subject: Why Manual Project Costing Systems Have Been Replaced By Automated Solutions [print this page] The use of automated solutions has made it easy when it comes to the task of project management. Thus the use of solutions such as Office SharePoint comes across as no surprise.It is thus easier to maintain the details of the project and the process of maintenance of digitised records is devoid of any hassles. Though spreadsheets and paper documents are still in use, they are difficult to deal with. The manual handling of data substantially increases the possibility of errors and also makes the entire method cumbersome. An ever increasing number of businesses are making use of the timesheet applications to complete projects on time and also to monitor their progress on a regular basis. This enables the companies to gain in terms of the fact that they can manage their projects with great ease and efficiency. They can easily identify the cost effective centres and their most lucrative processes pretty easily. A timesheet solution used throughout the company can help organisations to make optimum utilisation of their resources as and when required.
There are several factors that have contributed to the traditional project costing methods being replaced by automated processes. The traditional systems call for the use of diverse clerical procedures, time clocks and even paper time cards for the capture and subsequent analysis of labour data. There are some companies that use spreadsheet programs and paper documents to keep a track of the costs associated with the projects but these methods have turned out to be problematic in the long run. The data often turns out to be incorrect and even incomplete. The manual methods turn out to be quite problematic in the overall scheme of things. They also demand extensive hours for data input and filtering. This keeps you a step ahead when it comes to the organisation of the data.
The reasons why the automated processes, in the form of project costing software,have scored against the manual processes is that the use of the latter have resulted in some costly errors. The drawbacks associated with manual project costing processes are numerous. These include greater clerical overhead, limited data entries, duplicate entries, calculation errors and inaccurate charge costs. The manual systems do not provide the option of extending hierarchical project lists, dynamic lists, relevant time reporting data and cost codes. Also the manual methods have cumbersome processes of approval that require employees to pass their set of paperwork to another to get approval. This further leads to misplaced paperwork and delayed payments and several other problems for the organisation.
Associated with the process of manual approval is problem of employee notification. Also, timesheets are submitted late by employees who are based in remote locations. This mostly occurs as a result of the inability to access their desks or computers or owing to the fact that they travelling continuously. As a result of the delay in submission of expense details, timesheet information and project, the expense and pay cheques of the remote employees are consequently delayed causing payroll problems. The use of an automated system implies that the data is smoothly entered online, the reminders sent on time, the information routed accordingly for approval and all this by a click of the mouse.
Manual methods of entering data into the system also lead to double entries. The employee writes the records which are often re-entered by the accounting department. This leads to undesirable duplication of data and calculation errors. There are several companies which have tried to automate the process of summarization and data capture.
