Timesheets from the start with ZEP
Since the company was founded in 2002, the consultants at FSP GmbH Consulting & IT Services from Cologne have relied on ZEP Professional, the web application from provantis, to record their employees. All time sheets for customer invoices and the invoicing itself are carried out via the system.
Solution for decentralized time recording
Since the consultants are constantly on the move, the only solution that supports decentralized time recording was an option.
The spectrum of typical projects at FSP is broad and ranges from periods of around two months to a duration of several years. New requirements often arise in the course of projects, which in turn result in follow-up projects for the customer. During this time, employees work for customers on site — making it all the more important to record the entire team and integrate all resources into a system.
After 8 years of use: Extension to ZEP Professional with billing
“The big advantage that ZEP offers us in practice is the option of decentralized time recording via the Internet”, says Ralf Bräutigam. When employees are on the move, they log their time into the system via their laptop. The fact that ZEP is offered as a software as a service with a later purchase option was another advantage when choosing the web application for the still young company. Initially, the people of Cologne rented the system for up to 50 users, and after five years, it was purchased. Since February 2011, FSP has been using the “Billing” and “Document Generator” modules in addition to the standard “ZEP Professional” package.
Project Controlling with ZEP
For all projects, the times and documents are recorded, the travel expenses are settled, the invoices are issued and the project is checked. The company also uses the software to record and organise overtime and holidays. Since the corresponding budget is stored in the system for each project, it is always possible to see how much of the agreed resources have already been used. “This overview is particularly important when it comes to larger orders where several employees book on the project.”, says Lydia Happe, assistant to the management. Together with her colleague, she is responsible for accounting.
ZEP users are particularly satisfied with the reliability of the solution: the high stability and the short response times. FSPlers would like a session timeout function that could be set individually. This is because all FSP employees use the system every day — but for different lengths of time: While the accounting department, for example, requires a constantly updated and opened ZEP for their work, consultants often only enter their times once a day with the customer or while on the go. For them, such an “auto-off” function, which automatically terminates access to ZEP after an adjustable period of time, would be very beneficial.
Complete invoicing via the system
Transparency and accuracy are particularly relevant for the people of Cologne. That is why FSP has also been using the ZEP additional modules “Billing” and “Document Generator” since February 2011. The time recording and project management solution has thus been expanded into a complete invoicing system that further simplifies the work processes involved: Flat-rate and cost-related invoices can be created with it, travel expenses are transferred directly to the invoice and payment plans can be defined. In addition, the creation of recurring invoices can be automated. The company letterhead can be stored in the system so that invoices or evaluations can be sent to the customer directly from ZEP.
All detailed information on cost statements, document evaluations, project time sheets, overtime and month-end evaluations is now transparently stored in the system. Even periods that have not been billed can be identified immediately. “For most of our customers, proof of time from our employees from ZEP is sufficient. And so a copy of the proof is simply attached to our invoice”, according to Lydia Happe.
Demands on the core system are growing
Since the system is used on a daily basis, ZEP aims to “make work easier at the push of a button.” So that all customer requirements can also be taken into account when generating invoices, individual extensions are desirable, says Lydia Happes: “Especially for customers who want to have FSP services billed according to daily rates, it would be important to be able to set the number of decimal places as they wish. So far, the system only allows information up to a maximum of two digits after the decimal point. ” In this case, the amounts would therefore have to be calculated manually and the differences in the system corrected.
As an administrative core system, ZEP has significantly simplified planning: In addition to project-related plan/actual comparison and income evaluations, the software also offers a monthly, quarterly or annual sales forecast.
