Here are the basic steps for Generations Billing and Payroll:

1. Create schedules in Generations with the status of unconfirmed.
2. Caregivers work the shifts. Generations Telephony and Wellness automatically confirms shifts for you based on caregiver login and logout. If you do not use telephony yet, you confirm shifts manually based on the paper timesheets. In many cases, Generations Telephony & Wellness has the potential to eliminate paper timesheets! Contact Amanda to learn more.
3. Create Timesheets. This one-click procedure gathers the confirmed shifts and swoops them into the Edit Timesheets. THIS is the data that feeds billing & payroll. 
4. In Edit Timesheets, add other expenses, and, if you wish, indicate that proper paperwork was received.
5. Next review a billing or payroll report to see exactly what you will be billing or paying.
6. Finally, once you're satisfied that the data in Generations is accurate, transfer or export the billable and payable data.

While the billing and process may seem daunting at first, it becomes much easier as you walk through these steps several times. Be sure to attend some of our webinars this month for step-by-step reviews and explorations of the other available options.

1. Run an Unconfirmed Shifts Report. This report helps ensure that nothing is missed because it shows you any shift that is not confirmed.  

2. Unless your agency does Advance Billing, only create timesheets for confirmed shifts. These are the shifts that have been worked, and are verified by Generations Telephony and Wellness or by a paper timecard. You can turn on the option to only create timesheets for confirmed shifts under Company Settings. 

3. Before you do your invoicing, billing export, CMS1500, or MAS90 Export, always, always review the Billing Report By Client. This report shows you exactly what will be included in the billing for each client and is the absolute best place to find errors BEFORE those invoices go out to clients. If you find something in the report that is not correct, make adjustments to the actual shift in Schedules, then create timesheets again to gather that information into Timesheets.

4. Review the Timesheet Detail Report before you transfer payroll or export to payroll vendors. This report shows you exactly what data will appear on the check and gives you the opportunity to correct mistakes before those checks go out to caregivers. If you find something that is not correct, make adjustments to the shift in Schedules, then create timesheets again to bring that updated information into Timesheets.

About Late Timesheets

The key to handling late timesheets accurately is using the "unpaid" box in Edit Timesheets. When you export payroll or send Timesheets to QuickBooks, the Timesheets in Generations are marked as paid. The 'unpaid' box allows Generations to determine which timesheets for the given time period are NOT paid.  

When you receive a late timecard, you still want to update and confirm the shift. Then create Timesheets, and review the Timesheet Detail Report: be sure to select "Un-Paid." This shows you only the shifts that are not marked as paid in Generations, and you can transfer to QuickBooks or only export those shifts to your payroll vendor.  

About Other Expenses and QuickBooks 

For those additional items that are not based on time but rather based on quantity, such as mileage or a supply reimbursement, you'll want to set those up as Other Expenses in Generations and then link them to QuickBooks Other Expenses.  If these additional items are not reimbursements, and are actually a source of revenue for your agency, then you'll want to assign them an income account in QB. To do this we recommend:

1. Establish a link between the Other Expense Item and an expense account.

2. Browse to your QuickBooks Items List and find the item you just linked.

3. Change the account to an appropriate income account.

The best practice for giving pay raises is to create a new payroll item, assign that and the new rate to the caregiver(s) receiving the raise. For example,  the payroll item name for the old rate might be "Hourly2014," while the payroll item name for the new rate might be "Hourly2015."

You should never type over the existing pay rates as this "writes over" existing historical data - the "new" rate would show on "old" shifts! After you've assigned the newest payrate to each caregiver,  use the Edit Schedules form to update the schedules (client by client) from the effective date thru all future dates. 

Locking Timesheet Weeks  

Did you know that you can lock Timesheet Week (or weeks) to prevent further editing? Navigate to the Timesheet dropdown menu and select "Maintain Timesheet Weeks." To lock (and unlock) weeks, simply click on the lock on the left of the screen.  

When The Client Pays The Caregiver

Some agencies have a business model where the client pays the caregiver directly. Our Third Party Pay report is designed for this type of agency. 

1. From the interfaces menu at the top of the screen, select Billing Export.
2. Set up your parameters as desired.
3. Place a checkmark in 3rd Party Pay
4. Click OK and the report opens. You can share this report with your clients.

Send an email to gensuccess@idb-sys.com and let us know what your best practices are on any of the following topics.  

• Pay Raises
• Service Code Changes
• What do you do when you have a new payor?
• Advance Billing
• Wage garnishments

Answer: Keep in mind the Timesheets in QuickBooks only contain Service Items and not Other Expenses. So while your time data (hours worked) will transfer automatically to QuickBooks, Other Expenses (mileage) have to be manually added to your payroll.  Simply run the Other Expense report out of Generations to look for these additions. The good news is mileage DOES automatically transfer to client invoices in QuickBooks. 

Question: Why don't my scheduling reports match up with my Timesheet or Billing Reports? 

Answer: They're not pulling from the same set of data. Scheduling reports pull from schedules while Timesheet and Payroll reports pull from Timesheets. And because the two do not automatically update one another (a change to schedules doesn't update timesheets and vice versa) it's not unusual to find a discrepancy.  Just remember to refresh your timesheets if you make any changes to the calendars.  

We also have learned over the years that the discrepancy is often the result of someone making a change to the shift in the Timesheets, and not to the in Schedules.  The important thing to know is that, if you follow our recommended best practice of making corrections to schedules then creating Timesheets again, the two reports will match.  

Question: A caregiver drove out to the client's home, but the client wasn't there. I still want to pay the caregiver for her time. What do I do? 

Answer: This is really a question about how to handle cancelled shifts, and that can be a complicated answer. The answer depends on whether your agency tracks or does not track lost revenue. Click here to read the best practice documentation in Help.