Monthly hours overview without Excel

The last working day of the month looks the same in many companies. Somebody exports hours from one tool, somebody else adds absences from a calendar, a third person corrects what does not add up, and in the end everything lands in an Excel file that is sent off for payroll. Nobody likes that file, but nobody dares to remove it.

If hours are logged on requests and projects throughout the month, closing comes down to checking, not reconstructing. Here is how it looks in UnitLook, in the order we would do it.

What the monthly overview is

The Monthly overview is a table of hours for one month. Employees are in rows and days in columns. Weekends and non-working days are marked separately, and you choose the year, the month and the departments. An empty department means all departments.

The table is not just a total. A click on an employee’s day opens a detailed view: what was done, how much time was spent, on which request and under which billing type, with a description of the work. The Open request button leads straight to the request, so a suspicious entry is checked in one step.

1. Look for the gaps

First check who has holes. A working day without a single hour is visible at a glance, because it differs from a weekend or a holiday. Some days are empty for a reason, others are not, and it is best to ask while people still remember what they did.

The sooner you ask, the more accurate the answer. That is why the monthly overview makes sense to look at in the middle of the month too, not only at the end.

2. Check the absences

If there is an absence on that day, it shows in the detail as an absence. Annual leave, sick leave, paid leave, working from home, a private absence and working outside the office are all recognized. That way a day without hours that has an absence is not an error, while a day without hours and without an absence is.

We cover announcing and approving absences in absences and capacity.

3. Check actual hours and billable hours

This is where most misunderstandings happen. An entry has two numbers, and they are not the same thing:

• actual hours are how much work there was,
• billable hours are how much goes to the client.

If the second field is empty, billing takes the actual hours. If you enter less, the difference stays internal. For example: three hours were worked and the client is credited with two. Three go into total hours, and two into what is billed, depending on the billing type.

On top of that there is the decision of whether the entry goes into client billing at all. That should be checked before invoicing, not after the invoice has left.

4. Check that every hour has a basis

Every entry has a work type and ideally a billing type. The work type is mandatory. The billing type is not, but without it an hour finds it harder to enter billing, so such entries are behind most corrections later on.

A practical rule: if you come across an entry without a billing type in the monthly overview, fix it straight away.

5. Check the numbers

The total of hours in the monthly overview has to match the time dashboard for the same month and the same department filter. Besides total hours, the dashboard separates billable and non-billable, shows the split by billing type and by client, and a comparison between employees.

If the numbers do not match, the cause is almost always the filter, not the data. Check whether the same month and the same department are selected.

6. Lock the month

Once a month is locked, an entry can no longer be added, changed or deleted. The message says so explicitly. If a correction is still needed, it goes through the person who reopens the month, not through a new click in the calendar.

That is a deliberate barrier. It guarantees that the figures that went into billing stay the figures that went into billing.

7. Export if needed

The whole table can be exported to Excel. If accounting or payroll still wants a spreadsheet, the export from the system is identical to what you have just checked, without retyping.

What changed compared to Excel

Excel used to be the place where data was collected. Now it is only a format in which data comes out. The data is created on requests and projects, day by day, and at the end of the month it is only checked. If you want to see why that move is worth the effort, read time tracking without Excel, and for the legal framework time tracking and Croatian labour law.

We described what a whole working day leading to this overview looks like in one system instead of four tools. More about the feature is on the time tracking page.

FAQ

What is in the monthly overview and what is on the time dashboard?

The monthly overview is a detailed table per employee and day. The dashboard gives a summary: total hours, billable and non-billable, the split by billing type and by client.

Can I filter by department?

Yes. Next to the year and month you choose a department, and an empty department means all departments.

What if somebody entered wrong hours after the month was locked?

A locked month does not allow changes, neither adding nor deleting. The correction goes through the person who reopens the month.

Can the table be exported to Excel?

Yes. The current view is exported, so what you have checked is what you get in the file.

If you would like to see the monthly overview on your own data, get in touch for a demo at unitlook.com. It takes 45 minutes and needs no preparation.