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Using TimeSlips to Create DashBoards for Professionals

As I continue to work with a law firm client we are developing better reports & dashboard for tracking the performance of the entire staff. We are now at the point where we want to implement a bonus plan which will drive the behaviors we want to increase revenue and profit. In order to implement that we must have the tracking mechanism in place.

Using the standard reports delivered in TimeSlips and changing a few filters to get the applicable data I am now able to produce a report like this for each staff member:

The data is extracted in the following manner:

This represents the Total Hours recorded in TimeSlips  this data is from the “Productivity by Period” report. Open this report, add a filter for the Slip Transaction Date, and a Sort by Professional. This will produce the month by month numbers for this line. You have to add Billable and Unbillable hours to get this line.

This represents the Hours recorded working on Client Files – this data is from the same report with another filter added to eliminate time not spent on client files. In our case we have non-client activities like marketing and vacation recorded to a “Non-Billable” client. For this line I filter “Non Billable” client activity out.

This represents the Billable Hours recorded  - this data comes from the report you just ran. For this line select only the Billable hours.

This represents the Fees Billed – this data comes from the Profitability by Period report. Like the previous reports you add a filter for the Slip Transaction Date, and a Sort by Professional. In the Report Options you want to check “Include Totals” and “Billed values reduced by credits”. The data for this line is labeled “Billed Total”.

The Effective Hourly Rate for Billable Activity -  this is calculated as Fees Billed / Billable Hours recorded.

The Effective Hourly Rate for All Client related Activity – this is calculated as Fees Billed / Hours working on Client Files.

The Effective Hourly Rate for All Activity – this is calculated as Fees Billed / Total Hours.

The Effective Hourly Payroll rate – this is calculated by taking the Gross Payroll expense for this professional / Totals Hours.

Hourly Contribution to Revenue – this is calculated as Effective Hourly Rate for All Activity minus Effective Hourly Payroll rate.

Contribution To Revenue – this is calculated by multiplying the Hourly Contribution to Revenue by Total Hours.

The metric you want to see trend up over time is Billable Hours recorded. If this goes up then all the other metrics will trend up. To influence this metric you must put all the workplace tools and processes in place to enable the revenue generating staff to spend as much time as possible on billable activity. Revenue generators should not spend time on administrative tasks. All staff should have a workplace and tools which allow them to be as efficient as possible.

If you enable professional staff to be efficient, to improve their workplace performance, and provide incentives to improve you will drive the behavior you want and end up with more cash!