|
Time Billing Activities Overview
In MYOB Accounting Plus terms, the word activity is used to describe a task or service provided by your company for which you can track costs and bill customers on time billing invoices. An example of an activity might be tax consulting or traveling to a client’s office. You also can create activities for tasks your company tracks time for, but doesn’t include on time billing invoices, such as employee lunch breaks.
In the Inventory Command Center, you can create Accounting Plus item records to represent the items your company sells on item invoices. Though time billing is handled a little differently, you might think of activities as the items of the Time Billing Command Center. Using activity slips, you can keep records of the time your employees spend providing services. Then, you can bill your customers for that time on time billing invoices.
Step 1: Create the activity of the type and status you need
Step 2: Enter the activity’s history (for chargeable activities only; optional)
When you create an activity in the Activity Information window, you must choose the Type (hourly or non-hourly) and Status (chargeable or non-chargeable) that is appropriate for the way you want to use the activity in Accounting Plus. Read the following information about the four possible combinations carefully so you can make the correct selections when you create an activity.
Click below for the step-by-step procedure:
Many, if not all, of your activities will probably be of the type and status where you charge your customers a set price for a certain number of hours spent performing the activity. Even if you track the time you spend in units of 6 minutes, you’ll still track time on an hourly basis.
For hourly activities, you can use the timer in the Enter Activity Slips window. If an activity is chargeable, you can include it on time billing invoices.
When you create activity slips, you can enter billing units for hourly activities in units other than whole hours. The For Time Billing, Enter Time In Special __ Minute Billing Units selection in the Preferences window allows you to enter time billing units in smaller blocks of time. For example, if your company bills for time in 12-minute units, mark this selection and choose 12 Minute Billing Units from the list. Then, one time billing unit would equal 12 minutes. If one time billing unit equals 12 minutes, you’d enter 1.5 units on an activity slip to create a record for 18 minutes of time.
Click below for the step-by-step procedure:
You may have activities that you measure in some other unit besides “hour.” For some activities, you may charge by the day or the mile. You wouldn’t use the timer in the Enter Activity Slips window for non-hourly activities, but you’d still charge a set price for every unit on time billing invoices.
Click below for the step-by-step procedure:
Activities also help you to track the time your company spends performing tasks or services you don’t include on time billing invoices. For example, even if you don’t charge your customers for traveling to their offices, you may still want to track how much time your employees spend on the road. You can keep track of those expenses using hourly, non-chargeable activities.
Click below for the step-by-step procedure:
There may be still other tasks or services performed by your company that you don’t include on invoices for your customers and don’t track on an hourly basis. For example, if you take a particular job to expand your expertise, you might not want to charge the customer for the day of extra research the job requires. You can make a record of that day using an activity slip for a non-hourly, non-chargeable activity.
Click below for the step-by-step procedure:
If you select Chargeable in the Status field in the Activity Information window, you will choose a rate for the activity. The rate is the price you charge for one unit of the activity.
Click below for the step-by-step procedure:
If you selected Chargeable in the Status field in the Activity Information window, you can enter the sales amounts of your activity before you began using Accounting Plus; this step is optional.
Once you add the activity to your records, Accounting Plus automatically tracks sales figures for an activity on a monthly basis. Accounting Plus tracks the units sold, the total sales and the total cost of sales for an activity. Sales history is kept for the current fiscal year, the next fiscal year and the five previous fiscal years.
If you change the Accounting Plus-generated history, keep in mind that the change you make may not accurately reflect your actual sales totals. If you make a change and then want to use the previous amount, Accounting Plus cannot automatically reconstruct the monthly totals.
Click below for the step-by-step procedure:
Create the activity of the type and status you need
Enter the activity’s history (for chargeable activities only; optional)
Occasionally, you might need to make a change to an activity in your Accounting Plus records. You can make your changes easily using the Activity Information window.
Accounting Plus automatically tracks sales figures for the activity on a monthly basis. If you change the Accounting Plus-generated history amounts, keep in mind that the change you make may not accurately reflect your actual sales totals. If you make a change and then want to use the previous amount, Accounting Plus cannot automatically reconstruct the monthly totals.
Please note that you might not be able to change some of a particular activity’s basic information. For example, if you’ve recorded activity slips for an activity, you won’t be able to change the status of the activity. If you want to change this selection, you’ll first need to remove the activity slips for the activity.
Depending upon whether you’ve used an activity on an activity slip or invoice, you can change most of the information you originally set up for the activity. When you change an activity’s number or name, all the activity slips and invoices that were recorded using the activity’s previous number or name will change to reflect the new information you entered.
Click below for the step-by-step procedure:
If you have activities that you no longer use, inactivating them will remove them from the selection windows. Your list of activities will be shorter, and selecting the activity you need will be easier.
If an activity is marked inactive, however, you may still use the activity in transactions by manually entering the activity. Inactive activities will still appear in the Activity List window. You can also return the status of the activity to active so that it will appear again in the selection windows. No matter what the status of an activity—active or inactive, transactions recorded using the activity will still affect all of your financial records.
The Activity List report will display and print activity information with or without inactive activities. Use the Report Filters window to unmark or mark the selection Include Inactive Activities.
If you have an activity for which you haven’t entered any activity slips, you can quickly remove its record from the Accounting Plus system. You can’t delete an activity until all the activity slips you’ve recorded for it have been purged. Once the activity slips are purged, you can remove the activity. SeeTo purge activity slips for more information.
Click below for the step-by-step procedure:
Time Billing Activities Overview