Overview

Overview

Refer to the links below for descriptions of the different Labor Tools available in BusinessMaster:

Time Collection <Top>
Labor Time Collection in BusinessMaster involves Time Punches that are made by Employees against Job Phases or Sales Orders. You can only collect Labor Data against a Sales Order number or a Project Phase. There are three basic stages for entering a Time Punch in BusinessMaster, as described below.

Note: The Time Collection Manager can be run as an independent Module on designated workstations on your network. This makes it possible to collect Labor Data without giving giving that workstation access to the rest to the program.

First Stage
The first stage of a Time Punch is where you select your Employee ID and press an "F-key" on the keyboard to tell the system what kind of time punch you are entering. All that you need to do on this screen is type in your Employee ID, or select it from the menu, press the enter key on the keyboard, and then press the appropriate "F-key" for the type of punch you want to enter.

Here are descriptions for the fields and buttons found in the First Stage of the Time Collection Manager:
F7
Pressing the F7 key will tell the system that you are making a Clock-In Time Punch. When you press F7, the system will bring up the Second Stage of entering a Time Punch.
F10
Pressing the F10 key will tell the system that you are making a Lunch-Out Time Punch. When you press F10, you will get a confirmation box telling you that "You are clocked out for lunch".
F11
Pressing the F11 key will tell the system that you are making a Lunch-In Time Punch. When you press F11, the system will bring up the Second Stage of entering a Time Punch again.
F12
Pressing the F12 key will tell the system that you are making a Clock-Out Time Punch. After you press F12, you can leave the Time Collection Manager open, or click the Quit button.
EmpID
The EmpID is your employee ID. Click here for information on how to enter Employees into the system.
EmpFName
Employee First Name.
EmpLName
Employee Last Name.
Quit
Exits you out of the Time Collection Manager.

Here are screenshots of the first stage of the Time Collection Manager:

Second Stage
The second stage of a Time Punch is where you select the Sales Order or JobPhase for the Time Punch you are entering.

Here are descriptions for the fields and buttons found in the Second Stage of the Time Collection Manager:
EmpID
This is the employee ID brought in from your selection in the first stage.
Phase#
This is where you type the Sales Order or Phase#, or select it from the menu.
DeptID
If you have entered a Default Department in your Employee Record, it will automatically be selected here. If not, or if you want to select a different Department, you will type it in or select it here.
Function
The department Function is "0" by default, but you can type in or select another here.
Close Button
When you are entering a Time Punch as described here, you will be able to just hit enter to close this screen with the Close Button.

Here are screenshots of the second stage of the Time Collection Manager:

Third Stage
After you click the close button from entering a Time Punch, the system brings up a dialog box asking if you wish to add a history record. If you click no, you are back at the main Time Punch screen where you can exit the Time Collection manager. If you click the Yes button, the system brings up a "TimeProjectsActions" form. This form is a combination of the Job History screen in the Projects Manager, and the Material History screen in the Projects Manager. From this screen, your Time Punching Employee can enter a History record for the job, and/or enter in the Material Actuals being used for the job being punched into. Additonally, the Use Project Materials option is available in the Labor Preferences. This gives you the option of whether or not you want the Employee to only be able to enter actuals for items in the Materials list for the job. If the restriction is not in place, the employee will have the entire Item List to select from here.

Here is a screenshot of the Time Projects Actions Manager:

Labor Administrator <Top>
The Labor Administrator program is the central application for managing all of your Time punches, processing edits, and outputting records to Job Costing. Labor Reports can be ran based on actual, or historical data. The Labor Administrator gives you access to the Labor Collection details. The left column of buttons will take you to their respective parts of the program. The right hand box processes punches for the week, and outputs to BusinessMaster for Job Costing analysis. Click the links below for descriptions of the different components of the Labor Administrator:

Edits Form <Top>
The Edits Form lists your unprocessed Time Punches. Time Punches can be entered here manually or get entered through the Time Collection manager. The data is grouped by Employee ID. The upper right hand box displays the information about errors on punches based on the rules set in the Preferences form. The bottom box contains all records for the employee that have not been processed.

This form is where you go to see all time punches and error reports per employee. This is also where you go to edit time punches. To edit a record in the Edits form, you have to click on the Edit button first. Another important note about editing time punches is that every Time In and Time Out in the time punch records for employees have the date and time, so make sure when editing these records that the date and time are present. The date goes in front of the time.

When you make edits, the details field automatically records what the original punch was. This serves as a simple troubleshooting tool in case you need to go back and figure out what was there before the record was edited.

Click here for more information on how to add and edit time punches.

Edits Output <Top>
Pressing this button will process the Edits form, and output the data to a spreadsheet for analysis. This is for people who are familiar with Excel and want to edit their employee time records there.

Reports List <Top>
Clicking this button takes you to the Labor specific reports in the system. Labor Collection generates a lot of detail and it is important to know what you need and what you are looking for to get through all of the data for the parts of it you really need.

This section operates the Report Manager. You can choose from a list of Reports, and Maintain preset Report Groups for printing.

Upon opening the Report Manager, all reports available are displayed in the right hand column. If you wish to view the reports arranged by like categories, pick from the categories button. When a report is highlighted in the left hand box, Different types of report criteria will be available to pick from. Date Ranges, and Detail Summary definition can be assigned from here.

The Advanced Selection screen will present options to filter your report against those fields designed into the report by Master Solutions. When you have picked the criteria, press the Preview button on the lower right side of the form. This will display the report.

Categories:

Edit- All reports designed around the Edits and exceptions from the Edits form, and Preferences.

Current Edits Report- A report designed to work with the Edits form. It displays all Time punches on a Detail level, and identifies TO, OP, and NL errors.

Current Edits ReportNo9999-Same as above with No Lunch punches included.

History- Historical Timesheets

Archived allows for choosing a Date Range, Last Processed takes the last processed Time Punches Only. No 9999 means no Lunch Punches are Displayed.

Processed- Payroll type reports displaying Total Hours for each Employee

Emp Hours Daily Summary-Processed- is a Daily report of Reg, OT, and DT hours for each employee

Emp Hours Weekly Summary-Processed- is a weekly summary of the above. These reports are commonly used for entry into a Payroll system.

wip- All punches not processed. This allows for Work In Process reporting for the current unprocessed time. Grouped by different focus.

Click here for more information on the Labor Reports

Export Errors <Top>
Pressing this button will take you to the Export Errors Form. This allows the exporting of errors you decide to report on in the Labor Preferences. Upon checking the Export button for each record, the system will export that detail into the Employee Actions form. Click here for more information on the Employee Actions Manager.

Shift Detail Manager <Top>
Clicking on the Shift Detail button takes you to the Shift Manager where you can set up the basic shifts for your employees. To enter a shift, tab through the fields and start by entering a ShiftID, then a StartTime, Lunch StartTime, Lunch EndTime, and shift EndTime. Once these are set up, you can go back to the Employee Setup Form and associate your employees with shifts. With shifts associated, you will also see specific error reports for employees in their records in the Edits Form, based on their default shift.

Fix Clock In <Top>
This is part of processing time punches. Clicking this button will adjust all unprocessed Time Punches that are within the GraceTime to the ShiftStart time. GraceTime is set in the Labor Preferences. Shift times are set in the Shift Detail Manager. Click here for instructions on Processing Time Punches.

Process Time Punches <Top>
This process takes all the current punches and processes them according to Payroll rules in the Preferences form. You must enter a From and To date. These must be the for date you have for payroll processing, and the To date will be automatically entered. This represents the payroll week. Going outside the default To Date can result in bogus data for Payroll, and Job Costing. Click here for more detailed instructions on Processing Time Punches.

This process will export Job Costing Data to the BusinessMaster Program.

Restore Time Punches <Top>
This process will restore history punches within the date range on the form. Be careful with this process as you can duplicate data in the Edits form.

Clicking on this button will take the output from a Processing run and restore the time punches for the selected date range. This can be helpful if you discover significant errors that need to be fixed, etc. Then you could fix the errors and reprocess the punches. It is important that you contact Master Solutions support staff when you want to do this for the first time. There are things that need to be checked in order to do this safely and avoid duplication, like deleting everything in the job recs afterward. We just want to make sure things don't get messed up by restoring the punches. Note: Behind the scenes, every time punch that has ever happened is archived in the system. They are there until they are deleted.

Labor Preferences <Top>
The LaborPreferences form is for setting up parameters for the Labor program.

Here are descriptions for the fields found on the Labor Preferences screen:
GraceMinutes
This field will set the "GraceTime" which affects reporting and processing of time punches. GraceTime is the amount of time to either side of the Shift Start, Shift End, Lunch In, or Lunch Out punches before an error is reported. Every time you change this value, the GraceTime field will change to represent the system variable for this value.
GraceTime
The amount of time the system needs to use for processing. Do not change this field yourself!! Changing the GraceMinutes field will update this field automatically.
FixClockInEarly
During the weekly processing of Time Punches for payroll, this will take any starting punch for the day within the GraceTime, and round it to the ShiftStart time set for that Employee. Punches outside that parameter will be left.
TimeServerName
If an entry is made in this field, this computer will synchronize it's system time with the system time of the computer listed in this field. The referenced computer must be on the same domain, and be a valid computer name. Keeping this computer synchronized with an outside source of time (over the internet, or manually) will insure that all systems running the Time Admin will be consistent, as will all BMS-Time Labor collection programs across the network. This is a key component to insuring all punches are consistent!
Daily/Weekly rules for payroll processing
This program does not do your payroll!!!!! It merely processes the punches in a rules based method that will provide you with payroll data per employee for a given week.
DailyRTRulesStart
Always 0
DailyRTRulesLimit
The amount of time in a single workday that Regular Time is limited to.
DailyOTRulesStart
This entry should be the same as DailyRTRulesLimit. This value represents the amount of Time in a day where daily overtime begins. For those states with Daily overtime, this value is when Overtime starts on a single workday.
DailyOTRulesLimit
The total Daily Overtime possible before Double Time accrues.
DailyDTRulesStart
The amount of Daily time that Double Time starts accruing.
DailyDTRulesLimit
The total amount of Double time possible to accrue on a Daily basis. Set to 23 or 24.
Report errors on error form
Any checked boxes on this form will show in the upper right hand corner of the edits forms. They allow the program to report against the following errors.
Err_OddPunch
Odd Punches are anything within a small parameter that the system will identify as odd and report on it. The min and max times are based on hours.
OddPunchMin/Max
This error reports against any single time punch that exceeds the Min/Max parameters. The idea is that any punch less than a certain time is the result of a problem. Any punch outside this parameter means there was no lunch or a punch that was out of the ordinary. These entries are in decimals of hours.
Project Departments
Checking this box sets the Time Collection screen to only show jobs that have Labor Hours estimated against them.
Allow Closed Projects
Checking this box allows employees to clock in to closed jobs, but will change the function to ReWork behind the scenes. If not set to Allow, then closed jobs will not be listed in the Time Collection manager.
CloseEveryPunch
If you check this box, then when a person clocks in to another job, the system will automatically clock them out of the previous job. If not checked then they would still be considered clocked in to the previous job, until they manually clocked out of it. By default, this is checked off.
Use Project Materials
If this option is checked off, then when an Employee is making a time punch, only materials that are present on the Materials list for the job will be available to select as actuals being used. If this option is not checked off, then any materials from the ItemMaster can be selected as actuals being used for the Job/Phase.

Here is a screenshot of the Labor Preferences screen:

Job Labor Manager <Top>
The Job Labor Manager when accessed from the Add Hours link in the Labor Main Menu is for manually entering the Labor Collection for jobs in the system. When the Job Labor Manager is accessed from the Edit Hours link in the Labor Main Menu, you can edit all the Labor records here as well.

Labor Actuals can also be added to this table from the Labor Actuals screen in the Projects Manager. This data can also be imported through processing the Automatic Labor Collection in BusinessMaster, or imported from other Labor Collection systems.

Job costing is the goal and main reason for time collection against jobs. The JobRecs are accessed in the Job Labor Manager here. You get this data here automatically when you do labor collection in BusinessMaster and import it. You can also enter this data manually against jobs in the Labor Actuals screen in the Projects Manager. This is common for smaller companies where entering this information manually makes more sense than setting up and integrating the Automatic Labor Collection system in BusinessMaster.

Here are descriptions for the fields and button found on the Job Labor screen:
Date
The date the Labor was worked and recorded.
JobNo
The job the labor was conducted against.
DeptID
The department that did the work.
EmpID
The employee who did the work.
Func
The function this work was done under. (usually "Function 0" for general work)
RegHrs
The amount of regular time hours worked.
OTHrs
The amount overtime hours worked.
DTHrs
The amount of doubletime hours worked.
WkBeg
The week the hours were worked
PayDate
The paydate for the hours worked.
Rate
The burden rate for the hours worked.
The Filter Button
The filter button is for filtering out specific Labor records. When you click the button, it asks you to enter the following information: FromDate, ToDate, Sales Order Number, EmployeeID, and Department ID. You can filter for any combination of dates and criteria. If there is corresponding record for the data you put in, the system will filter it for you. If you want to see all of a certain criteria, use the asterik (*).

Here is a screenshot of the Job Labor Manager:

Weekly Labor Supply <Top>
This screen gives you Weekly Labor Supply visibility by Department and Function. It works in conjunction with a Labor Planning Report to show you how many employees are available on a weekly basis, and how many total hours are available for allocation considering present Estimated demand.

Click here for more detailed instructions for using the Weekly Labor Supply Manager.

Employee Actions <Top>
This form is similar to the Actions/History screen that is in the Projects form and AddressBook form. For each Employee you can record specific employee actions, positive or negative, and then the follow up responses to those actions. Employee Actions can be things like "Tardy" and "Safety Violation". Responses can be things like "Warning" and "Safety Review", etc. This form can also be helpful for things like employee reviews.

Here is an example of a complete employee action: EmpAction = Tardy, EmpActionDescription = Late on 12/19/2003, Date = 12/19/2003, Response = Warning, Description = Write Up, Follow Up = 01/10/2004, and then when the follow up has been completed, check off the Follow Up check box to complete the action.

Here is another example: EmpAction = Safety, EmpActionDescription = Took Off Guard on Table Saw, Date = 12/19/2003, Response = Warning, Description = Surprise Inspection, Follow Up = 01/05/2004, and then when the follow up has been completed, check off the Follow Up check box to complete the action.

Follow Up Report
With Follow Up responses, you can run a report that will tell you the follow up responses that need to be done.

Employee History Button
Generates a report. Click on the button then enter the dates and the report will show you all the actions for the employee in that date range.

The Actions Button
Click on the Actions button to set up Employee Actions and Company Responses. The action button is for defining different employee actions and company responses in the system. In this form you have the Action (ie "Tardy" for employee action, or "Warning" for company response), the Description (ie "Tardy" for action, or "Warning" for response), the Type ("EMP" for employee, or "COMP" for company), the LastUpdate date field, and the UpdateInitials for the person entering the Action.

Here is a screenshot example of the Actions Table:

Export Errors into Employee Actions
Employee actions are entered manually but can also be added automatically from the Export Errors form. The Export Errors Form is accessed by clicking on the Export Errors button that is on the Labor Administrator Form. Once in the form, check off the errors for export then close the form. Click the yes button on the dialog box that pops up and the errors will be exported.

Click here for more detailed instructions for using the Employee Actions Manager.

Employee Manager <Top>
This form is for entering and managing basic Employee information. You really only need to enter information in the required fields, that have the red borders.

Here are descriptions for the fields and buttons found on the Employee Manager:
SSN
Technically BusinessMaster is not an encrypted database and so while we do make provision if you choose to enter SSN's here, we do not generally recommend it. If you choose to not enter SSN's, then you can just enter a fake number here, ie "111-11-1111".
EmpID
Like the Department Setup Form, you can enter text ID's, but you are better off using a numeric convention. We recommend starting off with a three digit ID like "100". Anything less than that and you will end up with weird sorting problems. It may make sense to tie EmpID's to Home Departments. For instance, if an Employees Home Department is "100", then his ID would be "101". The appropriateness of this convention depends on things like the number of employees you have and things like turnover. Every employee must have a unique ID. So, if employee 101 were to quit, there would not be another Employee #101. In general, sequential numbers work well.
Home Department
Use this field to select the Employees Home Department. When the employee clocks in, his/her home department will be selected by default, and then can be changed if needed at that time. Then you can track when employees are late and early, etc.
Shift
This field is for time and attendance data. Here you can identify employees with their start times, lunch times, and end times. When used, the system then checks all punches against employee shifts.
Emp Type
This is a description field to identify full time "F" and part time "P" employees.
Term Date
This is to identify terminated employees or remove them from time collection. If there is an entry in this field, then the employee wont be listed for time collection.
Active Emp/Term Emp
These buttons are for filtering the list for either Active Employees or Terminated Employees. If you only want to see Active Employees then pressing the Active Emp button will filter out the employees in the list that have termination dates entered. If you only want to see employees in the system that have termination dates, then press the Term Emp button.
Emp Middle Initial
Employee Middle Initial
Emp DOB
Employees Date of Birth
Address
Employees Physical Address
City
Employees City
St
Employees State
Zip
Employees ZipCode
Phone
Employees Phone Number
Phone2
Employees Alternate Phone Number
Emergency Contact
Employees Emergency Contact Info
TypeHireDate
Employees Hire Date
VacDate
Employees Vacation Start Date
LastWork
Employees last work date
PayStatus
Employees pay status, salary or hourly
HourRate
Employees hourly pay rate
Salary
Employees annual salary
LastUpdate
Date the Employees info was last updated
Comments
Notes pertaining to the Employee
TermDate
Employees termination date. (To terminate an employee, or put the employee record in a state so it is not present in the Time Punch List, enter a termination date here.)

Click here for more detailed instructions on Adding and Editing Employees.

Here is a screenshot of the Employee Manager:

Department Manager <Top>
Departments are the things you collect and/or schedule labor against. All 4 fields of this form are required to add a Department to the system. (DeptID, Description, Department Type and Burden Type).

Department ID
Departments can be labeled with Text ID's but they are better off being numeric. This way you can just use the keypad when doing time collection entries. Also, if they are not labeled numerically, then they sort differently and are harder to keep. It is preferably create 3 digit Department ID's, as we include in the system by default. 2 digit ID's, or ID's with leading zero's also work well.

Department Type
This is a free field. It's purpose is for reporting and analysis. You can use it to report on things like "Shop versus Non Shop", "Manual versus Non Manual", "Machine Labor versus Non Machine Labor", "Personel Department versus External Customer". Different things can be entered here to differentiate between departments and help organize them.

Burden Type
The Burden Type is also called the Burden and Overhead Rate, which is the amount of money that every hour in a department is costed with. There a many techniques to figuring this number out. We leave that up to you. The Burden Type is for assigning an hourly cost to a Department. You may have one rate, or many. Workers Comp Insurance rates can play a significant roll in departments having different rates. In some cases it may only be a few percentage points so in the long run it doesn't matter. Other companies may have highly organized and differentiated departments that basically function as their own companies and would be more likely to have their own Burden Rates. Enter and edit Burden Rates in the Burden Labor Rate form.

Click here for more detailed instructions on Adding and Editing Departments.

Here is a screenshot of the Labor Department Manager:

Function Manager <Top>
Functions work inside, or in between departments. For every time punch, you have time against a job, per department, with a function. You should generally have two functions: General and Rework. You can set up more functions so that when a worker clocks in to a department, you know exactly what they are doing inside that department. In general the key thing to track is how many hours you have in each department, but expanding functions is a way to get more detail if you need it.

For example, if you needed to know how long it takes you to build a particular item, say a conference table, then you could set up a function called "Conference Table" and then workers would clock in to their departments and if they were working on the conference table then they would also clock in to that function and you could then track the overall time that was spent there, and where it was spent per department.

Note: Because of their integration in the system, always leave Function 0, and Function 99 as they are.

Click here for more detailed instructions on Adding and Editing Functions.

Here is a screenshot of the Function Manager:

Burden Labor Rate Manager <Top>
The Burden Type is also called the Burden and Overhead Rate, which is the amount of money that every hour in a department is costed with. There a many techniques to figuring this number out. We leave that up to you. The Burden Type is for assigning an hourly cost to a Department. You may have one rate, or many. Workers Comp Insurance rates can play a significant roll in departments having different rates. In some cases it may only be a few percentage points so in the long run it doesn't matter. Other companies may have highly organized and differentiated departments that basically function as their own companies and would be more likely to have their own Burden Rates.

Determine Burden Rate
Here is a basic Example of determining a rate: For a six month period we take the Total Expenses ($100,000) minus the Materials Cost ($30,000) for the same period. This equals $70,000. Then take that $70,000 and divide that by the total hours worked in that period (3500 hrs). This gives us a Burden Cost of $20 per hour, per employee. So for every hour an employee works in this scenario, the company would need to generate at least $20 in sales revenue to pay for Overhead, Workers Comp, the employees payroll, etc.

[Basic Job Costing = Total Sale Price, Minus Materials Cost, Minus Labor Cost equals Profit. (SP - MC - LC = P)]

Here are descriptions for the fields found on teh Burden Labor Rate Manager:
Type
The particular function or department that the rate applies to.
Rate
The actual burden and overhead rate for the Type.
ReplaceEmpRate
If this box is checked off, then the Employee Rate will NOT be added in to the totals for Burden Labor Rate Job Costing. If this box is checked off, then your method to determine your Burden rate should take Employee Labor Rates into account for accurate Labor Costing. Click here for an example of this with the Labor Department and Function Job Costing Report.

Here is a screenshot example of the Burden Rate Manager: