Mega bills for busy offices: Timeslips - Software Review - Timeslips 5.0 time-billing software from Timeslips Corp - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, Oct, 1992 by Cliff Roth

AT A GLANCE: Software tracks time spent working for clients and rates charged for different activities; generates invoices and reports; excellent for billing by the hour. Mac version available.

DOCUMENTATION: Extremely thorough, including two indexes.

EASE OF USE: Moderate; suffers from DOS mentality--requires use of obscure codes to implement major functions

SUPPORT: 30 days free after first call (toll call).

After that, $60/hour or $110/year with access to an 800 number; hard to get through, but moderately helpful once you do.

VERSION REVIEWED: 5.0

LIST PRICE: $300

STREET PRICE RANGE: $200-$250

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: 420K IBM compatible; hard-disk drive; CGA, EGA, VGA, super VGA, and Hercules; DOS 3.0 or higher.

PUBLISHER: Timeslips Corp., 239 Western Ave., Essex, MA 01929; (508) 768-6100 Timeslips 5.0 is flexible, organizational time-billing software that provides detailed accounting for professionals who bill by the hour (or other unit of time). It can handle billing for up to 30,000 clients and track time and activities for up to eight different people. Each person and activity can have up to six standard billing rates. Whew ! For my humble home-based writing business, I've always wanted a convenient way to attach a timer to my word processor to see how many hours I've spent on each project. It took me about an hour to install the program and start creating my own "timeslips." But then I went to sleep and accidentally left the computer on, rendering my accounting somewhat askew ....

Mot. DOS than not. The version of Timeslips I reviewed runs in DOS and has a rather old-fashioned DOS quality (Timeslips is also available for the Mac). But it's easy enough to poke around with the function keys and figure out how the program works. After realizing that in order to time a Windows application, I had to first load Windows, then go to DOS, I had no problem starting the timer, exiting the program, going into Windows, and using WordPerfect for Windows. After finishing with WP, I went back to the DOS prompt and had an accurate record of time spent.

But wait! Timeslips does more than just tote timer summaries for each project. It is suitable for professionals--consultants, accountants, and lawyers--who may need to enter notes (up to 2,000 characters, or about 350 words per slip) as they bill by the hour. Rates can be organized according to the type of activity performed or by client, and nonbillable activities can be specified, too. You can also generate itemized invoices for clients, specifying each type of activity and the number of hours spent. After you print the invoices, the program asks you to check and finalize them. As the invoices become overdue--30, 60, 90 days--Timeslips tracks the bad debt and adds past-due balances to new invoices.

Timeslips generates reports for your analysis, organized according to any of the parameters--user (employee), type of activity, client, or billing rate. This feature is useful to see which areas of your business are generating the most profits.

Hard to figure? The instruction manual for Timeslips 5.0 is detailed, and suffers only from the lack of a quick guide. For example, instructions on loading Timeslips as a TSR (terminate and stay resident) "hot key" program, and on removing the program from memory, are not found until Chapter 15.

Overall, this program is very good, but it needs a Windows face-lift to be more intuitive and just plain easier to use. Many of its features require pressing function keys, but there are enough menus to keep you from going crazy. There's plenty of help for beginners, such as a message that tells you Timeslips can't print a bill until you've entered a return address. Unfortunately, the program has no facility for importing graphics, such as a company 1ogo. It can, however, address mailing labels from your client lists and add flat fees and sales tax to bills (including Canadian GST). It also calculates interesting internal information, such as your ratio of billable to nonbillable hours.

Whn needs it? Timeslips 5.0 is especially suitable for small businesses with several employees or partners entering their hours into the same database, sharing responsibilities on common projects with common clients. The program's security feature keeps people away from information reported by other employees.

If your business involves consulting or counseling, or you have several different people working with you, this could be the perfect way to keep track of billable hours. On the other hand, if you work alone, a stopwatch may be a better alternative.

---CLIFF ROTH