Suggestions for time recording improvements

I really like Freeagent but it is missing some stuff on the Time recording side, that many other products have, that would make it much more useful. So I’ve put this ‘wish-list’ together of stuff I’d like to see in FreeAgent time recording for you to consider and for other users to comment on, as I’m guessing other users will have similar issues. Sorry if this has already been considered or is been worked on.

1. Can we put a time in with zero-hours? I like to be able to put comments against a particular day to appear on time report or for my reference, but without any hours. But the system insists on at least one minute, which messes the totals up.

2. Can we have a new field called ‘activity’ or something similar on a timeslip? These categories would be entered by the user and be universal across the company – so the same activities would be used across different projects. Examples of activities are: ONSITE, OFFSITE, REMOTE CONFIGURATION, DOCUMENTATION, E-MAIL, PHONE CALLS etc.

3. Can we have the ability to place multiple projects on one invoice? My view would be that, the automatic adding of time / expenses should be removed from the invoice screen. Instead, a blank invoice should be generated. The automatic adding functions should be moved to the Invoice Item screen. The current Invoice Item options should be described as “Manual Invoice Item” and a new option added called “auto invoice item” This would have the following options:

· Add Unbilled Expenses from Project ABC (Select Name of Project)

· Add Unbilled Time from Project ABC (Select Name of Project)

· Add Unbilled Time from Task XYZ (Select Name of Task)

· Add Unbilled Expenses from Task XYZ (Select Name of Task)

This would allow one invoice to have various different combination of time and expenses from different projects if it is required. In addition it would be worthwhile to allow unbilled time and expenses between two dates rather than all of it to be added to an invoice (to give a total of eight options) – sometimes billing is done monthly and you don’t want ALL unbilled time from different months shown.

4. I wouldn’t normally include every time entry or expense directly on an invoice – each invoice item would normally be a project or task time or group of expenses. Instead the invoices would often make reference to an ‘enclosed time report’ – this would have details of each individual timeslips for a particular project, task or date range. With this aim, is it possible to expand the time reporting within FreeAgent? For example, all timeslips between date X and date Y for project X? Or all rechargeable expenses between Date A and Date B for Task C? Or all time for Client X?

5. There is a field on the timeslip called ‘Comment’. Can this be split into two? A ‘Brief Description’ that is a one line description of what was done. This would appear on time reports etc. And an optional field called ‘Full Description’ or something similar that allows lots more details to be added (maybe including rich text and attachments). This wouldn’t go onto any reports or invoices but is useful for my records if the client ever queries anything, as the current comment field is fairly limited.