive with Timecards switched on.

What accepted time produces is delivered days and delivered cost, on the project and on the person, at the daily cost that applied in that month. It does not produce revenue, contribution or margin. Recognised revenue stays with your ledger. The same accepted time feeds the export of invoice lines for your accounting system, which is where the invoice is made.

Surface

Function

01

My week

One grid, Monday to Friday, with a row for each project you are assigned to. Add leave in the grid. Save, then Submit week.

02

Manage

Exceptions, Coverage, Month completeness, Status, Import and Invoice output. Review is a tab only if your firm switches it on.

03

Month close

Resolve or waive each gap, accept the month, keep the close evidence.

04

Import

Upload, map, review with a dry run, commit. For firms with existing records.

05

Invoice output

The month's lines as a CSV your accounting system can import. An export, never billing.

What you can do on this screen

What a person does on Friday, what a manager does on Monday, and what finance does at month end.

Capture the week on a phone, from rows that already know the plan.

The week opens as a grid with a row for each client, project and phase you are assigned to, and a column for each working day. The rows are assignment-aware: they come from the Project Plan, so you are not searching a project list to find your own work. Any other active project can be added. Internal projects arrive with billable switched off. A public holiday locks its day unless you say you worked it.

Above the grid a four-value bar keeps the week honest: Capacity, Leave, Expected project time, Project time entered. Leave is entered in the same grid, by leave type and date, and reduces what is expected. When entered time equals expected time the week reads as ready to submit. Under, it shows the remainder. Over, it shows an amber Over by. Save keeps what you have typed. Submit week is the deliberate act, and a saved week says plainly that it has not been submitted.

On a phone the same week is a stack of project cards with a bar at the bottom carrying the totals and the Save and Submit actions, sized for a thumb. For most people, most weeks, that is the whole job: check the rows, adjust a day, add the Friday you took off, submit. Hours are prefilled from the assigned days in the plan, so a full week on one project arrives complete and needs only a confirmation.

Submit once. Give the manager completeness and exceptions, not an approval queue.

By default nobody approves time. A submitted week is the record. The manager surface opens on Exceptions: for the month, per person and project, planned days from the Project Plan against delivered days from the cards, with a tolerance you set. The signals are plain: missing time, under delivery, over delivery, and a booking on a project the person was not planned on. They are information for a conversation, never a gate on the person.

Coverage answers the Monday question: who has not started, who has a draft, who has submitted. It lists only the people expected to submit, so someone not on the roster that week does not show as a gap. From either tab you can open a card and read the entries, one line per project and phase, hours only. A correction is a reopen with a reason, which returns the week to the person to fix and resubmit.

If your firm wants a confirmation step, switch on review mode and a Review tab appears: submitted cards, confirm per row or in bulk, reopen as the negative path. There is no approver chain and no reject button. Status lists every card with person, week, source, and billable, non-billable and total hours, so the whole month is on one screen.

Close the month with the gaps named, then keep the evidence.

Month completeness lists every person and week in the month that is not settled: no card, a draft, or a reopened week. Each row can be resolved, by reopening and chasing the week, or waived with a typed reason that stays on record and cannot be edited or deleted. Or it can simply be left open.

Accepting the month is one act, and it is the only close there is. A month with no open gap accepts with one click. A month with open gaps refuses to accept until you type an acknowledgement that names them, so nobody closes a month without knowing what was missing. Every accepted month writes a close evidence card: expected, settled, waived and open counts, the named gaps, who accepted and when. Read-only, and the only place it is kept.

Acceptance is what turns cards into delivered days and delivered cost on each project and each person, at the daily cost that applied in that month. A person-month with no cost on record shows as cost unavailable, never as a zero. Accepted months are frozen, so the time to correct a week is before you accept it, which is what the completeness list is for. Nothing here adjusts a plan, a forecast or the outlook. Variance is put in front of a person to act on.

Import what you already have. Export the lines your accounting system needs.

If your firm has time records in a spreadsheet, the import wizard takes a CSV: upload, map the columns to person email, project code, date, hours and billable, then review. The review is a dry run on the server with a verdict per row, ok, error or duplicate, and the reason. Commit writes only the ok rows, records the batch, and marks the imported weeks as submitted. It never overwrites a week someone has already submitted.

Invoice output is a tab on the same Manage surface. You pin the account code and tax rate names as they appear in your accounting system, pick a month, and generate candidate lines: time and materials days from accepted months, and fixed monthly fees. Lines that cannot be invoiced appear in the same table with the reason, an unaccepted month, an unresolved rate, an unmapped contact, and never as a zero. You untick what should not bill this month and download the CSV.

Then you import the file into Xero, match the contact, and approve and issue the invoice there. Profitdrive does not create, approve, issue or void invoices, and it does not write to your accounting system. This is an export path, not billing. Recognised revenue is what comes back from the ledger once the invoice is issued. Xero is the first accounting system connected.

This area does not stand alone.

Project delivery and margin

Exceptions read planned days from the Project Plan and delivered days from the cards, per person and project, per month. Accepted time lands on the project as delivered days and delivered cost, beside the plan, so the project manager can see where delivery is running ahead of or behind what was staffed.

See project profitability

People cost and capacity

Delivered cost is delivered days multiplied by the person's resolved daily cost for that month, the same cost the Deal Model and the Project Plan use. Leave entered in the timecard reduces expected time the same day, and leave entered on the person record shows in that week without a reload.

See capacity and cost

Forward P&L

Delivered cost is an actual. Actuals are compared with the outlook; they do not replace what the outlook is built from. Accepted time also feeds the invoice-line export for Xero. Connect Xero, sync on demand, and accept what comes back before it counts as actuals. The connection does not write the outlook.

See the forward P&L

The principle behind it

A timecard reflects reality, and reality is compared with the plan. Practical Operations is the pillar this area sits under: time capture that is cheap enough to do every week, and honest about what it is evidence of.

Read Practical Operations

If your people already fill in a timesheet, who compares it with the plan?

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