Simple, fewer pieces of information to load means you will have a faster system.
Screens such as the searches, timesheet entries, invoices, and some reports all load with the current data that is available in the system, so it’s pretty straightforward to think that making items non-current will give you a quicker response for all these pages.
Have you tailored your screen layout specifically for your staff and jobs? Or are you still using the ‘off-the-shelf’ layout?
Take time to adjust your User Control Settings in Abtrac and make your daily data entry just that little bit simpler by adjusting the columns your office can see.
Continue readingWith AbtracOnline, you can assign a different status to an invoice, so your team knows where you are up to with its creation. Examples of these statuses can be Draft, Returned for Edits, Approved, Committed.
This is helpful when there is a team of people creating an invoice, but one final person signing off on the contents of the invoice.
When you Go Live with AbtracOnLine, you will be sent an email confirming your site is live, and letting you know your login details.
Once you have logged into Abtrac, you will need to go to the subscriptions page and enter your payment details to activate your site.
Part of this activation includes a digital confirmation that you have read and accepted our terms and conditions of use.
Once we receive your credit card details, your monthly subscription will then be activated and will continue for as long as appropriate and timely payments are being made. Read on for instructions on how to activate your site.
From September 1st 2017 we are changing the way we manage adjustments to your Abtrac subscription.
We are moving to a more automated licensing system, leaving you in control of your licensed employees and your monthly licence fees.
When you make a change to your employees (or add-on modules) you will now be asked to confirm this change – and acknowledge any resultant change to your subscription fees. Read on for more details on what is involved in the new system, and how it may affect your current AbtracOnLine subscription.
In the Abtrac Home page, we have a small number of dashboard items called ‘widgets’, which you can control for each user group in your office.
Progress Claim Numbers can be automatically generated for each job (project) and invoice in Abtrac.
Throughout Australasia it is a requirement where the work is part of a construction claim to include a reference to the claim or to the specific payment terms of your invoices.
In NZ, the legislation includes the Construction Contracts act, and in Australia, there are the various Security of payments acts which govern progress claims.
You can upload a default document from the Administration pages within Abtrac to ensure these payment claim terms attach to every invoice sent from AbtracOnLine.
Employee Charge Rates in AbtracOnLine can be as simple or as flexible as required.
This article explains how to set up default charge rates, multiple rates for employees and how to hide rate details from timesheet users.
In AbtracOnLine you can email invoices directly, without the need for email software.
Continue readingAbtrac integrates easily with all popular desktop & cloud accounting software packages.
At the click of a button, upload your contacts, sales invoices and other information from Abtrac to all these packages and others.
Double entry is a thing of the past now that data between our systems connects and synchronises so elegantly. And managing two systems which work together as one has never been easier.
Employee Charge Rates in Abtrac can be as simple or as flexible as required.
It is possible to enter unique charge rates for specific clients, jobs, projects, tasks, stages or activities. These unique rates will override the default charge rate for the specified employees (or in the case of activities, the rates will apply for all employees)
Here’s how to ensure you have the right charge rates in the right location for your billing requirements.
There’s a bit of a hierarchy as to which rate is applied when, read on for details.
The forms and documents that are sent to your clients from AbtracOnLine can all be styled to suit your corporate image.
The invoice layout is the most commonly modified form, if applicable you can also customise your Purchase Orders and Accounts Rendered.
This article details modifications to the invoice layout, but the process is similar for all other instances.
One Frequently asked question from new Abtrac users is whether to use Tasks or Activities in their timesheets.
Here’s the difference between the two: Tasks are Quantitative, Activities are not.
Tasks are also sometimes called Stages or Phases.
They should be exactly the same as budget items on the fee agreement you document to the client.
You give each task an estimate of both time and fees, and then analyse them later using reports such as Actual vs Budget by Task, or Invoice Preparation Information Report. These reports compare your proposed amounts, time spent, and amount invoiced.
You can learn from them over time to see how good staff are in getting through work allotted to them as well as how good you are in your estimates. If necessary you can modify your thinking and estimating to more correctly budget the next job based on what you’ve learnt from previous jobs.
Examples of Tasks (depending on your line of work): Concept Design, Feasibility Study, Developed Design, Media Monitoring
If Tasks are the bits of the job you’re working on, Activities are what you’re doing on each bit.
Really activities are to save you typing the same comments over and over again.
There are limited reports based on activities other than those used when reviewing timesheet entries and preparing descriptions for invoice lines.
Activities are generic across all jobs whereas tasks and the values associated with them are very much specific to a particular job, especially when there are variations and extras on a job by job basis.
Examples of Activities (again depending on your line of work): Office Work, Travel, Research, Meetings, Site Visit
Your business details can include information for multiple branches/offices in Administration >> Settings >> Office Settings in AbtracOnline.
These Offices or Branches can also be applied to each employee, job or project and carried through to invoicing and analysis.
You can then run reports by office – comparing performance and profitability between branches and managing workflow.
It is also useful when you have one tax entity but different physical addresses, and different invoicing and accounting requirements between locations.
There’s also an option to limit access for Abtrac users by office, enabling them to only view and edit offices to which they have been assigned.
When using multiple offices in Abtrac, there are a few things to bear in mind.
Continue reading
Abtrac | Knowledge Base 