In response to the need within service industries, like advertising and public relations, Softline Pastel has developed a quick and easy to use 'Time and Billing' solution. As an add-on module to Pastel Partner, the base accounting application, it keeps a firm grip on time sheet allocations and work in progress. This means that at a glance, businesses can assess the profitability of a job or the productivity of an employee. In addition, Pastel Time and Billing enables a company to bill stock items, raw material and travel expenses, which allows for more accuracy of customer invoicing.
"Through this solution, employees are able to create electronic time sheets and input data per client or job. Time sheets are quickly and easily converted into invoices, removing any room for human error," says Steven Cohen, MD of Softline Pastel. "Furthermore, invoices can include raw materials which are billed in conjunction with the service completed. Businesses operating in the marketing or advertising industry are a good example of this requirement, where time spent needs to be added to materials used, for the job. There is no longer a need to issue two separate material and time invoices."
This add-on module enables any service company to easily and accurately analyse the time their staff spend working on specific projects and bill accordingly. It also allows companies to carry out time and activity planning, identifying which employees are most productive and profitable at specific tasks. "A manager can accurately access the time an employee spends on certain customer tasks and make informed decisions about time management and profitability issues. Therefore the business can see, at a glance, if they are investing too much or too little time on a client campaign, which can have a direct impact on the profitability of the business," says Cohen.
"The solution gives accurate time and client billing within minutes," adds Cohen. "If a company is having difficulty creating time sheets that define individual employee charge-out rates, then Pastel's Time and Billing module will provide a quick and easy solution."
