Maintenance – creating categories for drop down lists

Administration: Maintenance

The maintenance menus in Abtrac are where you enter all of your custom lists. You can enter fields for the following categories from the Administration > Maintenance menus

See how to create drop down lists from the Maintenance menus here

Activities and Activity Groups

You can add the activities for use in timesheets from Administration >> Maintenance >> Activity

Activities are system wide timesheet choices and are typically a description what you are doing at that time, sometimes used in place of a more detailed timesheet comment. You cannot budget fees and costs against an activity. Some (not all) reports in Abtrac will optionally include activities, including Timesheet entries reports.

Activities

Click on the ‘add’ button to add a new activity. Examples of activities can be as per the image below:

Activity Groups

Activity group can be set up by clicking on the ‘Activity Groups’ button indicated on the top right of the screen. Activity groups are mainly used for arranging the order of Activites in the drop down lists within timesheets.

From the Activity Groups window click ‘add’, add a new activity group and click ‘save’.

When to use Activities and when to use Tasks

Tasks differ from Activities in that the Task is generally a specific stage or area of work with a specific value, whereas the Activity is what you are doing and can be the same for many projects.

Generally your project tasks will match those items detailed on your original fee proposal letter. It’s the bit of the project you are working on – and can budget against.

You can make Activities dependent on Tasks. This is done by right-clicking on the task then choosing the activities associated with it. This helps you ensure the timesheets people create don’t have silly combinations of tasks and activities.

Read more about Tasks vs Activities here

Category

Administration >> Maintenance >> Category

Categories can be linked to six different entities in Abtrac: Client, Job, Employee, Task, Timesheet, Invoice.

Client Rating

Administration >> Maintenance >> Client Rating

The Client Rating menu allows you to give a quantitative rating for a client with a description of what the rating means.

Client Type

Administration >> Maintenance >> Client Type

Add descriptions for ‘Client Type’ here. This enables you to select from the drop down box in ‘Client details’ page, when you add a client.

Client Type can be used with select reports, and with the Search Clients and Jobs screen to find and review work of a similar nature. Client type is often used alongside the Job Type category.

Default Notifications

Administration >> Maintenance >> Default Notifications

In Abtrac you can send notifications within the software to select members of the team.

For example, when a new job is created, a notification regarding that can be sent to various staff using the ‘Notification’ button in ‘Job Details’ page.

The template text messages can be saved under ‘Default Notifications’ in the maintenance page.

Read more about Job notifications here

Department

Administration >> Maintenance >> Department

In Abtrac both Employees, and Projects can be assigned to a specific Team or Department for reporting purposes. A Department in Abtrac is a group that both employees and projects from multiple offices can belong to.

Read more about Teams vs Departments here

Diary Action

Administration >> Maintenance >> Diary Action

The Job diary in Abtrac includes a ‘Next Action’ option when recording diary entries. You can define diary next actions to populate the drop down list from the Diary Actions menu.

Disbursements

From Administration >> Maintenance >> Disbursement, you can maintain a list of disbursement types and groups, and define the system settings for tax, reporting and employee reimbursements. If you import disbursements from your accounts or other systems the default cost must be zero.

Read more about Disbursement types here

Employee Status

Administration >> Maintenance >> Employee Status

Enter the different employee statuses for your organization from here.

Each time an employee name is entered into Abtrac from Administration >> Employees >> Employee Details, they can be assigned a status.

Generic Report Standards

Administration >> Maintenance >> Generic Report Standards

Enter the generic report standards here. Click ‘add’ and enter the standard name and description. You have the option of exporting this to Excel and CSV.

Invoice Status

Administration >> Maintenance >> Invoice Status

In Abtrac you can customise the statuses which an invoice goes through.

These invoice statuses (or stages) can follow the process of creating, through to sending, and approving invoices. Each status can also be optionally linked to a ‘Can be sent’ or ‘Committed’ setting in Abtrac.

Read more about Invoice Status here

Job Billing Type

Administration >> Maintenance >> Job Billing Type

Enter the project billing types here and select a billing type within Projects > Billing details. You can use Billing types with the Search Clients and Jobs screen to find and review work of a similar nature.

Job Status

Administration >> Maintenance >> Job Status

Job Status can be used with select reports, and with the Search Clients and Jobs screen to find and review work of a similar nature. It can also be used with proposal jobs.

Project Managers can review the status of their current jobs/projects from the Clients and Jobs screen and select reports. Job status can also be used with proposal jobs.

Read more about Job Status here

Job Type

Administration >> Maintenance >> Job Type

Add descriptions for ‘Project Type’ here. This enables you to select from the drop down box in ‘Job details’ page, when you add a project.

Job Type can be used with most reports, and with the Search Clients and Jobs screen to find and review work of a similar nature.

You can also assign GL codes for the job type by clicking on the button indicated on the screenshot.

Client type is often used alongside the Job Type category but has less reporting options.

Job User Defined (custom project field categories)

Administration >> Maintenance >> Job User Defined

User defined fields can also be added to a job.

Click ‘add’ and enter user defined field names. You can enter dates, yes/no selectors, or a text field. These custom project fields can be included in the Search Clients and Jobs screen, and within the Invoice details screen as additional text.

Job Win Loss Reason

Administration >> Maintenance >> Job Win Loss Reason

From the Search Clients and Jobs screen, you can review confirmed or closed projects and proposals by a win/loss reason. These win/loss reasons are maintained from the Administration screen.

Planned Time States

Administration >> Maintenance >> Planned Time States

In Abtrac you can customise the stages which a work item goes through with Planned time states. You can also check if each state is an ‘Item Of Interest’ or not in the tick box.

Read more about planning work items here

Referred From

Administration >> Maintenance >> Referred From

From Job details you can log where work comes from. Enter default referral people or companies here. You can report on project referrals using the Fees earned by referee and project report, and the Referrals report.

Task Status

Administration >> Maintenance >> Task Status

A task can be set as current or non-current, you can also use task status to further detail the status of this stage of work. Typical stage statuses include :Not started, In progress, Completed.

‘Task Confirmed’ indicates whether the fee estimate values are confirmed/approved or not.

Team

Administration >> Maintenance >> Team

In Abtrac both Employees, and Projects can be assigned to a specific Team or Department for reporting purposes. A Team in Abtrac is a group that has more reporting options. With teams you can lock in employees and projects to an office, or leave the team open to all offices.

Read more about Teams vs Departments here

Timesheet Line Default Comments

This section allows you to add default comments to the timesheet lines which can be selected when entering a new timesheet.

From Administration >> Maintenance >> Timesheet Line Default Comments, click ‘add’, enter the default comment and activity if you prefer. Click ‘save’.

If you have entered ‘Activity’, you can also check the tick box indicated. This filters the comment by activity on the timesheet screen.

Work Source

Administration >> Maintenance >> Work Source

From Job details you can log where work comes from. Similar to the referrals option you can enter default work sources here. Unlike referals you can have one to many links from Work source types.

You can report on project sources using the Work Source and Work Source detail reports.

Write On Off Reasons

Administration >> Maintenance >> Write On Off Reasons

Enter possible write on or off reasons here. These can be used to specify the reason for write on/off for each invoice in Invoices >> Manage Invoice Write On/Off reasons.

Read more about tracking write offs here

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