As we continue to evolve Allfred, our August product update introduces many new features and enhancements focused on optimizing your agency’s workflows, including better management of time and materials projects, advanced user settings, and more flexible invoicing options. These updates are designed to improve project management, streamline financial processes, and enhance overall efficiency. Let’s dive into the details of how these features can elevate your operations.

#1 Enhanced Management of Time and Materials Projects

Managing Time and Materials (T&M) projects in Allfred just got easier. We’ve introduced several key updates that enhance the way you handle these projects, from invoicing to expense management:

Invoicing with Commissions:

  • You can now apply commissions to your invoices, giving you the flexibility to automatically add a percentage-based fee on received expenses.

Changing Rate Cards:

  • Need to adjust rates on the fly? Our update allows you to switch rate cards easily within T&M projects. This means you can quickly adapt to changing project needs or client agreements without missing a beat.

Improved Work Items and Expense Management:

  • Creating new work items and managing received expenses is now more intuitive. With better controls, you can structure your project more effectively by creating new items, ensuring that all work and expenses are tracked and billed accurately.
How to manage Time and Materials Projects?
Advanced Time and Materials projects

#2 Advanced User Settings

We’ve revamped our user settings to give you greater control and flexibility:

Personal Settings:

  • Customize user details such as phone numbers, notes, and roles. Keep all relevant information about users at your fingertips.

Custom Planning and Utilization Settings:

  • Custom settings allow you to plan and track user capacities. Whether you’re setting specific daily capacities or managing how users appear in utilization reports, you now have full control.

Internal Hourly Rates for Date Ranges:

  • Set internal hourly rates for different time periods. This allows you to accurately calculate agency profits based on the actual costs of your resources.

Deactivation for Date Ranges:

  • You can temporarily deactivate users for specific periods without losing their data or disrupting your workflow. This is perfect for managing part-time schedules or handling long-term leaves.
Learn more about Users Settings
Learn how to manage user settings in Allfred, including personal details, planning & utilization, and internal hourly rates.

#3 Flexible Invoicing Options (Overinvoice, Discount, Zero Amount)

We’ve added more flexibility to our invoicing system, allowing you to tailor your invoices to meet specific client needs:

Overinvoicing of Projects:

  • Invoice amounts higher than the budgeted figures when necessary, giving you the flexibility to accommodate scope changes or additional work.

Zero Amounts and Negative Amounts (Discounts):

  • You can now create invoice items with zero amounts or apply discounts directly on the invoice. This is ideal for offering complimentary services or applying negotiated discounts.
Discover more about Invoicing
You can invoice amounts higher than specified in the budget, apply discounts with negative values, or add zero-value rows.

#4 Estimated Gross Income in Budgeting

We’ve introduced a new summary row in the budgeting section to help you better plan and forecast project profitability.

This feature calculates the expected gross income of your projects based on the budgeted work and the profits on external production or media. It gives you a clear view of your potential earnings before the project even starts.

Learn more about estimated Gross Income

#5 Export of Time-Offs

Managing employee time-off just got more efficient. You can now export all recorded time-offs, such as vacation days, doctor visits, or compensatory leaves, into an Excel file. This new feature allows for easier reporting and tracking of employee absences.

How to export Time-offs

#6 Bulk Downloading of Expense Attachments

Handling multiple expense attachments is now more streamlined. With the new bulk download feature, you can select multiple expenses and download all their attachments in one go. This is particularly useful for financial audits or when compiling expense reports.

How to download expense attachments?

#7 Role-Based Access to Budgets and Updated Proposal Management

Security and accessibility improvements have been made to how budgets and proposals are managed:

Role-Based Access to Budgets:

  • Access to budgets is now strictly role-based. Project Managers, Team Leaders, and Admins have varying levels of access depending on their responsibilities, ensuring that sensitive financial data is only accessible to the right people.

Updated Proposal Management:

  • We’ve removed the outdated “Proposals OLD” section to streamline your workflow. Budget proposals are now accessible directly in the “Proposals” tab within the Budgets section, making it easier to manage and convert them into active projects.
Who can see the budgets?

This August update is packed with powerful features and enhancements designed to elevate your agency’s performance. We’re excited for you to start using these tools to improve your operations. As always, if you have any questions or need assistance, our support team is here to help.

Stay tuned for more updates, and happy project managing!