⏲️Send your first timesheet
You've diligently tracked your time and now it's time to get paid. Let's make it happen. Here's how you create, edit and send a timesheet.
Last updated
You've diligently tracked your time and now it's time to get paid. Let's make it happen. Here's how you create, edit and send a timesheet.
Last updated
The first thing you'll need to do is find the button that does it. In Zipwire, we've hidden it in two places. Look for Create timesheets here:
In My timesheets when the tabbed view contains no timesheets.
At the bottom of the page, under the week's summary, in My journal.
When you click it you'll be taken to the time period selection screen.
Here's what the period picker looks like on a phone.
Note at the top you have Month and Week tabs. These just help you rapidly pick either a calendar month or a week of the year, since that's how most people are paid. It'll remember what you usually do for next time.
It will look back through your recent journal entries to find work that has not been put on a timesheet yet. Each week or month with unsheeted journal data will be presented as a card, as above.
In case you want to send a timesheet covering an unusual period, you can edit the date range.
Click Continue when you're done.
A pivotable feature of Zipwire is the linking of the activities you track time against in your journal to workflows. This let's Zipwire know how to handle creation, approval and processing of the activities.
If you only work for a single company or agency, then you'll most likely link all activities to the same workflow.
Assigned activities
Note that the majority of senders will have been assigned one or more activities by their agency or workplace.
These assigned activities appear as choices in your journal and are pre-linked to an assigned workflow.
Because the activity linking screen is only presented when there are some unlinked activities, most senders will unlikely see it.
In the image above, the activity Acme > Launch > Dev is unlinked. Zipwire needs to know which workflow to link it to. However, in this example, the existing workflow is the MTD assignment and Zipwire has spotted that it doesn't look like a good match for the activity, see the yellow warning.
You can see above the option to create a new workflow. This is designed for freelancers working alone who want to use Zipwire with their boss and introduce the product to them.
Zipwire lets people working outside of an agency, usually as freelancers, invite their approver and optionally processor to use the app. Normally, an agency or workplace first starts using Zipwire and then invites the approver and sender.
If you are a contractor, temp or part-time worker and have been invited to use Zipwire, then you should see your assigned workflow in the list. If you can't see it, then it's best to contact your agency or workplace and explain the problem. Creating your own workflow and inviting them is likely to confuse the situation.
Once all activities are linked, Zipwire can create the timesheet(s). The linked activity-workflow relationships allow Zipwire to collate all the activities and time data onto one timesheet per workflow.
Each workflow has its own billing rules and rates and usually routes approving and processing via different teams of people, sometimes in different workplaces. Thus, Zipwire is super flexible for people working more than one job.
You only have to track time in your single journal and Zipwire will divide and collate the times onto multiple timesheets.
Once the timesheet is created, you'll be taken to the Ready drafts view of My timesheets. Here, you can click the time units and make any last minute changes.
Changes made to the timesheet in its draft state are not saved if you navigate away from the screen. You should make your edits and then click Send.
The person who created the assignment will have configured your rate, its currency and minimum billing units, e.g. hours or half-days, as well as the maximum units per day.
Zipwire will use the journal data to automatically fill the timesheet. It is smart and where the billing configuration permits, it will try to make sure you're getting paid for the time you've put in.
For example, if you've worked a much longer Monday and went home at lunchtime Friday, and you're only allowed a maximum of 2 half-days per day, it will bump Friday up. However, it errs on the side of caution, so you should always review and make edits.
Use the daily time bars running under the units to guide you. The bars are rendered to scale with the time units so you have a visual indicator as to how long you tracked in your journal versus how many units you are billing for.
For your eyes only
The time bars are rendered to scale in this draft state only. Once sent, the bars will be redrawn to the same length as the time units you're billing for.
Feel free to attach a file and enter a message. Click Send or Discard. When you discard of the timesheet the associated journal data will be unlocked so you can edit it.
If your agency has made a mistake in your configuration they can reject the timesheet, or you can discard it if you've not sent it. You can also Retract it, so long as it hasn't been accepted for processing.
Once they've corrected their config, you can go ahead and remake the timesheet and it'll automatically incorporate their changes.
Once you've sent your timesheet Zipwire will send a notification to the primary person on the approvers team. You will get a notification of any actions taken.
You can retract the timesheet any time up until it is marked as accepted by the processing team.
If the timesheet is rejected then it'll go to Done and you'll get a notification. The journal data will be unlocked so you can edit it and send another. Otherwise, completed timesheets will move into your Done view and the journal data will remain blocked for the rest of eternity.
You can continue to add new journal entries under the locked times, and you can create another timesheet for the same period and even send it to the same workflow.
This can be useful in cases where the processing team took the timesheet through processing before finding a mistake. You can create the times again and create another.
After approval, the timesheet appears in the processor's inbox. It will pass through a number of stages that make sense to payment processing teams and staffing agencies. You may be notified of some of the stages it moves through but only up until the point you are paid.
