“Before we had Office Timesheets, we used spreadsheets, which was not as time efficient and left room for error.”
“With Office Timesheets, the management gets its reports in a familiar form, but the administrative effort of delivering them has been cut by more than half – from seven to ten days per month down to two or three.”
“Thanks to Office Timesheets’ database, any question from management or clients can be answered with a snapshot of project progress and the resources invested to any level of detail more or less instantly. This is the most empowering part of Office Timesheets.”
“We are happy with Office Timesheets and it does exactly what we need it to do.”
– Cosmin Vaida, Systems Administrator
– Case Study
Even their eyes lit up when they found Office Timesheets.
Painting and sculpting with light seems a bit of an esoteric industry but, for Isometrix, it’s a deadly serious business. Its lighting design services are used by top-flight clients around the world, to light retail and commercial properties, restaurants, museums, art galleries and residential projects.
Working closely with architects and interior designers and through a careful choice of lighting effects, even the most drab environment can be transformed with interior and exterior systems tailored precisely to create the most appropriate impact. For example, no daylight is allowed to enter the privately owned Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar. A completely artificial LED lighting system with special ultraviolet filters protects the sensitive exhibits while showing each one off to the very best effect. This particular installation was created by Isometrix engineers working closely with Zumtobel.
A perfect match
Thirty-five people work from the UK office of Isometrix and 30 of these use Office Timesheets to capture their time and expenses each day, in a very quick and convenient way. After closely examining and trialling competing systems, Cosmin Vaida made his choice and customised Office Timesheets to exactly match his company’s needs and working methods, from initial capture right through to the profit and loss report. The management gets its reports in a familiar form, but the administrative effort of delivering them has been cut by more than half – from seven to ten days per month down to two or three.
According to Cosmin, “The customisation process was fairly straightforward and I think it wouldn’t impose any problems for a technically-minded person with sound logic and a good understanding of what they want to achieve.” The Office Timesheets team created the custom profit and loss report from Cosmin’s very detailed specification. It brings together the timekeeping and financial elements with sorting and filtering controls to give layered project information at the touch of a button.
Office Timesheets in practice – quick and error free
He said, “Before we had this system, we used spreadsheets, which was not as time efficient and left room for error .” Now, it’s impossible for a lighting designer to accidentally invent a project code, for example, because everything is picked from drop-down lists, each containing only the elements that are relevant to that particular user. Comment fields are the main area where errors could creep in, but these are non-critical and free form anyway. A quick scan of the incoming timesheets alerts Cosmin to any time recording errors. It’s now easy to spot missing timesheets, something that could easily slip by unnoticed in the old spreadsheet days. Within a week or so of the new system going live, all the habitual timesheet users were happier with it than with the previous system.
Regardless of how much the company grows or how complex its projects become, Isometrix now has a robust system that will operate reliably for the foreseeable future. The specific features of Office Timesheets that Isometrix uses are:
- Time tracking;
- Project tracking, costing, billing and profitability analysis;
- Work in progress reporting;
- Employee evaluation; and
- The centralised database for project information and details.
Management information on tap
Thanks to Office Timesheets’ database, any question from management or clients can be answered with a snapshot of project progress and the resources invested to any level of detail more or less instantly. Cosmin noted, “This is the most empowering part of Office Timesheets.” All relevant information can be presented quickly, right down to the people working at any particular time, for what hours and what comments they made against any task. Even the knowledge that this information is on tap reinforces the high degree of trust that already exists between Isometrix, its partners and its clients.
Thus far, apart from exporting some reports to Excel for highlighting or showing formulas, for example, Office Timesheets has been used as a standalone system. However, Cosmin is developing another database that he will integrate when it’s ready.
In summary
Isometrix has made its users happy by giving them a faster and more accurate way to capture their time and expenses information. It’s given management access to any level of detail from a broad overview right down to individual tasks. The profit and loss account is always current, giving a day-by-day view of the business. Office Timesheets was straightforward to implement and very flexible, thanks to its built-in customisation features. As Cosmin says, “We are happy with the software and I think it does exactly what we need it to do.”
