Using this, jobs (engagements) can be broken down into a number of logical stages, with budgets set for each stage based on staff member or staff type, as well as key milestones and deadlines to manage the job and assist with timely billing. As a result, control to be exercised over the lifetime of the job so that performance can be monitored and alerts generated to warn of potential cost overruns or missed deadlines.
As job budgeting can provide details of anticipated fees with frequency and period due, this information can also be used to forecast future revenue streams.
The facility to create budgets by staff type enables proposals for new work to be costed accurately and based upon a realistic assessment of likely resource requirements. Once established, these budgets and actuals can be "rolled over" to save time in subsequent years.
A powerful approval mechanism ensures that proposed job budgets can be subjected to scrutiny and amended or accepted according to the firm's commercial objectives.
This handles the scheduling of staff required to deliver the services needed for each job. The module uses the information already created in the Job Budget (see above) to help populate the Staff Plan using an intuitive graphics based approach.
A powerful query engine searches the staff database to find and select staff based upon skill, grade, charge rate, work experience and availability. Selected staff can then be "dragged" onto the Job Plan calendar. These Staff Plans can be subject to authorisation and can also be flexed if desired.
Each staff member can see their individual schedule in their own diary. Management can view the broader picture at workgroup, department or office level through the use of a filtered wallchart, with drill down to individual jobs as required. This information also enables the overall future workload to be assessed in order to identify potential shortfalls in skills or staffing levels.
A key benefit of this module is that it enables the practice to look ahead and identify potential resource shortfalls or skills shortages well in advance in order to plan accordingly.
