Help - Questions / Answers

The reflection on the initial configuration of Tempolia should focus in particular on:

• the choice of task, expense, and sales codes: make a list of the types of tasks on which employees work, the nature of the expenses entered (kilometers by car, restaurant, etc.), and sales codes (at associate with the accounts defined in accounting)
• the use of the concepts of group of collaborators, activities and client families: you will be able to find your clients better by categorizing them by activity and by family. This categorization is free, you define the lists as you wish

• the method of coding clients and matters: it is interesting to have internal rules, to use identical codifications between your different software, ...
• setting up collaborator, client and matter characteristics: you can create personalized characteristics, which are boxes in the database that you can then use freely

• the billing methods that will be used: fixed price, time spent, quantity
• properly configure the billable task codes. Time spent invoicing uses the notion of Exceptional time, and billable task codes may have this option enabled by default to simplify the entry of time spent. In addition, if certain tasks must be invoiced based on quantities, it is necessary to set up the corresponding task code accordingly.

The "Configuration" menu allows you to define the settings adapted to your activity:

• the references of your (or your) company (ies): identification, bank details. Tempolia can simultaneously manage several companies. Each case will be associated with one of your companies, which will impact the invoicing mechanism.

• the activities that define the nature of your business. The attachment of clients and matters to an activity allows sorting and profitability analyzes on this criterion.
• the sales codes which determine the posting in the accounts of the invoiced amounts excluding tax. Each line of an invoice is associated with a sales code. Each sales code can be associated with a default price, a standard label or a calculation formula for invoicing.
• the task codes or nature of the work carried out by employees. Task codes are used for entering time spent or budgeted. Some tasks with a price per quantity allow invoicing on the basis of quantities. A billable task can be associated with an hourly selling price per task (Task PV), which allows an alternative valuation of times to that based on the hourly rates of employees (Collaborator PV).
• the "Quantity selling price per case" page allows entry of quantity selling prices specific to each case.
• non-billable tasks allow you to track time not allocated to client matters (internal activities, absences, recovery time, etc.)
• Expense codes will allow you to enter expenses, such as restaurant bills, or car kilometers. Each cost code can be associated with unit cost and sales prices which allow their automatic re-invoicing.

The « Configuration > General options » page allows you to :

• define the controls associated with the input: for example, warn or block beyond a certain threshold of hours,
• lock previous periods,
• decide whether the time spent should be valued at current or historical rates.

Billable tasks represent activities for which the time spent by employees can be billed to clients. A task can be "Billable by quantity" if you want to re-invoice according to the quantity produced and not the time spent, and the notion of "Exceptional" makes it possible to automatically propose for invoicing the time spent on this task.

Non-billable tasks are on the contrary:

• absences, such as paid leave,
• or internal activities (Presence) not directly linked to customers, such as administration or internal meetings. These tasks help manage and allocate non-billable time, essential for controlling overhead and assessing internal costs.

For each task, you must enter a unique 5-character code, and a wording which will be used by default when entering times. You can also use the NLU (No Longer Use) box which prevents new entries under an old code while retaining historical data.

Thus, billable and non-billable tasks allow complete and differentiated management of time spent, facilitating both invoicing to clients and monitoring of internal non-billable activities.

Sales codes correspond to the nature of the billed service and determine the accounting allocation of each invoice line. You can create one sales code per type of billed service. Tempolia lets you enter a specific billing label for each matter. The label text can include wildcard characters that are automatically replaced with information such as the month, quarter or an order number.

Expense codes are used to enter expenses incurred or to be incurred, and provide a complete view of the cost of client matters. Each expense code can be associated with unit cost and sales prices, making expense entry easier.

Billable task codes correspond to the nature of the work performed by an employee and are used to enter planned and actual time. They also make it possible to value planned or actual time.

Non-billable task codes are used to allocate non-billable time and expenses. This detailed code management lets you accurately track all costs and revenue related to your activity.

Invoices can be budgeted to ensure fast monthly issuing, avoid omissions and reduce your working capital requirement. If you invoice based on actual work, billing can also be automated using exceptional time and expense entries, which are pulled into billing with their valuation.

You can track collections: automatically retrieve incoming bank transfers, enter cheques, and prepare direct debits automatically when preparing the invoice. You can then submit your direct debits to the bank with SEPA direct debit XML file generation.

Tempolia offers customizable client reminders that include the balance details. Client reminders can use different wording depending on the age of the balance, helping you manage overdue amounts.

Invoices can be saved as PDFs, sent by email and exported to your accounting system. A matching system links each payment to the corresponding invoice. An aged balance report lets you know where you stand with collections at any time.

The issuance of invoices requires prior configuration:

• Invoice template: the invoice template(s) must be configured, contact our support for implementation.
  The default model associated with each of your issuing companies can be specified for a particular matter or modified for a particular individual invoice.

• Company: contact details and default invoice template for the company
• VAT: codes, rates, account numbers and comments
• Sales codes, with their account number, VAT code, billing label and possibly, associated standard price and calculation formula.

The billing labels for standard sales codes and by case may in particular include coded formulas to automatically obtain the month, quarter or number of the deposit during the actual preparation of invoices.

The lines of the same invoice are classified in the order of their entry or in the alphabetical order of the sales codes according to the option selected in the entry configuration. We can therefore have codified the sales codes to force the classification of invoice lines according to the type of service.

• Clients: enter the billing address, payment terms.

Unless otherwise configured, the invoice models offered by Tempolia provide that invoices are sent to the invoicing address of the case. This normally corresponds to that of the client.

It is possible to enter in the client's file a billing address distinct from his main address. A billing address can also be specified at the level of the client's relevant matter.

The client also determines the account assignment customer account.

• Matters: entry of sales codes for automatic re-invoicing of times and unallocated costs, of a possible specific invoicing address, of the invoice model and of the invoicing unit of the time spent by default of the case.
• and possibly account numbers (clients, sales and VAT) to allow the transfer of the invoices to your accounting software.

You can send emails with Tempolia, for example invoice emails to your clients.

Emails will come from your email server to avoid any spam issues. You can send us an existing address, or create an email address specifically for Tempolia.
It is important that you regularly check for emails to this address, for example to click on links from antispam platforms asking you for a captcha.

The necessary information is: SMTP server (example: smtp.gmail.com), email address, password, port (25, 465 or 587), name to display.
If you have multiple companies, by default a single SMTP account can be used, and you can also duplicate configurations per company.

You can configure yourself by being logged in as an administrator and going to « Configuration > [ADMIN] Configuration Variables »: search for "email_configuration" to find the variables configuration concerned.
For example, you can enter:
- nom_expediteur_forced (name to display): Name of person, or Billing Department for example
- mail_smtp (SMTP server): smtp.yyy.zz
- default_email_from (email address): xxx@yyy.zz
- mail_smtp_username (SMTP login, often identical to email): xxx
- mail_smtp_password (password): .......
- mail_smtp_port (SMTP port): 587
- mail_smtp_auth: true
- forced_sender_email: true

To test your configuration, in « Collaborators > Send email to a collaborator »
- Select a collaborator, a priori yourself
- Choose an email template and/or fill in a message
- Modify the recipient email if necessary
- Validate by clicking on "Send"
- Check your email that your email has been received correctly
In the event of an error message, read what is written in English in red: this is what is returned by your email server, and allows you to know what to correct in your configuration.

To add / modify your logo on your billing model:

• In the « Tools > Managing Server Files » you can upload your logo. The filename is automatically appended with a suffix to make the filename absolutely unique on the server.
• Go to « Setup > Billing Model », and click on the blue gear icon in the « action » for the model line you are interested in.
• In the « back to top » then “ Header », in “Header or Logo Image File” you can select your file name from the images you uploaded to the server.

You can then adjust the position of your logo at any time. the horizontal (X) and/or at the vertical (Y) but also in width and height. Finally, click on « Send » to save your changes.

Tempolia is designed to adapt to the processes of your business area. You can customize many parts of the software, such as document templates, user access rights and entry settings. It is also possible to create custom additional fields in client, matter, employee and contact records. These fields appear in the detail records under the "Customizable characteristics" tab.

For many topics, we can activate custom settings for you as part of support so that the tool works the way you need. We can also provide specific developments for your own requirements, based on a quotation.

When you no longer provide services for a client, you can assign a departure date to mark that client as gone. The client will no longer appear in the list of current clients and will no longer be proposed for new entries, but previous data remains present and nothing is deleted automatically.

When an employee has left, the same principle applies: you can assign a departure date to the employee.

As part of client management, matters can be marked as completed or closed:

• Completed matters are no longer available for entry, unless they are reopened, and they still contain all their data. They can be reopened later.
• Closed matters have all their related data deleted, such as time, expenses and invoices. Only a trace of the matter’s existence remains. Since everything else is deleted, a matter should typically only be closed after 10 years.

Deleting a matter is only possible if the matter has previously been closed.

It is also possible to delete non-billable time and expenses for a defined period.

Tempolia keeps a history of deletions and closures.

You can manage several companies at the same time with the same Tempolia account, with no impact on billing for our software. Companies configured in Tempolia can be distinct legal entities, but also establishments of the same company. By default, each company has its own invoice numbering sequence, but companies can also share the same numbering sequence. In that case, enter another company code in the numbering sequence number so the system uses that other company’s sequence. Each company can have its own invoice template or use a shared template in which the company details and logo are automatically adjusted.

Clients can be shared between several companies. In that case, at least one matter per company must be created to group the services of each company.

Access rights, reports and printouts can easily be limited to one or more companies. Internal services, meaning time or expenses incurred by employees of one company for matters of another company, are covered by a specific report.

In addition to the employees present in the database, it is possible to log in as Administrator to manage all features without access-right limitations. This Administrator concept is not attached to an employee account: it is a super account, and it necessarily exists.

It is possible to create employee accounts with all rights, which you might call for example "Manager" to avoid confusion with the Administrator concept. Some technical configuration options are only accessible to the Administrator for security reasons.

First, the "Help - Questions / Answers" section lets you search by keyword to find information.

As part of support, we can answer any specific question about using the software. You can describe your needs by email, with details and screenshots if useful, or contact us directly so that we can provide a precise answer.

Our support team is available by phone and email during our opening hours. We generally reply within 24 to 48 hours. You can also consult our online help, which includes answers on specific topics as well as assistance panels integrated into the software.

For broader support, we offer training sessions on topics you choose, to help you optimize a working process.

Tempolia offers many analysis options to manage your activity. You can create pivot tables or go to « Tools > Reports / printouts ». In particular, you can use the following approaches:

• By client and by matter: summary or detailed reports, limited to actual work or compared with forecasts, etc.
• By employee or group: analysis of time spent, activity control, internal services, etc.
• By task type: time performed by task, average rate applied, etc.
• By month: monthly distribution of employee work, billing budgets, revenue, etc.
• Detailed: pre-billing report with exceptional time to invoice, details of services performed for a client to analyze bonus / loss, etc.

All reports are customizable, exportable to Excel or displayable in your browser, with the columns of your choice. You can therefore print to PDF with a zoom level adapted to the number of selected columns.

Tempolia places profitability at the center of matter management, with two key indicators:

• Bonus/loss is calculated based on the theoretical sales price of the mission, giving a view of performance compared with forecasts.
• Cost-price margin evaluates profitability by considering the actual costs incurred. The employee hourly cost price can be calculated precisely in the tool, including salaries, charges, fixed costs and bonuses, or entered manually.

The value of these two indicators lies in how they complement each other: a matter can show a loss on theoretical sales price while retaining a good margin on cost price, and this dual analysis will lead to different management actions. These data are summarized by client and by matter, including time spent, valuation, expenses and billing, making it possible to visualize workload overruns and obtain an overall view of performance.

Any invoice issued by Tempolia can be sent by email as long as the "PDF Teledistribution" option is activated and an email address is entered in the customer file.

The "Download as PDF" option for an invoice is inherited from the information in the customer file when preparing an invoice, and can be modified subsequently. You can also modify this information for all your customers using the « Customers / Business > Group modification of customers » page, which will allow invoices prepared in the future to inherit this information.

On the « Billing > Invoices » page, there are two columns that concern sending by email:

• The “By email” column is checked if the “PDF download” box on the invoice is checked.
• Next to it, the "Sent" column is automatically checked if the invoice was sent via the Tempolia interface.

You can indicate the language spoken by your clients in the Client records, under the "Customizable characteristics" tab. This information is then used to determine the language in which invoice PDFs are generated for that client. If your invoice template contains direct text, for example terms shown at the bottom of the invoice, that text must be translated: either duplicate the template to create a template in another language, which is the simple solution, or duplicate configuration variables to specify English values, which is more flexible and more technical.

The content of your invoices that comes from labels must be entered by you in the correct language; it is not translated automatically when the PDF is generated. However, the overall structure of the invoice is generated in the requested language.

Tempolia’s « Tools > Reports and printouts » feature is a powerful module for producing clear and detailed analyses, essential for managing the activity. Its main purpose is to generate structured and complete documents for in-depth analysis, much more detailed than a simple page printout.

A wide range of reports is available from a drop-down list at the top of the page, such as the "Aged balance" for monitoring client receivables, the "Sales journal", or "Employee activity control" reports to compare time spent with allocated budgets. The most commonly used report is "Summary of actual work by matter", used to calculate margins and bonus/loss by matter.

You can precisely select the columns to include in your report by dragging them from the left side, available columns, to the right side, selected columns, or by double-clicking a column name. Advanced filters let you target data, and quick filters in the form of value tables let you restrict a report to specific clients, matters or employees.

You can create groupings and subtotals, for example by client, to improve readability, sort rows in the desired order and limit the analysis to precise dates.

Once you have created a report configuration that suits you, you can save it with a name and indicate whether it is private, available only through your account, or public, available to all accounts with access rights to this type of report.

By clicking the link at the top of the page to change format, you can generate reports in HTML format, ideal for printing or PDF conversion, or in CSV format to open in Excel.

Tempolia’s « Tools > Pivot tables » feature lets you investigate data freely and interactively in real time, like the pivot tables found in Excel. It is ideal for management control and investigations outside standard reports. You can quickly transform raw data into clear, usable multidimensional analyses without leaving the software.

You start by choosing a data source, such as time spent or budgets. You can then work with the data by drag and drop, organizing your analysis by placing the desired fields, clients, matters, employees, tasks, and so on, in rows or columns to create customized views.

This flexibility lets you build real-time custom analyses. You can also choose the value displayed at the intersection of rows and columns: it may be the sum of time, its valuation, sales price, or the cost price. The system automatically calculates totals by row and by column, giving an immediate summary.

Filters can be applied to refine the results and keep only relevant information. Once you have created a suitable analysis view, you can save this configuration for later reuse, making regular monitoring easier.

Finally, for more advanced processing or to share results, you can export the generated table very easily to Excel: click "Heat map" on the left of the table to change the visualization to "CSV to paste into Excel", then select the data table and paste it into Excel to manipulate and optionally save the data.

The « Events > Engagement letters » page lets you generate an engagement letter for a client based on a document template. A template is typically an engagement letter, a service offer or a contract. You can prepare as many templates as you need.
It contains tags, equivalent to mail merge fields in Word, such as company name, address, manager name, a table of budgeted amounts for the first year, and a table of deadlines. These tags are replaced in the template by values from the client record and the budgets and deadlines attached to the client, including customizable characteristics that you can personalize to store any information you want to capitalize on at client level in a CRM logic.

Two operating modes exist to manage your templates and then generate engagement letters for a client:

• Solution 1: edit your template as HTML text in « Configuration > Email / engagement letter templates ». You can then generate the personalized client version as HTML, copy / paste it into Word and finalize the layout. You can also generate a PDF directly, although the document is then no longer editable, which is less flexible than the other solutions.
• Solution 2: prepare your template in Word, with your logo, header, footer and font, and upload it into Tempolia through « Tools > Server file management ». Generating the engagement letter for a client lets you download a completed Word document, review it and modify it in Word if necessary. This approach fully preserves the layout you created in your Word template. It saves significant time while keeping full freedom over the wording and presentation of your contractual commitments.

Optionally, Tempolia has an agreement with JeSignExpert to allow electronic signature of your engagement letters: go to « Tools > Electronic signature » to submit your finalized document and have it signed by your client.