Hours are self-reported and unverifiable
A consultant says thirty-eight hours, the client says they were there for thirty-two, and there is nothing between the two claims but memory.
Industries
Employee management for staffing and consulting firms
Your people work at somebody else’s office, on somebody else’s network, and your invoice depends on hours you did not personally witness. That is a specific problem, and it is mostly a records problem.
The problems this sector actually has
Written from what customers in this sector tell us goes wrong, rather than from a generic list of benefits.
Timesheets arrive late and in five formats
Some on email, some on WhatsApp, some on the client’s own system, and invoicing waits for all of them.
Client audits ask for evidence
Particularly on time-and-materials contracts, and a spreadsheet assembled after the fact is not evidence.
The bench is invisible
Who is deployed, who is between assignments and who is on leave lives in somebody’s head and a spreadsheet that is a week out of date.
Client site rules restrict tooling
Some client networks will not allow an unknown agent to be installed on a machine at all.
Leave is approved by the wrong person
The client manager knows the consultant is off; your HR system finds out at payroll.
How Employee Desk is used here
Hours against a client project
Each deployment is a project. Tracked hours, or daily work reports where a tracker is not permitted, attribute to it. The per-client export is then the timesheet, in one format, on time.
Evidence that stands up
Measured hours with an activity percentage, recorded as work happened rather than typed in afterwards. Where a contract requires more, screenshots can be enabled for that deployment alone.
Attendance and leave for the whole bench
Deployed and non-deployed staff on one register, one leave policy and one holiday calendar, so utilisation and availability are visible without a separate spreadsheet.
Where the client will not allow an agent
Browser-based attendance and daily work reports need nothing installed on a client machine. It is reported rather than measured time, but it is consistent, timely and in one format.
A configuration that usually works
A starting point rather than a prescription. Most teams adjust one or two of these in the first month.
| Setting | Typical choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Plan | Growth, or Pro where contracts require screenshots | Tracker for deployed staff, screenshots only by exception |
| Project structure | One project per client deployment | The timesheet and the invoice line then match |
| Tracker | Where the client site permits it | Fall back to daily work reports where it does not |
| Screenshots | Off by default, on per deployment if contracted | Configurable per team rather than company-wide |
| Attendance | Everyone, including the bench | Utilisation needs the denominator, not just the deployed hours |
| Leave approval | Your manager, with the client informed separately | Keeps your records authoritative |
| Deployment | Self-hosted where client contracts require it | Common in BFSI and government-adjacent work |
Frequently asked questions
Can we produce per-client timesheets?
Yes. Hours per project for any date range, exported as CSV. With one project per deployment, the export is the timesheet.
What if the client will not allow the tracker on their machines?
Use attendance and daily work reports in the browser. You lose measured activity but keep a consistent, timely, single-format record, which is usually the actual problem being solved.
Can consultants be on multiple client projects?
Yes. Time attributes to whichever project is selected, and switching mid-day splits the session so a day can span two clients cleanly.
Does it work for client-site staff on client email addresses?
Users are created with your own domain, so a consultant keeps one account across deployments regardless of what the client issues them.
Can we self-host because of client security requirements?
Yes, and staffing firms serving banking and government clients frequently do. See self-hosted deployment.
Try it on your own team this week
Start on the cloud in ten minutes, or tell us your headcount and where the server has to live and we will price the self-hosted licence on the call.
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