Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 has native functionality, which could be deployed for Time Cards: technicians or consultants billable hours entering.  You could begin using it right away, however you may consider simplification add-on, which should allow you to enter time more efficiently, without the need to surf MS CRM interface in order to find appropriate Case for the next time log.  In this small publication we are describing timesheet entry procedure and add-on improvements to the process:

1. Contracts.  For the Account you can create one or multiple contracts.  For the contract itself you typically create Contract Line, where you specify the budget in minutes (sorry for this inconvenience, of course you would rather expect budget in hours).  In order to enable Budget in time units in Contract Line you should setup Contract template with allotment type set to time.  When you have at least one contract line with the budget, you may now activate contract for time entering: in Contract go to Actions and pick Invoice Contract (we heard complains that you may get error message here - please be sure that you have all the Addresses field filled on the Contract General screen - this error message should go away)

2. Case as Work Order.  Now you are ready to open work orders for your contractors, consultants or technicians (all of them are CRM users).  In the Account screen create new Case, assign it to Contract and Contract line (be sure to specify the Subject as it is required)
 
3. Task as Time log line.  Now in case select Activities in Details on the left side and click on New Activity, use suggested default type Task and create new Task.  If you are consultant entering time - just fill in Subject and Description, Due Date (when you really performed the service) and Duration (interface is smart and will recognize your corrections, for example 1 hour and 23 minutes will be parsed and accepted)

4. Following native MS CRM logic to complete and export Work Orders.  If you would like to stick to unmodified CRM logic, consider in the Case: action Resolve the Case (type something like Done in resolution field and accept number of billable hours - this is summary from all the tasks for this case).  Now you are ready to create new SSRS report (use report wizard in CRM, no need to invent bicycle) and pull all the closed Cases, assigned to Contract lines and depict Tasks in the report body (you should decide how to distinguish time log lines already exported - likely by project and time cutoff).  SSRS report is exportable to Excel and it is in turn convertible to CSV text file, which is ready for import into generic accounting application (most of them support text CSV file import)

5. Alba Spectrum Timesheet Add-on.  If you would like to minimize timecard entry time for your technicians, we would like to suggest custom extension to MS CRM for you.  This extension has centralized scrolling window which lists all the Tasks, associated with the technician with option to create new one on the fly.  We also have approval screen for the manager with time sheets export logic

6. Real time or quasi real time integrations to Microsoft Dynamics GP or SAP Business One.  For those of you who needs more control over the integration and would like to exercise real time integration, we have connectors programmed in Dynamics GP eConnect (for Great Plains Dynamics timesheets integration) and in SAP Business One SDK (for SB1 timesheets integration respectively)

7. Further possible improvements. What we could do for you, of course you may have your own ideas.  We may expect custom Billing Rate logic, desire to use one CRM user license for numerous consultants or technicians, having timesheet entry screen in international languages (in fact we already have it translated to Russian and translation to Spanish, German, French, Chinese, Arabic would take only about thirty strings of text per language)

8. How to get help?  Please, call us 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, or email us h...@albaspectrum.com  You can also call us on skype directly: albaspectrum

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