CASE STUDY –
NRT e-Time and NRT Project Accounting for QuickBooks Pro
Client was a small business with less than 20 employees, all processes were accomplished manually; timecard entry; timecard processing; invoicing; and payroll.
Accounting was staffed by part-time FTE.
Initially, the majority of the company’s contracts were fixed price; most of the labor processing was limited to payroll and consisted in only one timecard labor period group which was bi-weekly.
NRT e-Timesheet was first implemented replacing excel file entry for time collection: re-keying the labor into the payroll/accounting (savings). With NRT e-Timesheet the process that had required 5-8 hours was reduced to less than 30 minutes. With reduced data entry and timecard processing the accounting department payroll processing was down from 4 hours to less than 1 hour.
Shortly after this process improvement, over the next few months, the company was experiencing rapid growth and grew from 28 to over 100 employees due to a new T&M contract. The new contract and the increased headcount now required the company to create and use multiple labor periods for different groups of employees and required semi-monthly in addition to the bi-weekly labor period already in place.
The NRT e-Timesheet expanded with the company’s rapid growth allowing a smooth transition and adjustment to the company’s requirements. The T&M contract tracked multiple labor categories and rates. NRT products allowed the setup of project-based labor category rate schedules and assignment of one or more labor categories to each employee. Rates were set up in the system by base and option years and can be seamlessly activated and deactivated as the contract progresses.
NRT Project Accounting allowed the QuickBooks jobs to be set up as a project tree, where the options years and funding amounts could be tracked against the QuickBooks jobs.
Payroll – NRT e-Timesheet payroll provided a payroll interface report that exports employee time data required for payroll processing in a format that is compatible with the payroll service. The company is currently running a payroll for over 111 employees. Payroll data for a selected period can be exported and imported into the payroll interfaces in less than 35 minutes, reducing the manual payroll cycle time of 4.5 hours to 35 minutes.
Invoicing – With the addition of the new T&M contract, a series of sophisticated invoicing requirements were put in place by the prime contractor. The invoicing preparation started out as a manual operation and required over 20 hours per month to edit and prepare. Given the company’s staffing constraints, the process spanned a 2-week period. The process was transitioned over into NRT Project Accounting and is now produced in less than 20 minutes following timecard approval by program manager. Currently, the invoice is over 20 pages long.
Staffing – Throughout this entire transition process, the company has not had to hire any additional staff to accommodate this rapid growth and is still operating its accounting department with less than 1 FTE. With the use of the NRT product solution, a conservative estimate would put the cost savings to the company the equivalent of 1.5 FTE’s (staff accountants),
Accounting Systems – The subject company had been and still remains a user of the QuickBooks Pro accounting platform. Despite the company’s rapid growth and anticipation of continued growth the company sees no reason to leave the QuickBooks platform.
Standard Form 1408 Compliance – With continued business growth and an aggressive search for larger business opportunities, the company was required to provide accounting system compliance to pursue cost plus contract opportunities. The NRT product suite along with QuickBooks Pro was audited by an independent accounting firm and passed the SF 1408 compliance review without any issues.