Whether you are evaluating a trial version or getting ready to go live with Abtrac, you’ll need to adjust/enter some default settings before you start.

Typically your Abtrac account will have no data, nor any customised settings when you first login. This article contains a step by step quick guide for administrators – taking you through page by page to verify that the settings in Abtrac suit your company’s needs.

Logging In,Entering Data,Support & Help

Log In

Now that your Abtrac account is activated you might like to pin or save the login page for easy access. Be sure to keep your username and the password to your Abtrac account confidential at all times. These are your Abtrac credentials. If you lose them there is no way they can be recovered. All we can do is reset them or remove them.

Support and Help

Remember too, if you are evaluating an Abtrac trial you have free unlimited email support and free telephone support (phone calls are limited to 10 minutes each). We make these free offerings because it’s in both our interests that you find Abtrac a pleasure to use. And if you need help, we want to quickly get you back on track so you can fully evaluate Abtrac.

If you are going live with Abtrac, then of course the same support applies and it’s likely you’ve already scheduled a time for a getting started training session. If you haven’t then do give us a call, we offer online or in house training to get you and your staff off to the very best start with Abtrac.

Navigation

Whilst you are getting started with Abtrac, take some time to familiarise yourself with the Abtrac main menu (a good place to go if you get ‘lost’)

Home

By default, the Home screen will look like this with some widgets open.

Hover the mouse over each widget button to see the item that will be displayed. You could leave the widgets open or closed to your liking. Scroll down the screen and the remaining widgets will be visible. 

The ‘buttons’ for the open widgets will be faded while those for the closed ones will be highlighted. For example, if the Time and date widget is the only one open on your home screen dashboard, then your screen will look like this.

Settings

Administration >> Settings

One of the first things to do after logging in to your account is to verify the default settings of Abtrac suit your needs.

Choose from the menu, Administration >> Settings. Then check out System Settings, Office Settings, Invoice Settings, User Control Settings and Invoice Line Control Settings.

Changes and settings in the Administration screens affect how all of Abtrac looks and behaves for your entire business.

To set up your account in Abtrac, you may need to collect a few key things, or decide on how you want to use some areas before you start. Setting up may only take a few minutes. This will depend on how much data you want to bring in, how readily available it is, and if you need support.

It is worth taking the time to work through the administration settings so that the system suits your needs to start with, you can always come back and spend more time adjusting these settings later.

System Settings

Administration >> Settings >> System Settings

Clients and Jobs

Administration >> Settings >> System Settings >> Clients and Jobs

Define your job numbering system under ‘Job Code Preference’.

There are two major types of job codes.

‘Unique alphanumeric for each Job’ is simply an incrementing number. This may be with a prefix. But the number increases regardless of the client. e.g. abcc-20001, abcc-20002 etc.

A second type is ‘Client System Code’ – ‘Numeric’. ‘Client number’ is a unique code for the client which can be set up in Administration >> Settings >> Invoice settings. Job codes can then be ‘Client number’ and a hyphen, then an incrementing number for each job for the client.

In the below screen shot we have chosen ‘Unique alphanumeric for each Job’, set a prefix of 20 (for the year 2020) and a suffix with 5 characters separated by a – (hyphen).

So the new job codes as they are created will be 20-20001, 20-20002, etc. The starting numbers i.e. the 00001, 00002 can be set up to suit your requirements. By default, Abtrac sets the starting number as 20000. This number can be changed in Administration >> Settings >> Invoice settings.

Here you also have the option of differentiating a job proposal from an actual billable job by entering the proposal details.

Below that, enter the defaults for a new job.

Do you want to create a job or a proposal?

Choose from the drop down menu if you would like users to select a job or a proposal.You can also give users the option of choosing either one.

When creating a job the user will be presented with a pop up asking if it is a job or a proposal.

Specify what details the user needs to fill in on the timesheet, like an activity code, task (stage or phase), work item, etc.

Add client office, client owner, client owner 2. This will carry the values from the client to the relevant fields in the job.

Threshold warnings can be set up to make sure that the job progresses within the budget. You could also specify if the threshold applies to just the fees or if it takes the disbursements and sub consultants also into consideration.

Default file path can be set up so that users can find the folders and soft copy files with details and related information regarding the job.

Defaults can be added for a task start date from the dropdown list, when you create a new task.

A sub-consultant could also be added as a job person.

Naming convention

If you call a ‘job’ or a ‘task’ by different names, you have the option of changing it in ‘For Display on Forms and Reports’ section. For example, if you change the ‘Name of Job’ to Project, then ‘Job’ changes to ‘Project’ across the various reports and screens.

‘Job Templates’ have been discussed in more detail here.

Within Abtrac you can keep a list of documents associated with a job and a report number can be given for that. The default ‘Next Job Document Report No’ can be entered so that reports are easy to identify, for purposes of compliance and authorisation.

Within each project you can create additional fields called ‘User Defined Fields’. These can also be added to the search screen by ticking ‘Enable User Defined Field in Search’ under ‘Search Configuration’.

Job fee can be auto-updated without prompting the user when a task is modified. This can be done if you tick the above box.

This completes the Clients and Jobs page on System Settings.

Timesheets & Disbursements

Administration >> Settings >> System Settings >> Timesheets

Set your timesheet ‘Unit conversion’ e.g. 1=1 hour.

‘No. Weeks Between Timesheets’ can be set up, for e.g. 1 for weekly or 2 for fortnightly payments.

You can also set up the last day of the timesheet period in ‘End of Period Day’.

Tick the boxes to limit the Date to restrict users entering time outside of the current timesheet period. And Limit New Timesheet to end of period day will restrict the last day of the timesheet period match the “End of period day” set earlier.

Activity codes can be entered in the timesheets based on the tasks.

You have the option of giving a user warning when the required hours are not completed in the timesheet.

Job Combo Box can be set up to be sorted according to your preference.

Task and Activity can be set up to auto fill on the timesheet.

Use the tick box to copy or remove the comments on a timesheet cloned from an existing timesheet period.

User can be prompted if Pre Payment or initial deposit amount has not been made.

Zero units showing up in the new timesheets can be removed when commiting the timesheet.

Rounding rules help to round off timesheet units either mathematically or to the nearest decimal point.

e.g. the entry in the below screen rounds up the units on a timesheet to the nearest half hour if you have set the timesheet Unit Conversion as 1 hour.

When entering Disbursements requirements and settings can be set according to your preference.

‘Disbursement Margin Apply Rules’ can be selected based on how margins are handled by your business.

Accounting Upload

The accounting upload links your Abtrac invoices to MYOB, Xero, Quickbooks, Reckon, Sage, Moneyworks, Oracle and more. It is an add-on to standard Abtrac and will be specific to your company. If you are ready to configure your accounts upload you’ve probably moved past the getting started stage…

2. Office Settings

You can enter more than one office in Abtrac and nominate one as the default office.

3. Invoice Settings

Entries here will carry through to your chosen invoice template

4. User Control Settings

The User Control Settings in particular are a big plus for Abtrac. These allow you set which fields everyone is allowed to see and in which order, on screens such as timesheet entry and elsewhere. They also let you set the position and widths of fields on your invoice printouts, giving you significant control to suit your business needs.

You’ll probably want to take a look at each of these screens to get a feel for how they look before you start editing the layout and available fields. The example below is for the linear timesheet layout.

5. Employees

Enter Employees, Charge and Cost rates and Specify Client and Job Owners

6. User Groups and Access Privileges

Define access rights (Privileges) for those employees, and then assign your employees a user group and password.

 7. Maintenance

Lastly you may wish to set up some default options for your pick lists throughout the system. Many of the categories in these screens will then be included in Reports. You can add choices for Activity, Department, Team, Disbursement, Job Status and Job Type in these screens.

Now that the administrative side of Abtrac is set up, the next step is to enter some clients, jobs and timesheets before moving on to look at invoicing and reports. From AbtracOnLine > Help there are a number of How To Videos which walk you through the everyday actions in Abtrac.

Abtrac KB# 1012