Case Study: Lotus Notes Timesheets and Expenses

The Company is a world class provider of claims and insurance management services. Headquartered in London, with offices overseas offices, and employing a total of 400 personnel, the Company provides value added services to insurers, reinsurers, Lloyd's syndicates, captives and self-insureds.

The Business Challenge

The Finance and Operations Director of the Company outlined the problem: "We were having to process 400 timesheets and expense forms a week from our seven sites across the world. Accurate and timely management information pertaining to project costs is vital to us managing jobs well. Managers need to know projects that are on track and those which are taking up more time than had been agreed and charged to the client. The paper based timesheet system was just not providing this information when they needed it, nor, in a cost effective manner. We had a number of administrators simply compiling data into spreadsheets, chasing timesheets that had not been submitted and decoding the rest!"

The Solution

The Company identified Timesheets from basic as the optimum solution. Each user has the Timesheet module available on their desktop. Timesheets are electronically submitted to the appropriate Line Manager for approval and reminders are automatic. The status of all timesheets can be monitored centrally. Expenses are handled the same way, with expenses being allocated to specific projects or cost centres. All the Timesheet and Expenses information can be viewed and reported on in a multitude of ways.

The Benefits

Timesheets has now become one of the most critical systems within the Company and has never let them down. The administration costs have been dramatically reduced, meaning the system paid for itself in less than 12 months, and as The Finance and Operations Director goes on to say, the system had delivered other significant operational benefits:

"The Timesheet system allows the Managers to manage, providing immediate and factual information to our clients when discussing charges and overruns. We can now cost new jobs based on previous history and accurately analyse which non-chargeable tasks we as a company are paying for. As an additional benefit, we can also ensure that as part of the European Working Time Directive we can monitor that everyone has taken their full holiday allowance! basic delivered the project to time at a very reasonable cost and have focused on developing a long term relationship with us."