Project Accounting & Timesheets Best Practice Financial Services Firms

How can you streamline project accounting?

Project accounting covers three key areas: costing, billing, and reporting. In my experience, it’s crucial to know how automated accounting software streamlines the project accounting lifecycle.

Here’s a quick overview:

Costing: You can assign internal rates to roles or projects, so costs are automatically and accurately allocated.
Billing: With Xledger, you can handle multiple currencies, project rates, activities, and products. Likewise, invoiceable expenses are logged at entry, which eliminates errors and delays and streamlines the billing lifecycle.
Reporting: Use flexible reporting tools to pull data across projects, roles, and time periods. You can monitor daily, weekly, and long-term budgets with just a few clicks.

Claiming expenses doesn’t have to be hard work

Claiming expenses is often tedious; Xledger changes that. The software calculates CO₂ emissions automatically and tracks them for seamless mid-year or year-end reporting. You can choose from a comprehensive list of transport methods and varying journey structures. This makes adjusting travel plans and meeting sustainability targets simple and accurate.

With Xledger’s mobile app, your team can submit and approve expenses anytime, keeping processes smooth and delays to a minimum. At year-end, all the relevant data is logged accurately and ready for reporting.

Tackling timesheets head-on

Still using a manual approval process for your timesheets? You’ll be well aware of how error-prone this method can be. With Xledger, the timesheet lifecycle is made simple.

From an auditing point of view, less exposure to error and incorrect approvals heightens efficiency. From a payroll perspective, the ability to run a monthly report, see the total hours and projects, and allocate pay correctly reduces inaccuracies and saves valuable time.

Here are some of the ways Xledger can reduce inaccuracies and inefficiencies in your timesheet approval lifecycle:

• Set limits: Control which projects or activities employees can log time against.
• Use timesheet templates: Streamline repetitive work by auto-populating timesheet data.
• Leverage custom views: Employees can see daily or weekly timesheets, whichever suits them best.
• Approvals on the go: Approvers can review and approve timesheets on the go in the Xledger mobile app, keeping approvals on track.

Automation that benefits FinServ companies

Without a doubt, the most valuable automation in Xledger’s project accounting module is project billing.

With project billing, you can automatically capture timesheet entries, general ledger costs, and rechargeable expenses, making it easy to invoice clients with just one click. You can also set different recharge rates for clients, projects, or even specific employees and teams. I’ve been on countless projects that streamline this process and subsequently benefit from reduced errors and delays, and more accurate and timely project invoices.

Monitoring project financial performance

Xledger makes it easy to track project performance through a range of reports and self-serve dashboards. These can be viewed at the project manager, project group, or individual project level. You can tailor access so project managers only see their own projects, keeping the data focused and relevant.

With Xledger’s standard reports and dashboards, managers gain early visibility of commitments and actual costs, providing them with valuable insight into the overall performance of their projects.

If you’re in a financial or project-oriented industry, book your free demo to learn how Xledger’s efficient automation can streamline your timesheet and expense management.