Tracking Labor Actuals in the Budget

Learn how to use the time clock to auto-sync labor actuals into your budget WITHOUT Quickbooks Online integration.

Whether you're running a fixed price job or a cost plus project, tracking labor costs is important to the profitability of your jobs.

No more double entry: Entering labor totals manually each pay period or client invoice can be tedious.

Set a burden rate for your employees, use the time clock, and approve the entry to sync the labor cost to that project's budget.

๐Ÿ”„For help integrating time clock with Quickbooks online, see Integrating Time Clock with Quickbooks Online.


Table of contents

  1. Adding Team Member Burden Rates
  2. Time Clock Review
  3. Approving Time Entries

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Adding Team Member Burden Rates

๐Ÿ’ตAdding your expenses per employee labor hour allows Ressio to calculate labor costs.๐Ÿ’ต

  • Fixed Price projects: Oftentimes burden rates, a combination of employee pay, insurance, social security, taxes, and other costs are used.
  • Cost Plus projects: Charge out rates are more common in open-book projects.

๐Ÿ‘€ Admins only: Burden rates are only visible to Admin users. ๐Ÿ‘€

To set an employee's burden rate, select the Burden Rate tab.

Burden rate1

Select Add Rate + next to an employee name to add a burden rate. 

TIP: Employees can choose from multiple pay rates when they clock in. Add as many as needed and set their default rate by checking the Default checkbox on the right.

Examples include: Standard, Overtime, Vacation, PTO


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Time Clock Review

In addition to pay rates, time entries are required to calculate labor costs. The following fields will need to be completed by the employee for each time entry.

  1. Project: Determines which budget the labor costs will appear
  2. Cost Code: Determines which cost row in the budget the labor costs will appear
  3. Shift Type: Determines which BURDEN RATE will be used to calculate labor costs
  4. Start time/End time: Determines the duration of the shift

For more information about how employees clock in, see Using the Time Clock.


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Approving Time Entries

Time entries must be APPROVED to sync into a budget. Review each entry with the above fields in mind before approving.

โš ๏ธ CAUTION: Once a time entry is approved it CANNOT be changed. Labor costs will automatically sync to a project's budget. 

๐Ÿ“ NOTE: Labor costs can be edited on the budget page.

To approve time, go to Time Clock.

Time clock1.2

Select the green checkbox in the Actions column to approve the entry. 

Time clock1.1-1

Because this action cannot be undone, there is one last chance to Confirm and approve.

Time clock2

Status: The Status column indicates if a time entry has not been reviewed (Draft), or if it was pushed to a budget (Approved).

Review your budget pages to see your labor hours. They will appear in the Actuals column along with your material and subcontractor costs.