Handling Time Management for Freelancers

Freelancers are typically paid out of accounts payable (i.e. purchases). In contrast, when regular team members submit time, it is booked against specific jobs, which can also accumulate costs from places such as purchases.

If freelance team members are submitting time in aACE, be sure to leverage the aACE features that prevent freelancer timesheets from generating GL entries at approval. This confirms the cost is applied to the job only once and prevents a double expense (see configuration steps below).

Generating Purchases and Checks for Freelancers

Freelance team members can create and submit timesheets themselves, or the timesheets can be entered by other team members who receive the freelancer's invoice. Freelancer timesheets do not affect accounting until the purchase record is entered. In contrast, regular team member timesheets impact the accounting modules as soon as they're approved (depending on your time management settings).

After freelancer timesheets are entered, team members generate a purchase record populated with line item codes from the timesheet (i.e. jobs and hours worked) and with the Unit Cost from the freelancer's Team Member record. 

1. Navigate from Main Menu > Internal > Timesheets. 
2. Use the Quick Search bar to display the freelancer timesheet(s) that are due.
3. Click Actions > Generate Purchases for Timesheets in List > Generate > View.

Configuring Your System for Freelancers

The system administrator must configure the Accounting preferences and set up each freelancer's Team Member record:

Accounting Preferences for Freelance Timesheets

1. Navigate from Main Menu > Accounting > Preferences > Data Entry. 
2. In the Timesheets section, mark the flag to 'Allow purchases to be generated from timesheets for freelancers'. 
3. Click Commit Updates.

Freelance Team Member Records

1. Navigate from Main Menu > Internal > Team Members. 
2. Locate the team member you need to work with. 
3. At the detail view, click the Human Resources tab, then click Edit. 
4. Above the Compensation Setup section, mark the Freelancer flag. 
5. In the Pay Rate field, enter the team member's base hourly rate.
6. In the Multiplier field, enter "1".
   Note: The Multiplier is a number typically provided by a payroll service to help you calculate how much a team member costs with taxes, benefits, and other compensation factors included. Because freelancers do not typically receive these additional benefits, the Multiplier is "1". This means the Bill Rate matches the Pay Rate. (Read more about setting up your system for time management.)
7. Click Save.

If the team member does not already have a personal 'company' record, click Actions > Create Related Company. Creating related Company and Contact records helps to streamline the process for generating purchases.