Digital time recording in the skilled trades

THOR^® is a leading company in house, building and supply engineering as a personnel service provider with 1,000 employees from various specieal trades. THOR employees are deployed nationwide at various customers and construction projects. Invoicing is then based on the hours worked and documented.

Initial situation

Each THOR^® employee must report his working hours to the accounting department at the end of his work week (time sheet). For more than 20 years, this was done in the traditional way using "timesheets" that had to be sent by post. The time sheets were then unpacked by the accounting department, sorted by hand, transferred to the system and archived in folders.

The customer also received the invoice in paper form by post, to which the timesheet was manually stapled as proof.

Our Task

THOR^® recognized that this process had to become more efficient in view of the company's growth and commissioned SITEFORUM to digitize this workflow. A portal was to be created that every employee could access and easily create and send their timesheets digitally. The processing and archiving of timesheets by the accounting department was also to be simplified considerably. In addition, THOR^® wanted to switch from paper invoices by mail to invoices by e-mail and save costs and administrative effort.

Solution

SITEFORUM developed the "THOR^® Employee Portal" based on the digitization platform with an access for each employee. The timesheet was then converted into a user-friendly digital form. Employees have permanent access to the portal via tablet and can use it to fill in the timesheet day by day in just a few steps and have it signed by the customer with a digital signature. At the end of the work week, the timesheet is sent to the accounting department - just in time. This alone has reduced the mail time from 2-3 days to a few seconds, as the data is stored directly in the portal. 

   

Via the dashboard, THOR^® Accounting now has all timesheets at a glance (well sorted and readable) and can process them conveniently. A PDF is also generated from each record, allowing THOR^® to convert to invoice via email. The archiving of timesheets is also absolutely automated and the archive can be searched and filtered via a simple search mask.

Results

The process of recording working hours by employees as well as accounting by the accounting department was comprehensively optimized with SITEFORUM's digitalization platform. The high postage costs were saved and the valuable working time of the accounting department was made more effective. The high volume of timesheets is now no longer a major challenge for THOR^®, so nothing stands in the way of the company's chosen growth path. Keyword: Scalability!

Furthermore, it is planned to develop an interface to the existing ERP in the future, so that the data can be transferred directly after an inspection.

THOR^® then commissioned SITEFORUM with further projects, including a digital vacation application and a digital process for the comprehensive recording and evaluation of qualifications of its 1,000 craftsmen.