Wizard Systems

Why it's a good idea to track employee timesheets in your CRM system - Like Workbooks does! Event 8/1

Having robust systems to manage client relationships and track employee time isn't just a luxury—it's essential for success.

Join us on our next online event, Wednesday 8th January at 2pm GMT and we will present the timesheet feature in Workbooks CRM

REGISTER HERE

 

So why track timesheets in our CRM system?  It's not something that they all do!

First, consider the financial benefits. When your team tracks time against client projects within Workbooks, you gain crystal-clear visibility into your actual costs and profitability. This granular insight helps you understand which clients and projects contribute most to your bottom line. Moreover, it provides early warnings if projects begin to exceed their budgets, allowing for swift corrective action.

From a project management perspective, Workbooks' Projects extension proves invaluable. Project managers can easily view team workloads, allocate resources effectively, and monitor progress against estimates. The timesheet functionality integrates seamlessly with the core CRM, ensuring that all project-related activities are captured within a single platform. This data becomes a goldmine for future planning, helping teams create more accurate quotes and timelines based on historical performance.

The client relationship advantages are equally compelling. Workbooks CRM maintains a complete history of client interactions, preferences, and requirements. This ensures consistent service delivery across your organisation and supports strategic account management. When combined with timesheet data from the Projects extension, you can have meaningful conversations with clients about service delivery and demonstrate clear value for money.

The integrated nature of Workbooks means all your business intelligence is in one place. By analysing employee productivity and utilisation rates through the Projects module, you can identify bottlenecks, optimise workflows, and make informed decisions about team structure and hiring needs. Patterns in client demands become apparent, enabling proactive service development and resource planning.

Furthermore, Workbooks' comprehensive documentation proves crucial for compliance and dispute resolution. Detailed timesheet records protect your organisation during billing queries and help demonstrate adherence to labour laws. They also provide valuable reference points during contract renewals and professional services audits.

A particular strength of the Workbooks solution is how the Projects extension seamlessly integrates with the core CRM functionality. This means no more jumping between different systems or dealing with complicated data synchronisation. Time entries, project updates, and client information all live within the same ecosystem, providing a single source of truth for your business operations.

In essence, investing in Workbooks CRM with Projects isn't merely about monitoring hours—it's about building a data-driven foundation for business growth, client satisfaction, and operational excellence. For service-based businesses aiming to thrive in an increasingly competitive marketplace, this integrated approach has become indispensable.

For more information on Workbooks CRM and its Project Management features, contact Wizard Systems.

Workbooks CRM 7.4 Release out now

Here's the low down on the 7.4 release of Workbooks which consolidates on the 'Green' theme UI and also enhanced Project functionality:

Projects

For those of you who manage projects, whether delivering to your customers or managing your internal tasks, we have built a new Projects Module. The Projects functionality is split into ‘Simple’ and ‘Advanced’.

Simple Projects

The Simple Projects functionality was released earlier in the year, and some of you will have already been using it for Task and Team Management – this functionality is included in our Pro Licences. We have improved this functionality in the following areas: 

• Restrictions on who can see and edit Projects have been removed – Users no longer need to be added as a Team Member before they can see a Project, and System Admins can access all Projects. 
  • To revert to ‘private’ Projects, you’ll need to amend the Permissions, for which you’ll need Advanced Security licences. Talk to Wizard Support if you need help with this. 
• Amending the Project Manager of a Project is easier – changing the Assigned To of the Project will automatically set the new assignee as a Team Member with the Project Management Role. 
• Project Tasks now have a ‘Category’ field, which you can use to group and organise your Project Tasks. The Category picklist can be configured on each Project from the Project Settings. 

Advanced Projects 

Our Advanced Projects Module is becoming available in this Release. This Module builds on top of the ‘simple’ projects functionality, and includes: 

• Logging and tracking time against Project Tasks. This allows you to manage whether the time is chargeable or non-chargeable. 
• Associate rates and budgets with the project. These can be set depending on your billing type: 
  • a one-off price for the project; 
  • a daily/hourly rate; 
  • different rates for different roles or team members; 
  • a daily/hourly rate with an agreed number of days/hours. 
• The combination of tracked time and budget against the project allows for tracking of delivered revenue: 
  • Recognise the revenue and invoice the customer; 
  • Manage prepayments. 
• View the allocation of your resources, manage non-working time, reschedule tasks and assign new tasks using the Resource Scheduler. 

Read more about Projects on our Knowledge Base.

 

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Other Changes

Process Failure Notifications 

Most of you use some sort of automation to help with workflow and to reduce manual effort. You can now control if Process Failure Notifications are sent to a User Group, not just a single user, allowing you to have a backup if someone is on annual leave. You can also control if the notifications should send on every failure, not just when the process is disabled, allowing you to catch issues sooner. 

Scheduled Email From Address 

You can now control which email account is used to send your Scheduled Emails from. You can choose from an Email Account that is set up in your account and shared with you, or leave it with the current behaviour of sending from the owner of the Scheduled Email. 

The owner of the Scheduled Email is still important – Scheduled Emails will fail to send if the owner user is disabled, and it cannot generate the attached reports if the owner does not have access to them. 

Report Columns Enhancement 

To help ensure you’ve selected the correct column when building the Details View of a report (particularly if fields have similar names), you’ll see that the field description is displayed.

Customised Login Screen 

You can now configure your login screen, for example, choosing your own background or adding your company logo, plus remove the authentication options that aren’t available for your account. To do so, System Admins can go to Start > Configuration > Customisation > Sign In. For more details, see our Knowledge Base.

NOTE: The customised login screen will only show if Users login via your specific Workbooks domain, e.g. customdomain.workbooks.com/login, and not if they navigate to the login page from the Workbooks website. Therefore, encourage users to bookmark your specific login url.

For more information on Workbooks CRM, support or training, contact Wizard Systems.

Projects feature in Workbooks CRM: Simple vs Advanced, what's best for you?

Here is some further information on the differences between Simple and Advanced Projects in Workbooks CRM (please check with Wizard Systems about the licencing and pricing of these 2 levels of Project Management in Workbooks):

Simple Projects

Simple Projects in Workbooks CRM offer a straightforward way to manage tasks within a project. This functionality allows you to:

• Create individual tasks and organise them within a project.
• Assign these tasks to members of your project team.
• Establish a schedule for each task, setting deadlines and milestones.
• Facilitate communication and collaboration by allowing team members to leave comments directly on tasks.

This level of project management is suitable for teams or individuals who need a basic structure to track their work without the need for in-depth budget management or time tracking.

Advanced Projects

Advanced Projects expand on the capabilities of Simple Projects by introducing features crucial for managing projects with financial implications and for monitoring team productivity. The key additions in Advanced Projects include:

• Project Budget: This feature enables you to set an overall budget for your project, helping you track expenses and ensure profitability.
• Time Allocation: You can allocate a specific amount of time for each task, allowing you to estimate the overall project duration and resource allocation.
• Time Logging: Team members can log the actual time they spend on each task. This data provides valuable insights into team productivity, task complexity, and project progress. By comparing allocated time with actual time spent, you can identify potential bottlenecks or areas where efficiency can be improved. This information is also crucial for accurate invoicing and client reporting.

The Advanced Projects module is designed for project managers, users who need to track their time, and finance personnel involved in project billing. It is particularly beneficial for businesses that bill clients based on time spent on projects or need detailed insights into project costs and team performance.

Licensing Considerations

Workbooks CRM offers different licence options that include either Simple or Advanced Projects. The choice of licence depends on the specific needs of your business and the roles of your users. For pricing, please contact Wizard Systems.

Workbooks CRM - Top 3 new features we like about the Advanced Projects option - Event 9/10

 

Workbooks CRM offers a comprehensive solution for project management by enhancing collaboration and communication among team members, improving customer engagement, and providing extensive customisation options. And Workbooks have just released the 'Advanced Projects' module or option and here's a roundup of the top 3 new features we like. We're going to be showcasing these on our next event on Wednesday 9th October at 2pm UK time.

1. Expenses

The Expenses feature in Workbooks CRM's Advanced Projects allows for detailed tracking and management of project-related costs:

• Expense Logging: Users can easily log various types of expenses associated with specific projects.
• Categorisation: Expenses can be categorised (e.g., travel, materials, equipment) for better organisation and reporting.
• Approval Workflow: Customisable approval processes ensure proper oversight of project expenses.
• Receipt Attachment: Digital receipts can be attached to expense entries for documentation and auditing purposes.
• Currency Support: Multi-currency support for international projects and expense reporting.

2. Time Entries

The Time Entries functionality enables accurate tracking of time spent on project tasks:

• Time Logging: Team members can log time against specific projects and tasks.
• Timesheet Views: Weekly or monthly timesheet views for easy time management.
• Billable vs. Non-billable Time: Distinction between billable and non-billable hours for accurate client invoicing.
• Real-time Tracking: Option for real-time time tracking with start/stop functionality.
• Reporting: Detailed time reports for project managers and stakeholders.

3. Budgets

The Budgets feature provides tools for financial planning and monitoring of projects:

• Budget Creation: Ability to create detailed budgets for each project, including labour and expense estimates.
• Budget vs. Actual Tracking: Real-time comparison of budgeted amounts against actual expenses and time entries.
• Forecasting: Tools for projecting future costs based on current trends and data.
• Budget Alerts: Customisable alerts when projects approach or exceed budget thresholds.
• Multi-year Budgeting: Support for long-term projects spanning multiple financial years.

Now there are some other great new features which we will cover on other posts and events in the future.

 

To register for the webinar on Wednesday, please click here

Improve Collaboration & Communications with the Workbooks Project Management feature

Hope you can join us on our next short Workbooks training session on Wednesday 20th September at 2pm.  This FREE online event will cover the NEW Project Management feature for Workbooks.  This is a really great way to improve collaboration and communications within your team, especially important if you have 'Projects' in your organisation.  We'll give a short demo of what it looks like!

 

Session will last approx 15 minutes and there's plenty of time for you to ask us questions.

 

Save your spot now at:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/rt/6244329273476112991

 

Feel free to forward this link to other colleagues