Time tracking module recommendation

[DTM]

Hi

I was looking to see if anyone has a recommendation for an add-on module to track time used by clients.

Our scenario is that we have:

A. "Contract" clients. They buy a fixed block of time monthly which renews each month. Unused time does not roll over. On payment of the monthly invoice, the number of hours the client has available resets to the monthly allowance.

B. "Pay as You Go" clients. They buy blocks of time when they want. Time purchased never expires.  On payment of an invoice for a time block the additional hours are added to the balance on the account.

In both cases: time used is debited in minimum 20 minute blocks.

We need the system to be able to do the following at a minimum:

1. Set the "opening balance" of time available for each client, probably as a field in the user's profile;

2. Identify the "products" which is to say the time block products and monthly contract products and assign the time that item represents to that product e.g. 5 Hour PAYG Time Block = 5 hours, 20 Hour Contract Time = 20 hours.

3. Show the amount of time remaining on each account both to us and to the client in real time in their client area. This is a simple number string e.g. 3 hours 20 minutes;

4. Enable the input of time used for each ticket and deduct that from the customer's account; this can be multiple entries on various days on the same ticket - the status of the ticket is irrelevant and time is deducted from the account as it is used;

5. Produce a report on request, for each client, which shows - based on the input time range but by default the current month - a list of tickets, with the ticket ID, ticket "name" / description, date and time and time used. Ideally this would be both an admin function, and also a user function from the client area.

and ideally:

1. Notify us and/or the client when time is running low, particularly for Pay as You Go accounts (B above)

2. Prevent the client from opening a ticket if they have no time remaining. Or, allow it to be opened, but warn the admin user on viewing a ticket on such an account

-

I purchased something called "Time and Task Manager" which caters for some of these requirements but not all, and is not usable for this scenario. It caters for a specific and different scenario so we can't use it. I need to uninstall and replace it.

Can anyone say: what's the closest fit for the requirements above? Thanks.

[wsa]

Why dont you contact that developer add that other part of a fee

[brian!]

4 hours ago, DTM said:

Can anyone say: what's the closest fit for the requirements above?

Time Tracking & Retailer Billing might come close in some aspects - though I suspect you're going to need some customisation, so if that addon module is closer to your needs, it might be worth enquiring with its developers if it can be tweaked for your specific needs.

their site says it's v8 compatible, though it looks like they haven't updated their MP listing yet, so i'd suggest checking first with the developers before buying.. also might be worth enquiring if they have a trial version.

15 minutes ago, wsa said:

Why dont you contact that developer add that other part of a fee

if it's MG, then it won't be cheap! 😲

[DTM]

On 5/02/2021 at 4:53 PM, wsa said:

Why dont you contact that developer add that other part of a fee

Because there's a bug in the software which I'd want to see fixed first. It appears to store hours and minutes as a number of hours, so 5 minutes is entered as 00:05. However in the reporting this shows as 4 minutes, because of - I'm just guessing - the rounding error that occurs when you save 5 minutes as 0.08 hours instead of 0 hours and 5 minutes, and then truncate the fractional part when converting it back to hours and minutes. I would be more bothered about this except for the fact it works in the client's favour so I've ignored it.

Otherwise, it's not misdescribed, it does what it says it does, it's just that I didn't read the description closely enough. It works for one or more particular use-cases but not ours.

-

Thanks for the suggestion - I will check it out. We previously used a combination of Kayako and Excel with a macro so I'm hoping for something integrated 🙂