Discounted Timesheets for Non-profit Organizations
Timesheets play a vital role in helping non-profit organizations manage their resources. By closely examining their labor allocations, these organizations can improve efficiency, satisfy grant requirements, and overcome their unique accounting challenges.
Challenges:
- Demonstrate successful outcomes to Grantors
- Calculate value of volunteer hours for tax purposes
- Predict future headcount requirements
Results:
- Total accountability to Grantors & Funders
- Full compliance with audits
- Accurate estimates of staff headcount
The Challenge
Today's leading high-efficiency nonprofits have borrowed managerial techniques from the for-profit world. The org chart of a typical nonprofit organization includes cross-functional teams, dotted-line reporting structures, and matrixed responsibilities
Nonprofits Need A Paper Trail!
According to Financial Accounting Standards Board 117 "Financial Statements of Not-for-Profit Organizations" (FASB 117), nonprofits must provide a Statement of Functional Expenses.
In order to comply with these requirements, nonprofits must implement and regularly use a method for tracking and allocating personnel costs. Timesheets are essential for nonprofits:
“The organization must maintain reliable time records for each employee for each pay period based on actual detailed time reports or other after the fact determination of the actual activity of each employee.”Req. #1-C (from §1)
ClickTime helps non-profit organizations achieve total visibility on the efforts of their paid staff and volunteer staff.
Let us help you configure up your ClickTime timesheet and expense solution for your non-profit organization today! Get your 30-Day Free Trial.
The question is -- how do you fund these teams when grant money is coming from different sources, each with a specific mission and goal, and each unconcerned with the others? If the wage cost of one person is, in fact, paid for by numerous separate initiatives, how does a grantor know that their money is being spent effectively?
The Solution
ClickTime plays the central role in calculating the wage cost of any project or initiative. And since wages are usually the largest cost of any organization, that means ClickTime is vital to computing the total cost of any project undertaken by a not-for-profit organization.
The Results
Each day, employees take a few seconds to record their activities in ClickTime. Ideally, they also enter brief narrative comments describing their activities.
Frequently throughout the year, a project manager or controller generates reports detailing the total proportion of each person's time dedicated to a particular project. These can be automatically turned into cost reports that include fully loaded cost of staff divided across projects or funders. Using ClickTime's Advanced Estimation features, managers can even forecast their labor requirements by allocating funded labor hours to projects in advance, then comparing those estimates to actual results as those projects progress.
Best Practices for Non-Profit Users
ClickTime has developed some best practices as a result of serving non-profit organizations for over 10 years:
- At the end of each funding year, use ClickTime reports to show grantors and funders the specific results of their projects. This is especially useful when individual staffers are working against multiple grants concurrently.
- Turn on ClickTime's Audit Trail to create a fraud-proof traceable record of every entry -- to satisfy any auditor who comes looking.
- Use ClickTime's estimating features to accurately predict staffing headcount required to execute prefunded projects.
- Include the cost of ClickTime in grant applications. It's a trivial expense which will help insure that the grantor's funds are well-spent and well-documented. Accountability is the cornerstone of successful grant-writing.
- Take advantage of ClickTime's Nonprofit Discounts. Contact ClickTime Sales to inquire about our discounts for qualifying 501(c)3 organizations.