Support & Documentation

User Guide

Cost Report

Section Contents

• • Report Description
    • Report Sections
    • Per-user Information Shown in the Report
    • Compact and Detailed Report Formats
  • Generate Cost Report (HTML Format)
  • Export Report Data in CSV Format

Report Description

Cost report provides you with information on costs calculated for working and leave hours reported by the selected system users. Costs are calculated on the base of hourly user rates.

To access Cost report interfaces, use sub-menu 'Cost' of the top-level menu 'Reports'.

Report Sections

The Cost report consists of three sections:

• Costs calculated for the selected customers and projects on the base of regular user rates

  
  Cost report, Costs calculated for the selected customers and projects

  This section shows costs calculated for the working time reported by the selected system users for the selected customers and projects within the specified date range.

  Note that costs shown in this report section are:

  1. Always calculated on the base of regular user rates
  2. Always calculated for all working time reported by the users for the selected customers and projects

  In particular, this means that costs shown in this report section include cost of overtime hours calculated on the base of regular user rates. See also description of the Overtime Addition costs listed below in the description of the General costs report section.

  You can configure how to group information shown in this section. The available grouping options are:

  • by customers
  • by projects
  • by projects having the same names (by project names)
  • by tasks having the same names (by task names)

    Grouping by task names allows to generate reports on "generic" tasks, i.e. typical tasks present in a number of projects.

  • by billing types
  • by dates

  There are 2 levels of data grouping available. For example:

  • First group results by customers, then group by projects
  • First group results by dates, then group by customers
  • First group results by projects, then group by dates
  • First group results by billing types, then group by customers
  • etc.

  The second grouping level is optional.

  actiTIME automatically calculates subtotals when grouping report records.

• General costs

  
  Cost report, 'General costs' section

  This section shows costs that do not depend on the selected customers and projects and depend only on the date range selected for the report.

  General costs include:

  • Leave Time costs - costs calculated on the base of leave time user rates.

  • Overtime Addition costs - additional costs calculated for users' overtime hours reported within the specified date range. Overtime Addition costs are calculated as specified below:

        Overtime Addition Cost = (Overtime Hours) * (Overtime Rate - Regular Rate)

    Where parameter 'Overtime Hours' means one of the following:

    • Overtime hours reported by the users who are allowed to enter overtime/undertime manually
    • Auto-calculated overtime hours for the users with overtime calculation mode set to 'Automatic calculation'

    Note that Overtime Addition does not depend on selected customers and projects. It shows additional overtime costs for the selected dates independently of the tasks users were working on at that time.

    This means that Overtime Addition does not change when you filter report records by customers and projects; thus in some cases report section with per-customer costs might not contain any spent time and costs (as they were filtered out), but the Overtime Addition Costs will be greater than zero.

• Grand Total

  
  Cost report, 'Grand Total' section

  This section presents sum of costs shown in the other two report sections.

  Note that when you filter report records by customers and/or projects, section with general costs does not change, but the section with per-customer costs may depend on your filters.

  In this case summation of general costs and per-customer costs may provide you with results that are hard for interpreting, especially when selected users were working on the projects that were filtered out.

When displaying of leave time and overtime costs is turned off in report parameters, corresponding report section is hidden.

Per-User Information Shown in the Report

Cost report presents the following information for the selected users:

• Spent time - working or leave time reported by the user.

  You can turn off displaying of spent time in the report parameters.

• Rate - hourly user rate, one of the following:

  • Regular rate

    This rate is shown in the section presenting costs calculated for the selected customers and projects.

  • Leave Time rates

    These rates are shown in the General costs section, in the lines presenting leave time costs.

  • Overtime Addition rate

    This rate is shown in the General costs section, in the line presenting additional cost of overtime hours. Overtime addition rate is calculated as (Overtime Rate - Regular Rate).

  • Average rate

    Average rates are shown in the summary rows 'Total for Leave Time' and 'Grand Total'. Average rates are calculated as (Cost / Spent Time).

  You can turn off displaying of user rates in the report parameters.

• Cost calculated on the base of hourly user rates

If hourly rates were changed for a user within the date range selected in the report parameters, the report will contain several sets of user-specific columns – for each set of user rates.

For example, if rates for Billy Crown were changed on January 07, 2009, and report is generated for the date range January 01, 2009 – January 08, 2009, the report will contain two column sets for Billy Crown:

• One for date range January 01, 2008 – January 06, 2009
• And another for date range January 07, 2009 – January 08, 2009

Compact and Detailed Report Formats

You can generate cost report in the compact or detailed form. Level of details to show in the report is configured in the report parameters.

You can show or hide the following information:

• Report columns:

  • Spent time
  • User rates
  • Average rates

• Report rows:

  • Per-task costs

In the most detailed form cost report shows all available information on the calculated costs:

In the most compact form cost report shows only costs without any supplementary details.

Generate Cost Report (HTML Format)

To generate and view Cost report in HTML format follow the instructions below:

1. Select option 'Cost' in the top-level menu 'Reports' to open the report interface.

   
   Cost Report form

2. Specify parameters for the report to be generated.

   You can load a report configuration with pre-configured report parameters. See section Working with report configurations for more information.

   The report parameters include:

   • Users to generate report for - all or selected actiTIME users

     To show users with disabled access in the 'Selected Staff' list select 'Show users with disabled access' checkbox under the list.

   • Data grouping options in the report section with customer- & project-specific costs.

   • Time format to be used in the HTML report - either decimal format (##.##) or hours/minutes format (HH:MM).

     This option is not applicable to the reports in CSV format. Reports in the CSV format always use decimal format for time data.

   • Information to show in the 'General costs' report section:

     • Leave time costs
     • Overtime addition costs

   • Whether to show columns with supplementary information:

     • Spent time
     • Average rates
     • User rates

   • Date range - you can use one of pre-defined date ranges or configure a custom date range.

   • Customers and projects to generate the report for

     To see archived customers and projects in the customers and projects selector, select 'Show archived customers and projects...' checkbox above the list of customers and projects.

     
     Customers and Projects Selector

     If you select a customer when option 'Show archived customers and projects...' is not selected, archived projects of this customer will not be shown in the report.

   Initially, just after your login to actiTIME, the report parameters are pre-set to the following options:

   • Users: All staff
   • Report format and level of details in the report section with customer- & project-specific costs: Group results by customers, then by projects, Hide tasks
   • Time format: as configured in the general system settings
   • Information to show in the 'General costs' report section:
     • Leave time costs: show in the report
     • Overtime addition costs: show in the report
   • Whether to show columns with supplementary information:
     • Spent time: hide
     • Average rates: show in the report
     • User rates: hide
   • Date range: Current month
   • Customers and projects: All active projects of all active customers

   After you have generated a report, the interface saves its parameters and will pre-set them when you open the report page next time.

3. When you are ready, submit the page by clicking 'Generate Report' button at the bottom of the interface. The system will generate and show the report according to the specified parameters.

If you want to modify parameters of the generated report, click the link 'Change report parameters' above the table. This will return you to the page with report parameters. Modify them and generate the report again.

Export report data in CSV format

To export data of the Cost report in CSV format follow the instructions below:

1. Specify report parameters in the same way as for generating an HTML report (for more information see section Generate cost report).

2. When you are ready, submit the page by clicking 'Export Report to CSV Format' button at the bottom of the interface. The system will generate and return a file with report data in CSV format.

   Save the generated file. For examining exported data open the saved file in Microsoft Excel or in any other spreadsheet software.

   Report records will be delimited by the field separator configured in the general system settings You may need to change the default field separator if your spreadsheet software does not automatically split the report data in columns (for more information see section Adjust General System Settings).

   Numbers in the report (time, rate, and cost) will be formatted using decimal symbol configured in the general system settings.

   In contrast to HTML reports, CSV reports always convert time to the decimal format. This means that if HTML report shows spent time as "1:15", CSV report will contain value "1.25".

You can also export the report data to CSV format just after generating a report in the HTML format. To do that click on the 'Export to CSV format' link under the report. The system will generate and show you a new report in the CSV format using the same report parameters as in the previously generated HTML report.