Project Management and Employee Scheduling

Two years ago we were in that same boat. We wanted firm-wide information about project load and employee availability, but getting that information meant pulling data from spreadsheets, running reports from our time and billing system, and then piecing them together for the firm. With 15 offices and over 75 client managers, there were a lot of spreadsheets to review and the data was not real-time. So, we decided we needed a better system.

We started by forming a task force to come up with a solution – because that's what we do in CPA firms. We looked at several project scheduling systems and also looked at the project management functionality of our time and billing system (Visual Practice Management – formerly owned by CPAS, then SAGE, and now CCH).

Our basic requirements were:

• Integration with our time and billing system so we could get budget vs. actual project reports without keying project information into multiple systems
• Process to track employee total hours scheduled to work, and the amount of time scheduled for non-chargeable activities to really know how much time is available to do client work
• Reports that show by week what projects each employee is scheduled to work on and how much they are over/under booked
• Easy way to see firm-wide which offices need staff or have availability

Since we could not find an existing system that met all of our requirements, we decided that part of the solution meant creating a new application. The task force helped design the system and our internal technology group did the coding. After several months of work, we had a basic system to start with, and processes documented on how to use the system. We then formed a pilot group (aka guinea pigs) to start using our new solution. This included starting to use our time and billing system (VPM) to track client projects and the custom-written .NET employee scheduling application (ESA) to manage the employee's time available to work on projects.

We used VPM to add projects to clients, to key time to projects, to assign employees to projects, and to update the status of the project.  In ESA we tracked employee total hours scheduled by week, any planned non-charge time, and employee hour and revenue budgets. We also created reports to pull data out of both systems to give us the information needed. After six months of use, we were told that the systems were working but they needed to be much easier to use before implementing firm-wide.

So, we changed the ESA to import project assignments from VPM and allow the users to reassign the projects, spread the hours over multiple weeks, and change the project status all from within ESA. At the same time we added an employee scorecard to the initial screen, so staff could quickly see the production and sales data for themselves and their group.

We decided in October 2005 to implement the systems firm-wide (15 offices, 250 employees) effective December 2006. Although some offices were quicker than others in accepting the systems, all eventually saw the benefits and started fully using the systems. This and other tools (paperless, video conferencing, and Citrix) allowed us to transfer over 5,000 hours of work between offices during tax season. It gave us the ability to look out several months to know early in tax season how many returns would need to be extended. Also, staff knew that a firm-wide scheduling group was meeting every other week to look at availability reports out of the system to make decisions on transferring work between groups. This put some pressure on them to use the system – people focus on what gets measured.

Immediately after tax season the task force met to discuss what was learned during busy season, and additional enhancements were made to the systems and processes.  Developing your own software has both Pros and Cons, but being able to make immediate changes is sure nice. We had times where we discussed an "it would be nice if it did this"change in a meeting, and had the change made by the next morning.

Other functionality we have since added to the system includes:

• Can easily split work between staff and spread hours across multiple weeks
• Changes to projects now flow automatically from VPM to ESA
• Tie into data out of our client rating system (created from an analysis of VPM data) so you can sort assigned projects by the letter rating of the client
• Easily see a list of project assignments by partner, bill manager, reviewer, preparer, client rating, due date, etc.

Other functionality we would like to add:

• The ability to input the skill level of employees on delivering specific services so we can search for a person with availability that has that the skill we need for a project
• Ties into client documents, so not only can an employee see what they have to work on, but they can also click on a link to get to the documents

Although it has been a challenging couple of years in designing and creating our project management and scheduling systems, we feel like it has been worth it. Our firm is going through a major restructuring that involves more of a focus on industry groups. Some of these groups are spread over several physical locations, so our project management and employee scheduling systems are key parts to the success of this change.

About the author

Greg Davis is the Principal in Charge of Technology at Kennedy and Coe, LLC, Profit Strategists and CPAs. Greg has 15 years of experience at Kennedy and Coe, where he is also the Chair of the Technology Committee.