Enter, review and use time and expenses

Objective. Record time and expenses accurately, approve them through the expected workflow and reuse the validated data for billing, productivity analysis and profitability reporting.

Estimated duration1 h 10

What you will learn

Enter time and expenses against the correct client, matter and activity code.
Understand approval, billable status and the supporting-document workflow.
Use detailed entries in billing and management reports without losing traceability.

Recommended workflow

Select the date, employee, client, matter and task or expense code before entering values.
Add a precise description and attach the required receipt for each expense.
Review incomplete, inconsistent or exceptional entries before approving them.
Reconcile approved entries with budgets, invoice preparation and activity reports.

Before continuing

Duration, quantity, amount, tax and billable status are internally consistent.
Receipts and descriptions are sufficient for review and reimbursement.
Corrections are made before invoicing whenever possible and remain traceable.

Before you begin

Choose an employee, open matter, billable task and receipted expense in your subscription. Enter or review one time record and one expense, then follow their effect on budget and invoice preparation. For example, you can control 1 h 30 of work and a €48 gross expense on the same date.

Prerequisites

Have an employee, open matter, billable task and expense code accepting receipts in your subscription. Save only if you are authorised to modify those records.
Prepare a fictitious receipt without personal data and establish the expected VAT treatment before entry.
If approval is enabled, use entry and reviewer accounts; otherwise inspect status without changing configuration.
Before entry, note date, employee, matter, task or expense code, duration or amount and expected state. After an authorised save, find those exact values; otherwise perform the control on two existing records.

Suggested schedule — 1 h 10

5 min: qualify the two records.
10 min: enter and review time.
10 min: check monthly completeness and approval.
10 min: enter expense, VAT and receipt.
10 min: compare unit and volume entry controls.
10 min: verify budget, valuation and billable status.
10 min: reconcile and diagnose a variance.
5 min: step back on data quality.

For each record, justify date, person, matter, nature, quantity, description and billable treatment before saving.

1. Enter a time record that another person can understand

Open Time / Expenses > Time detail and create or open an authorised line. Use your date, employee, client, matter, task and duration; the screenshot values are only an example. Write an operational description such as “reviewed bank entries and prepared questions for the client”. It should explain delivered work without exposing irrelevant internal information.

Review all fields before saving. Client without matter, generic task, wrong date or vague wording makes the record hard to approve and invoice. If your selected matter is absent from the selector, inspect active status, rights and dates instead of choosing another matter merely to continue.

Tempolia screenshot: time-entry editor for AGAPE — The unit editor shows every field required for a usable time record.

Tempolia screenshot: detailed time records — Time detail supports filtering, review and source traceability.

2. Check completeness, approval and locking

Open the monthly timesheet and compare expected working time with entered totals. Completeness does not prove correctness, but it identifies missing days or implausible quantities. Then inspect approval state and the reviewer’s scope. The entrant and approver should see the same underlying line with actions appropriate to their roles.

Test an open and a locked period without forcing a change. A closed record should remain readable and protected. If it disappears, review filters and rights; if it is editable, review cut-off date, company and effective profile. Corrections should occur before billing whenever possible and follow the authorised traceable route afterward.

Tempolia screenshot: monthly timesheet — The monthly timesheet reveals missing days and inconsistent totals.

Tempolia screenshot: approval and locking options — Approval and locking define who may validate or change each period.

3. Use stable tasks and explicit billable logic

REVISION must be an active billable task mapped to the intended commercial rule. Non-billable tasks record training, internal administration or other work that should not enter invoice preparation. Do not change billable status merely to make a line appear or disappear; determine the business nature first.

Check the task reference, allowed employees and any default price or sales-code mapping. A task is shared reference data: changing it can affect many matters and future entries. Preserve historical meaning by making obsolete codes unavailable for new use rather than renaming them to another activity.

Tempolia screenshot: billable-task reference data — Billable-task reference data determines operational and billing treatment.

4. Enter an expense with evidence and tax reasoning

Create or review your receipted expense on the selected employee and matter; use €48 only to follow the illustrated calculation. Select the intended expense code, enter amount and VAT according to the receipt, add a precise description and attach the fictitious document. Distinguish reimbursement to the employee, accounting treatment and possible re-billing to the client: these are related but not identical decisions.

Open the attachment after saving to prove readability and correct linkage. The expected result is one expense whose gross/net/tax arithmetic is consistent, whose receipt supports the amount and whose billable status matches policy. If VAT or amount differs, return to the receipt and code settings; do not balance the fields by guesswork.

Tempolia screenshot: expense-code reference data — Expense codes standardise VAT, evidence and re-billing rules.

Tempolia screenshot: expense detail with receipt — Expense detail brings amount, tax, receipt and status together.

5. Reconcile entries with budget and valuation

Compare your time and expense records with the selected matter’s budgets and the forecast agenda. Confirm period, task, employee and matter. A budget variance may reflect extra work, a missed forecast or an entry error; it is not automatically a fault.

Check the effective cost and selling-value rules for ACA and REVISION. Duration is the operational fact; cost and selling value are derived. If valuation is wrong, correct the dated source rule rather than changing the duration. Document whether the expense is included in the fee or separately re-billable.

If pvcolaff or pvqaff contains no row, this is negative evidence of no matter-specific override only. It does not reveal the general rate or prove the resulting margin; identify the ordinary dated rule separately.

Tempolia screenshot: time budget for comparison — Time budgets provide the forecast used to interpret actual entries.

6. Follow eligible records into billing and reporting

Open invoice preparation on the same company, client, matter and period without issuing. Identify whether the time and expense are proposed, excluded or already invoiced. Eligibility depends on billable status, approval, period, source mapping and previous billing. Do not toggle flags until the cause is known.

Finish with an activity report showing date, employee, matter, task, duration, expense and statuses. The detail and report totals should agree. When they do not, compare filters and status logic first. Record the perimeter so another reviewer can reproduce the result and distinguish operational productivity from commercial billing.

Tempolia screenshot: invoice preparation from time and expenses — Invoice preparation shows which approved records are commercially eligible.

Tempolia screenshot: activity report form — Reports turn detailed records into reproducible activity controls.

Hands-on reconciliation

1. Create or select your time line, then find it in detail with exact filters.
One precise record appears on the correct date, person and matter.
If not, check active company, date, matter, task and rights.
2. Enter or review your expense amount, VAT and description, then attach and reopen the receipt if authorised.
Arithmetic, evidence and re-billing decision are coherent.
If not, compare receipt, expense code, VAT and gross/net entry.
3. Check completeness, approval, lock and billable status with the appropriate account.
Each line has one intelligible state and authorised next action.
If not, identify whether entry, reviewer scope, lock or configuration is responsible.
4. Compare budget, invoice proposal and activity report without issuing.
Inclusion or exclusion of each record is explainable.
If not, align period, approval, billable and already-invoiced filters.

Another reviewer can trace both records from evidence to operational, managerial and commercial consequences.

Quality failures to avoid

Using generic descriptions that cannot support review.
Selecting another matter because the correct one is not visible.
Approving totals without reading exceptional lines.
Attaching an unreadable or unrelated receipt.
Changing duration to repair a valuation rule.
Confusing reimbursable, billable and already invoiced.

Step back

Control the process as well as the lines: reliable data combines precise entry, evidence, approval, protected history, correct valuation and reproducible downstream use. A line is not “good” merely because it saves successfully.

Can you explain who did or spent what, for whom, when, why, under which approval, with which evidence and how it affects budget and billing? If yes, the record is usable beyond its author.

Check another time and expense pair

Choose one time line and one expense from the same matter and period. Record their source values before opening a report or billing preparation.

1. Before opening Tempolia, write down date, employee, matter, task or expense code, duration or amount, tax treatment, billable state and approval state.
2. Move from the editor to detail, approval and billing preparation without changing the filters. Mark clearly whether each line is editable, approved, billable and already billed.
3. Investigate one practical issue: missing time, incorrect expense tax, unavailable approval or the same line proposed twice. Correct the source only on an authorised test database and repeat the original check.
4. Close every tab and repeat the route from your notes. Then give the notes to a colleague and let that person perform the same read-only check without oral help.

A colleague can find both lines and explain why each is included, excluded or blocked.