Managing Global Requirements With DATABASICS Time And Expense

A key challenge for Search is timely billing of labor and expenses. The majority of Search’s time and expenses is billed to donors, so delays in timesheet and expense reporting submissions and approvals result in delays in billing. The organization is also subject to audits, so detailed records of entry, adjustments and approvals are critical for compliance. In addition, more than 80 percent of its 1,000 employees are local to the countries they work in. Because each country has unique labor laws, tracking Paid Time Off (PTO) was cumbersome.

Search wanted to simplify time tracking with software that would streamline PTO and other types of leave, easy online submission and approval, and provide easy-to-access documentation to support audits.

To modernize and simplify its time and expense processes, Search turned to DATABASICS Time and DATABASICS Expense in 2018.

Search began implementing DATABASICS Time and Expense in 2018 in batches, a few countries at a time. Today, DATABASICS is fully operational for the 26 countries where it has long-term obligations.

"Search was able to configure DATABASICS to not only support their timesheet requirements but also handle PTO complexity, including annual leave and sick leave for each country, and 'casual leave' for countries like Pakistan and Sri Lanka."

- Lisa Shochat, senior manager, policy and internal compliance for Search

She says, “DATABASICS is flexible enough that we were able to configure as many accruals as necessary for the many types of leave we need to account for.”

DATABASICS helps Search account for holidays such as Ramadan. For example, the Ramadan policy in Yemen is six hours of work per day instead of eight. So Search created a rule in DATABASICS to accommodate timesheets with less than eight hours per day, but only during Ramadan.

In addition to DATABASICS Time for international timekeeping, the organization also deployed DATABASICS Expense for its U.S. headquarters and European headquarters in Brussels. The primary focus of the expense solution is to facilitation employee business expense reporting. The cardholder uploads receipts and budget codes, and DATABASICS Expense creates an expense report that checks for policy compliance and then is exported to its accounting software to produce payables or settle outstanding liabilities.

DATABASICS Expense allowed Search’s unique per diem policy. Corporate credit card holders see their transactions appear in DATABASICS from a feed from the credit card provider.

The ability to integrate time and expense information with existing software was a must for Search, which uses Sage Intacct for accounting and has a different Human Resource Information System (HRIS) system for employee data.

Using DATABASICS pre-built connector with Sage Intacct, Search is able to easily extract timesheet and expense reports from DATABASICS and have them moved to Sage Intacct. The organization also maintains its grant information and budget codes in Sage Intacct which updates the DATABASICS solution so users only see those codes that they are able to track time and expenses against.

“It’s really quite nice that when a grant is no longer active, it’s automatically not available for expense reports or timesheets in DATABASICS.”

- Lisa Shochat, senior manager, policy and internal compliance for Search

Shochat says that automating time, expenses, and leave management in DATABASICS has made life easier for Search.

Search HR managers have moved beyond spreadsheets, saving time preparing expense reports. She says, “When people indicate leave on their timesheet, their leave balances are automatically deducted. It’s one of the greatest time savers for our HR staff.”

Working with DATABASICS has been great for Shochat and her colleagues. She says, “DATABASICS support is fantastic. They’re very helpful and responsive.”

She says her absolute favorite thing about DATABASICS is how they go the extra mile.

“We tend to have a lot of questions and we submit a lot of help tickets.

Other IT service providers would charge a lot extra for that, but not DATABASICS. That really makes me feel more comfortable to ask questions and experiment with the system.”

- Lisa Shochat, senior manager, policy and internal compliance for Search

Search is just getting started with DATABASICS and is expecting to get more value from the time and expense applications moving forward. “I think there’s still a lot of untapped opportunity with DATABASICS,” she says.