The Challenge
The global market leader in high-speed corrugating, finishing and sheeting machinery for the corrugated box and paper converting industries was experiencing delays and frustration in the methods its remote staff was using to input time on services work and expenses. With sales and service offices and parts warehouses located strategically around the globe, they were in need of a solution that would reduce human error and delays in processing time records and expenses for projects, while simultaneously providing better analytics. Management was also looking for a single-point entry system that would eliminate multiple data entry points moving the information from the field staff to approvals and then to finance for invoicing. Streamlining and automating the many validation steps needed would allow administrative staff to focus on more value-added tasks while reducing time and human error.
The Solution
They selected TimeLinx initially because of its unique time and expense management capabilities and the rollout was limited to the US-based teams. However, after using TimeLinx for a short time, management discovered many other benefits impacting the domestic teams and a second phase rollout was extended internationally. They knew that their current process of having sales and service representatives e-mail time and expenses in spreadsheets to managers for approval was not only slow and tedious but error-prone and inefficient. Entry errors were sometimes not discovered until weeks or months after an engagement or project was completed, resulting in bottlenecks for their accounting staff. With over 400 field staff submitting spreadsheets on a weekly basis, their management was also frustrated with the additional amount of time required to re-key the data into various billing and tracking systems for invoicing and processing.
A year was spent evaluating a number of solutions based on different technologies, including a custom-built system. Ultimately they recognized that TimeLinx provided the many benefits needed by integrating their entire project management functions, including time and expense management, into their CRM system. Managing all customer equipment, installation details, and project data in one consolidated system made sense.
Since TimeLinx was implemented, they has been able to significantly reduce the number of errors resulting from manually re-keying information. And they have reduced the amount of time required to process invoices for expenses. “Before TimeLinx, it could take us weeks to get invoices out. Now, we are able to generate invoices and process expense reimbursements in under one week,” said the Director of Field Services.
“By integrating TimeLinx into our CRM system, managers at all levels and locations are able to review time and expenses on demand for all staff and projects. Managers can approve time and expenses without the delays associated with waiting for and reviewing multiple spreadsheets,” he said.
TimeLinx also provides them with valuable business intelligence data. Project managers are leveraging this data to optimize projects for increased overall efficiency and profitability. More proactive management during engagements rather than after completion has positively impacted performance results. TimeLinx has changed the entire mechanism of delivering work around the globe and provided a much needed integrated project management system.
The Results
The positive results have been many:
- Real-time management of time and expenses
- Reduced time needed to reimburse expenses
- Increased visibility into performance of services
- Improved business intelligence
- Better statistics and metrics for reporting
- Improved cash flow, invoicing from weeks to days
- Reduction in staff data entry time with no re-keying
- Accurate data entry in one pass
Adding TimeLinx to their CRM system has created a true Service Management system for the company to manage projects and profitability with greater detail and control. “We no longer have weeks that will go by before we can find and correct errors in recorded time on an engagement.” “We can identify and remedy errors in real-time to provide improved responses to our customers.”
“Also, as TimeLinx is handing global currency conversions in real-time, the processing and calculations we had to do to invoice customers and reimburse staff expenses while also dealing with data errors was intolerable. That entire process and problem is gone. And, as the accuracy has improved and more details can be provided to customers, we are receiving less questions and faster payments on our invoices.”
“The TimeLinx deployment team was instrumental in defining how we could maximize our use of the product,” said their IT Project Manager. “Over time, we discovered we had many unique requirements and were able to re-define, and in some cases add functionality. Today, we have a system that has embraced our worldwide teams with a level of completeness that we didn’t think was possible.”
Prior to TimeLinx, there were two finance staff dedicated solely to re-keying time and expenses for revenue and cost calculations into multiple spreadsheets before they could be re-keyed once again into the accounting system for billing. Now, staff enter their time from anywhere in the world in real-time, without complicated spreadsheets and formulas.
The formulas built into the TimeLinx Revenue Optimization Engine™ automatically calculates the correct revenues and costs for each segment of work, factoring in overtimes, day of week, time of day, location, weekends, holidays, currency, country, regions, and other factors, all user-defined within the TimeLinx system.
Administrative staff is no longer needed to manipulate complex rate sheets as they previously did with spreadsheets. Expenses and billable time are entered directly into TimeLinx for immediate visibility, alert notifications are sent to managers by TimeLinx for approval, and then the data is exported into billing.
The finance department has been able to reduce delays while dramatically increasing efficiency for both inside and outside staff. In the field, the staff love the difference the system has made for them over choosing the correct rows and cells to get time entered correctly, and dealing with the many calculations involved in highly complicated rate and costing structures. TimeLinx even handles calculating labor costs for staff that are paid for working on non-work days (unique for each country) such as weekends and national holidays. The result: paychecks are produced and processed in full within the same pay period.
TimeLinx provides management with the business intelligence needed to effectively run their business and company leaders are no longer tasked with the original level of complexity in managing a remote workforce. Better visibility into profitability and efficiency for remote workers has allowed them to better align its resources at both the individual and regional level. The rollout of TimeLinx has given them the ability to scale the business to new levels of services without fear of overload and multiplication of back office work.
“The TimeLinx solution also continues to grow” said the Director of Field Services, “as have our services and our company.” And that’s the whole point.”