In Zistemo you can choose the project billing method “Daily Task rate”. This billing method interacts as a full day rate or half day rate. The billing is based on the daily rate of a daily Task summary.

Need the billing based on the daily “Staff Rate”? You can use Staff Day Rate instead.

Reasons to choose a daily task rate:

Daily task rates are needed when on a project a task is billed on a daily staff hour summary per task.

Let’s say Paula is a senior consultant and she works on different tasks like “Sales training preparation” with a daily rate of 1.900€ and “Sales Training” with a daily rate of 2.800€. So if she works 6:25h for preparation the task would be proposed as 1.900€ and 11h sales training with 2.800€.

Same with Peter, as a junior developer he works on research 1.200, development 1.600 and 1.000. the billing value will be proposed based on the daily task rate.

If you want to invoice by staff members day rate then read more on Daily Staff Rate.

Example:

Peter works to day on a project with the billing method Daily Task rates.
The project parameters are “Ignore daily project time below 90 minutes” and “Use Half Day Rates” and a day has 10h since Peter wants to invoice a full day if he works more than 5h on a task.

He did

• a short 20 min meeting with his client,
• 64 min research,
• some testing for 100 min and
• developed 6h for the project.

As a result

• All Tasks below 90min are ignore and listed as an ignored summary when he will create the invoice.
• Testing will be counted as a half day
• Development will be counted as a full day.

When he creates the invoice, he will see real hour compared to calculated hours and ignored hours. So finally, he has all information to streamline and edit the invoice.

How to set it up “Daily Task rate”?

In the Project Settings you can choose “Task day rate”

The option “ignore daily project time below 90 minutes” means that the added hours per staff memeber per Task of the same day – which are less than “90mins” – will be ignored. Simply click on the number to change to your preferred minutes.

If you wish to use also a “half day rate” simply enable it via the checkbox. It means all hours less the a half day and more than ignored time will be calculate as a half day rate. If the sum of hours per Staff and per Task is more then a half day will be calculated as a full day. Change the hours to your preferred settings:

Select the Budget checkbox if you want to add a Budget to this project.
Add your estimated days to each Task. On the button you see the summary of days and budget cost.

Project list details on Task Day rates

On the project grid you see the days spend compared to the budget as well the remaining days and the staff cost.

How to generate the Daily Task Rate Invoice

Example

Let’s say Robert works on a development project and has work 40:13 hours now and he want to invoice this hours as a task day rate.

This are his project details:

…and this are his working hours:

…now he goes to the project and clicking “Generate invoice”

..and the invoice wizard opens with his proposal.
If you see light gray numbers and you can’t edit the proposed invoicing days than click on “cancel” and  make sure you checked on the Settings -> preferences “Allow editing for Invoices generated through the Invoice Wizard.”
Otherwise you are not able to modify the days and we assume that the user need align always a bit the invoice since the wizard creates just a proposal and provide information.

The invoice wizard recognized that you invoice this project with the daily task rate and open the Day Rate Invoice window with additional information.
First the project summaries:

On the first line you see how much did you already invoiced.

Total ignored times means the summary off all unbilled time entries which where ignored per day since they didn’t meet the “ignore time below” ramp. In our case it was 1h on 5 days and the ramp was 90min. So 5h for Research and 5h for Testing = 10h total.

Total unbilled hours means the sum of all unbilled hours. In our case 5:00 + 30:13 + 5:00 = 40:13.

Billable hours means days from the input field “Invoice now” multiplied by hours of Personal days.
Personal Day is default 8h but can be changed on Settings -> Preferences -> Personal Day.
In our case it is: 4.5 days * 8 = 36h.

Total rounded time is the most important value. If it is negative, you don’t invoice all billable hours.
The calculation works in this way: sum of all days from the input fields “Invoice now” multiplied with Personal day – total billable hours = Total rounded time.
So in our case it is (4.5*8) = 36:00 – 40:13 == -4:13.

In our case, if I insert a half day of research the total rounded time changed to -0:13 and if I changed development from 4.5 days to 5 days, the total rounded time went up to +3:47 which looks much more suitable and realistic to my invoice.
So the Invoice Wizard helps you in real time to find the best suitable balance to invoice the right amount of days.

It is also possible to “Attach a detailed timesheet report” via “task day rate”

If you have the option “rounded time” available, you could run into problems with the detailed timesheet report.  You will receive a warning pop-up with more details, if you attach a detailed timesheet.

Note

• If you don’t invoice a Task then we don’t change the status of the time entries to billed, means they are appear next time again as a proposal to the invoice wizard as unbilled hours.
• if you have no time entry on a task than you can’t edit or insert a day. You need to have at least 1 minute tracked on the task.
• If you create your invoices in different currencies, we will show the already invoiced amount always in your base currency.

In Zistemo you can choose the project billing method “staff day rate”. The “staff day rate” interacts as a full day rate or half day rate. The billing is based on the daily rate of the staff.

Need the billing based on the daily rate of a daily Task summary? You can use Daily Task Rate instead.

Reasons to choose a daily staff rate:

Daily Staff rates is needed when on a project a staff member gets a day rate and it doesn’t matter on witch task he works. Let’s say Paula is a senior consultant and her daily rate is 2.500€ doesn’t matter if she prepares or moderate a sales training. Same with Peter, as a junior developer and his daily rate is 1.200€ and doesn’t matter if he is coding, testing, meet or doing some.

If you want to invoice by Tasks by day rates than use Daily Task Rate.

How to set it up “daily staff rate”?

In the Project Settings you can choose “staff day rate”

The option “ignore daily project time below 90 minutes” means that the added hours of the same day – which are less than “90mins” – will be ignored. Simply click on the number to change to your preferred minutes.

If you wish to use also a “half day rate” simply enable it via the checkbox. Change the hours to your preferred settings:

Behaviour – Billable / non-billable hours & Rounded Time

If you have two time entries: One billable and another non-billable on the same day, zistemo will only calculate the hours which are billable to the invoice:

ONLY billable times entries will be shown in the generated invoice and will take effect to the full/half day rate:

If you want to invoice also the non-billable hours of the specific day, you have to change the “task” from non-billable into billable hours. In this case you can then generate an invoice for another time entry, which zistemo will calculate also as one billable day:

Note: In this case, you will see on the project dashboard – 1 billable day – That’s zistemo’s current behaviour

Use half day rate

For staff day rates you can apply rates for half days.

Calculation with half days – Example:

Day #1: 4.5 hours tracked = 1 day
Day #2: 1 hour tracked = 0.5 day
Day #3: 1 hour tracked = 0.5 day
Day #4: 1 hour tracked = 0.5 day
Day#5: 1 hour tracked = 0.5 day

Billable days: 3.5 days (9.5 hours tracked)

Rounded Time

1 day = 8 hrs
1/2 day = 4 hours

E.g. You tracked 1.5 hrs for a day, then = 0.5 day rate. But in the system, we “round” the hours to 4 hrs (= half day) so rounded hours = +3.5 hrs

If you set up your day with 7 hours:
1 day = 7 hrs
1/2 day = 3.5 hours

If you set up your day with 6 hours:
1 day = 6 hrs
1/2 day = 3 hours

and so on…

Find also more infos about “rounded time HERE.
And “How to change working time” HERE.

How to generate the Staff Day Rate Invoice?

To generate the Invoice, go to project and click “Generate invoice”

If you want to generate an invoice for the project with billing method ‘staff day rate’ and your company also uses the option ‘approve timesheets’, then you must approve the timessheets before you generate an invoice. After approving the weekly timesheet from you staff, you can simply create the invoice.

Choose the “Date Range” which you want to show in the invoice:

You can easily change the “Date Range” for a specific month, day or however you feel like it. Just choose your preferred Date Range and press “Apply”.

If you generate an invoice for the project with the billing method ‘staff day rate’, zistemo will only show billable hours on this page and ignore the non-billable hours:

If you create your invoices in different currencies, we will show the already invoiced amount always in your base currency:

The invoice wizard recognized that you invoice this project with the daily task rate and open the Day Rate Invoice window with additional information. First the project summaries and the billable days. There is also the ability to change the days you want to invoice.

Please note: The current behaviour is: If you enter 1 instead of 2 days into the field. Zistemo will only show 1 billable day on the invoice BUT marks both days as billed in your project.

Contacts

Expenses

Please note that when you connected quickbooks, you can use quickbooks category names only.

invoices

Please note that if you’re a non-US-company invoice sync to Quickbooks might not work due to sales tax guidelines.

Where to find this option to switch it on?

If the company uses the ‘Full System’ module or ‘Attendance Time’ module then the account owner/admins can customize it in the Settings -> Attendance Template -> Work Time rule (for all employees who uses the current attendance template we will track the location):

If the company uses only the ‘Project Tracking’ module or ‘Attendance Time’ module, but flex time model is ‘non-tracking model’ then the account owner/admins can switch it on the Staff’s page:

Go to the ‘Edit Staff’ page and switch on the “Track location when using the mobile timer” feature:

How it works

When this staff member will open the timer for the first time, the mobile app will ask for their approval to send geolocation.

After the approval, if the member starts the timer, zistemo starts to track the location of the member.

When the user starts the mobile timer -> we show the map with location AND when opening the Timesheets in the mobile app and add the time, then we also show the map with location, but only when mobile timer is running, when mobile timer isn’t running then we don’t show location when adding the time via Timesheets tab:

As a user, you can see your own location when starting the mobile timer and then open the WEB application and a timer, and see it there (on the web app, on a Timer popup, only in your own account):

Also, you can open your timesheets and can see the location on the already saved time entries:

How an Admin can see the location of the Team Member

The Admin (for ex.) can see the location of the team member in the Timesheets of this team member (Time & Projects -> Team Timesheets), but only on the saved time records and if it was saved via the mobile timer. So, for you to be able to track your team member’s location, they need to save their time records via the mobile timer:

Status of location tracking
Location on the map, after clicking on the “location” icon:

On each Recurring Invoice Profile you will find a very helpful option – as soon your are choosing the client –  ‘Include unbilled time and expenses’:

This feature allows you to automatically include all new timesheets and expenses (related to your invoiced client) to the recurring invoices.

The ‘Include unbilled timesheets and expenses’ window has 4 simple parts, as you can see below:

1. Add time entries

Here you can choose the project/projects which time entries you want to add to the recurring invoices. In other words, each new invoice will automatically include new unbilled time spent working on the project you are billing.
You also can choose ‘Projects created in the future’ – in this case, the invoices will incorporate the time from all the projects that will be created in the future (according to the recurring invoice profile):

If a project is using a flat amount you’ll see a notice. Click to set the recurring amount. We recommend to create the recurring invoice from the project.

Check ‘Attach a detailed timesheet report’ to include the project time report for each invoice. This report shows all time logged – date of time, project, task, time notes, amount of hours and totals.

You can select if you want to add the detailed timesheet as separate PDF file to the mail (default) or if you want to include the detailed timesheet to the invoice PDF. Please note that the second option only works if you you using “create and send” option for the recurring profile. If you using “Create invoice as draft” the detailed timesheet will be added in any case as a separate PDF file.

Please note that when you attach unbilled timesheets and you attach a detailed timesheet report to the invoice but you have “create invoice as draft” active, the complete invoice with the timesheet report will be create not until you activate the invoice.

Exact or Infinite Period?

If you choose ‘Infinite period’ – the first recurring invoice will include all time entries older then the start day of the Recurring Invoice Profile.
If you choose the ‘Exact period’ – the first invoice will include time entries older than the start day but not older than one frequency period:

Reminder: You can choose here the start day (‘First period’) and the frequency:

Always remember to choose ‘Delay issues in days’ – if you need to approve time entries before including them in the invoices:

2. Add expenses

Here you can choose ‘All unbilled expenses for this client’ and your invoices will include all the expenses related to this client and not invoiced yet.
‘Only expenses for selected projects’ – invoices will include unbilled expenses assigned to projects that you have chosen in the section ‘Add time entries’.
‘No expenses’ – invoices will not include expenses related to the client.

3. Add mileages

Here you can also choose “All unbilled mileages for this client” which then includes all the mileages related to the chosen client, which are not invoiced yet.
“Only Mileages for selected projects” – invoices will include mileages assigned to projects that you have chosen in the section “Add time entries”.
“No mileages” – invoices will not include mileages related to the chosen client.

4. Add subtotals

Choose this option if you want to calculate separate subtotals for expenses, timesheets and mileages. More about subtotals here.

5. Invoice format

Here you can group the timesheet information featured on the invoices. Read more here.

6. Manual invoices for projects with recurring invoice

If you want to create a manual invoice for a project that is added to a recurring invoice you can either disconnect this project from the recurring invoice or you enable “Allow generate manual invoice for project included to recurring profile” on the preferences: Learn more

White-labeling is the functionality that shows Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that zistemo has your permission to send emails on your behalf. This permission is given by the act of pointing very specific DNS entries from your domain registrar to zistemo. Once these DNS records are entered and propagated, the recipient email servers and services will read the headers on the emails you send and check the DNS records to verify if the email was initiated by a trusted source. This drastically increases your ability to deliver emails and allows you to begin building a sender reputation for your domain and your IP addresses.

The zistemo domain white label allows you to white label your domain. You can start to build your domain’s email reputation and explicitly show all your recipients that you actually sent these emails. This should help increase your deliverability rates and reduce the risk of spam reports.

White-labeling is critical to your reputation as a sender. Inbox providers distrust messages that are not properly white-labeled and you will not be able to begin building your reputation until you complete the white-labeling process.

There are a few quick points worth highlighting before you dive into the white-labeling process:
– You can only create one white label per account.
– The domain white-labeling process requires you to create a subdomain of your root domain to white-label and send email from.
– Your reputation is always attributed to your root domain, regardless of the subdomain you white-label, or even if you switch subdomains.
– All white labels must be verified before they can be used.
We provide all the information about every step of the process below so that you can set up your white label quickly and easily.

Domain White Label Settings

Subdomain

This is the “prefix” of the domain that you are actually white labeling. Historically, we have suggested prefixes like “em,” “em1,” etc. However, you can use whatever subdomain you wish.
We do not recommend using the word “mail” as your subdomain name because this is a subdomain that many registrars or hosting companies will automatically set up for personal email usage. This can cause conflicts that may impact your email reputation.

The subdomain that you choose for your domain white label must be different from the subdomain for your link white label because each white label must have their own unique CNAME records!

Even though your domain white label and email link white label use different subdomains, the reputation of your root domain and your IP address are what recipient servers and spam filters use to determine whether or not your email is delivered.

Domain

If you add a new default domain white label for a domain that is already white-labeled on your account, you risk invalidating and removing the default status of the previously set up white-label.
Your domain white label will not affect your email link white label and vice versa.

The domain is the root domain for your subdomain and will receive the email reputation from the white label. Your root domain should match your “FROM” email address. If you are sending from newsletteexampexample@example.com, then you should white-label subdomain.example.com, so the root domains match.

Where to set the White Label Domain on zistemo?

You can find it in User Menu -> Whitelabel domain, as shown in the print screen below:

Note: the Whitelabel option is accessible only for paid accounts

Now enter the subdomain and the domain, then click ‘Create’:

… and you will get the following data (see attachment):

How to use the received data?

You can use the received data only in your Domain Name System (DNS). As an example, we used Namecheap:
1. the first step – you need to open the Domain list -> Advanced DNS

2. The second step – you need to add a new record and select the CNAME record:

You have to copy the Host and IP Address from zistemo and fill the fields ‘Host’ and ‘Target’ so you need to create 3 new records:
… then save the data in your Domain Name System (DNS). As usual, the data validation process can take some time, depending on your Domain Name System (DNS), for instance, it can be completed within 24 hrs.

How to make sure everything is ok?

Go to the Whitelabel domain tab in zistemo and press the green button ‘Validate’.

If all settings are fine, you’ll see the following notification:

NOTE: Since DNS servers have to update other servers around the world with the new information, propagation can take a long time and is not instant. The general rule is propagation takes 24 hours to complete worldwide. However, in some cases, this can take up to 48 hours, depending on DNS record TTLs

That’s it!

Save your settings and check out what you will get on the invoice totals:

You will notice the result is rounded up to the nearest coins (to 0 or 5 or 10).
Note: the logic of rounding up to 5 Rappens is the following:
Multiply the value with 20, then round it to zero fractions (no numbers after the decimal separator) and divide it by 20.
Example:
1,000 – 1,024 → 1,024*20 = 20,48 rounding to 20; 20/20 = 1
1,025 – 1,074 → 1,025*20 = 20,5 rounding to 21; 21/20 = 1,05
1,075 – 1,099 → 1,089*20 = 20,78 rounding to 22; 22/20 = 1,10

On the “Create Recurring Invoice” page you should create an invoice which will be regularly sent – automatically – to your client.
The Conditionally Recurring Invoice Profile consists of multiple fields which will be copied to all recurring invoices and fields related only to a specific profile.
The information which will be showed/copied to invoices will be displayed in the following fields:
– A client, client contacts, client address
– Invoice title
– Payment terms
– Invoice Intro
– More options
– Invoice items table
– Payment options
– Internal Note, Client Note, Terms and Conditions

– Template # – the Number of the Recurring Invoice Profile. To change it, go to Settings -> Number Groups (read more here)

– Frequency – The regularity of invoices creation. Here you can set up if your invoice will be send e.g. weekly, monthly, yearly etc.

– First period – On this date the first period of your recurring invoice will end and the invoice will be created – either as draft or it will be send automatically, depends on what you set up (red more on “how would you like to send the invoice?)

Please pay attention, there is a “Date” field, it will be ignored. This field will be calculated automatically, based on the first period and the frequency you set up.

– Delay issues in days – If you want your invoice not exactly be created on the first period date, you can set up delay issue days. If you do so, the date when the invoice will be created will be delayed by the amount of the days you entered. E.g. you your first period end on 23.07.2020 but you want your invoice be created 3 days after that date, you can set the delay issue days to 3 and the invoice will be created on 26.07.2020 instead  of 23.07.2020. You will get a prompt feedback on what date the invoice will be created:

– How many – The number of recurring invoices that should be automatically created from this Recurring Profile. Note: you can leave this field empty – in this case, this profile will create an unlimited number of invoices (until you cancel the Recurring Profile).

Also, if a frequency is selected as well as the Delay Days, you’ll get a message explaining when you should expect your next invoice to be sent. So the first period starts 01.11. + 3 days = 04.11.2019 is the next invoice date, see below:

– Perfomance period is in the future – By default the period of performance will be in the past. But sometimes you might want to send an invoice where the period of performance is in the future (e.g. for server maintenance). So, when activate this feature you can set the delay issue days into a negative amount.

Please note that by default the invoice issue date (it’s the date that will be on the invoice) will be date of the first period. If you deactivate this feature, the invoice issue date is the date when the invoice will be created. Please make sure you set up the invoice issue date regarding to the regulation in your country.

Example: The period of performance is 01.08.2020 – 31.08.2020. The Delay issue days are -7. So, in this example the invoice will be created on 25.07.2020 but the invoice date is the 01.08.2020. If you would deactivate “Invoice issued date is first date of period” the invoice date would be the 25.07.2020.

– How would you like to create your invoice? – you can choose the first option ‘Create invoice as a draft’ – in this case, the recurring invoices will be created as Proforma Invoices –  this invoice will not be sent to your client until you click the send button (more about Proforma Invoices here).
If you choose the ‘Create and Send’ option, then the invoices will be automatically activated and sent to the client:

All the auto-generated invoices through the Recurring Profile will be shown on the Invoices list (Sales -> Invoices):

You can review all invoices linked to this Profile – just go to the Recurring Invoice Profile preview (click on a specific recurring invoice from the Recurring Invoices list) and click ‘Show all invoices’ or ‘Unpaid invoices’ if you only want to find the unpaid invoices, for instance:

If you add an attachment to a recurring invoice, the attachment will be at the end of the preview mode:

Note: If you checked the checkbox “Draft/ProForma Invoices have a separate number” in the settings – this option will not apply to reccuring invoices. There will be no separated number, only the invoice number. More Infos HERE

Add a title to your invoice

You can add a title for all your zistemo documents. As an example, for an invoice:

In general, this title will be shown on the Invoices list:

But you can also have it on the invoice (or estimate, or purchase order) template.
You can adjust the Invoice title using the Template Editor. To open it, please go to Settings > Stationery Templates and under ‘Shared’ click on ‘Copy’:

– In the document Info Section:

Or

– In the header of the Items Table:

Just click on this section, then go to the ‘Column Settings’ and type ‘:: document title::’ in the ‘Header Label’ field, as below:

Now if you will use this template for invoices, you will see the Invoice Title in the Invoice Info and in the table header:

Rename Invoice

What if you need your Invoice to be called Tax Invoice, or any other name? it is possible too

Note: if you adjust in the Template Editor the ‘First page’ (i.e. first page of multiple-pages invoice), and you create a One-page invoice, (but did not adjust the template in ‘One-page invoice’), then you will not see the adjusted template.  

Looking for more info on template customization? Here are some articles we recommend:

1. Your Own Invoice/Estimate Template
2. Template Editor: General info
3. How to customize the new template
4. Invoice/Estimate Template Background
5. Template Placeholders

Therefore, if you need to customize a text’s style, you can always use the zistemo text markups and settings: