Our Training management software (part of CompanyControls.net and EW Assist) now offers the ability to have multiple training modules within a training course that can be individually completed over time before completing the master training course.  This would be useful for long term training or training that has a number of elements connected to it.  Examples of training that would benefit from this type of approach would be induction training, on the job experience training or College courses.

Not only does this offer a better view of outstanding training but it also shortens the list of training for the employee so as not to have long and confusing lists of individual elements but a clear view of training achieved.

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The super filter on the People page now offers a filter to show staff coming near their start date anniversary and their birthdays as well as the end of their probabtion periods.

Files of scanned or saved documents can be uploaded to support various records such as sick notes, training records, drivers' licences or contracts through your software.  On all pages we have added a few examples of the types of documents you may want to upload but you can add to these.

Firstly you should find the page where the new document would best fit e.g. apprentice aggreements on the employee's personal documents page or industry membership cards on the Work Documents page.  Then go to Admin > Files and click 'Add New' next to Bulk File headers:

The File Class corresponds to the best fit page and the File Name is the new type of document such as Medical Review Report, Accident Risk Assessment or training location map/directions.  

Click Add and the new document type will be available to upload files to.

You can put commonly used links to pages and reports on your desktop for easy access.  Some examples are:

• EW Assist front door - https://ewassist.co.uk/cc
• A particular page e.g. People page - navigate to the required page and copy the URL in the address bar
• A report e.g. Leave cycles - open the report and copy the URL in the address bar

To add a link on your desktop, right click on your desktop and select New > Shortcut.  In 'Type the location of the item:' paste or type the URL of the webpage or report you wish to add and click Next.  In 'Type the Name for this shortcut:' type a name that describes its destination e.g. Leave report, John Smith, open injuries etc and click Finish.

A new icon will have been added to your desktop.  Double clicking that icon will open your browser and navigate to the URL.  So long as you are logged in it will go directly to the page or report, otherwise EW Assist will ask you to login first and then proceed to the page or report.

You need to have Client Admin access to your site.

Expenses is already turned on in Admin > System Functionality > Set Functionality Required.  It is here that you can remove it before the expiry date of your free trial if you wish.

The expense module has a number of different users that offer different levels of access:

Employees: All employees can raise expense claims

Managers: All Group Managers can approve the claims for their Group Members or return them to the employee with queries 

Employees with Functionality Roles 

Expense Claim Approver: This role allows the employee with it to approve claims for all employees across the business as if they were their Manager or return them to the employee with queries

Expense Claim Processor: This role is designed for the person(s) in Accounts/Payroll who will be collating and clearing the claims for payment or return them to the employee with queries

Expense Admin: This role has access to all previously described areas with the addition of the Admin area which allows for fine control of the expense process

 

You MUST add 'Expense Admin' Functionality role to atleast one of your employees for that person to be able to see the full Expense menu.  To do this a Client Admin should go to People > Employee name > Person (dropdown) > Functionality Role and add 'Expense Admin'.

 

The Expense menu for all users is found by going to Actions > Expenses.  From here monthly claims can be added and Open ones can be accessed.  Claims are Open until they are scheduled for payment by Accounts at which point they automatically move to the employees Paid area.  Open claims can be added to by the employee until they are digitally signed off by the employee after which only receipts and invoices can be added to support the claim (i.e. no new expenditure can be added).  However subsequent claims for the same month can be raised for anything that is forgotten or for a contentious item that might be returned with queries.  The Approval page is visible to all employees but, unless the user is a Group Manager or an Expense Claim Approver, no claims will be shown.  Process is the menu normally reserved for Accounts to check and clear claims for payment, gather claims into batch payments (i.e. for October 2014) and other Account and Payroll tasks.  Finally the Admin menu provides key settings to control the expense process such as financial periods, allowed currencies, exchange rates, mileage rates and custom pick lists.

Managing your expense claims takes considerable time, both for the employee to compile and submit them, your managers to approve and Accounts/payroll to process.  Our software makes this whole process much simpler and faster while keeping everyone informed at all stages.  The expense module is configurable to meet your needs but the following describes the general process:

EMPLOYEES

Employees that submit expense claims can do so online.  Monthly claims can be raised and completed throughout the month or in one go.  The claims can hold expenditure, mileage, cash advances and returns.  Expense claims can be raised in any currency with exchange rates converting expense items back into the employees own currency.  All expense items are categorised according to your own category choices.  Receipts and invoices can be uploaded with the claim to support the individual items. Once complete the claim can be digitally signed by the employee to make it available to the manager.

MANAGERS

This stage gives the departmental manager or a company-wide expense approver the chance to check the expenses and return the whole claim to the employee if there are any queries.  If there are no queries it can be digitally signed to take the claim to Accounts.

ACCOUNTS

Claims can be checked and either returned to the employee with any queries or cleared for payment.  Cleared claims are then grouped into the same currency to be scheduled for payment.  Previously paid groups of claims payments can be viewed and particular expense claims (at all stages) can be searched for and reviewed.

A comprehensive expense report is available which shows the individual claims, the expense items in those claims, any money transactions, the payroll payment summary for each employee and a category summary showing totals for areas such as travel, meals and lodgings.

 

Read more about How to get started using Expenses with your free trial 

New Expense Management Module

Expense claims can be raised by your employees and include catergorised expenditure, mileage, advances and returns.  Receipts and invoices etc can be uploaded to support the claim.  Once complete employees can submit the claim to be approved by their manager or returned to the employee for alteration with manager notes.  Once happy the manager can sign them off to be processed by accounts.  Accounts can adjust the VAT element and clear the claims for payment in batches.  Claims marked for payment are reflected as such for the employee.  Claims are fully searchable.  

Claims can be raised for any currencies (set in the admin area) and claim lines in any currency and then converted to the claim currency with up to date exchange rates.

Claim lines can be categorised and reported on.

Comprehensive reports provide a detailed view of the expenses including a payroll report for cleared expenses.

Recent improvements

The punch clock (in/out) has been overhauled to provide a better experience with more choices of punch terminal.

A new Functionality Role of Emergency Contact Admin allows employees to see the home address and next of kin information of all staff.  This is useful for a simple users of EW Assist to have access to this information when the Client Admin is away from the office.

A new report has been added to show the status of staff appriasals at Reports > Performance.

Support Documents can be uploaded and shown to an employee when completing their appraisal.  The document is uploaded at Admin > Files and linked to the appropriate apprasial.

Training can be cancelled after it has been set as current by the Training Admin more easily. 

 

Having dispersed information across the business is unhelpful.  Each employee has a different way of recording information and interpreting it.  Employee come and go and the replacement has to find and understand the previous employees records.  Three good reasons why it is better to centralise your efforts.

Our software allows everyone to record their information in one place with the same rules and management processes as each other.  It is better to have one available pot of information than a selection of spreadsheets, wall planners, notebooks and memories.

Our software can be used to store the Employee document or make it available for the employee to read.  Either way it is a far better solution than that of email.  Firstly there is no certainty that an email has been read, even if the read reciept is requested it doesn't have to be sent by the recipient of the email.  Even with that sent there is no confirmation that the attachments on the email have been read.

Emails are notorious for being lost in transit, either before they reach their destination in spam filters or sent to the wrong address or missed in the volumes of emails that everyone recieves or deleted or mis-filed in the wrong email folder.  Even if the email arrives in the inbox it soon disapears off the first page.  Emails are not the registered post they once were.

Our software does use emails as notifications and alerts but their purpose is to direct the recipient to the system rather than impart too much information there and then.  For one reason the email is out of date as soon as it leaves our servers.  The only up to date information is in the software.

Our general premise is that an action takes place by one or more employees and when another employee logs in those actions are waiting and can be further actioned or completed.  You should think of our software as the pot of information that everyone can dip in to (securely and with proper access permissions).  When someone else logs in there may be a leave request waiting, an accident report to complete, a training course request to organise and so on.

Documents follow the same approach.   Documents are uploaded to our secure servers and are available for the employee to read as and when they are able to.  Your Company Handbook, guidance during Apprisals or Location information for training courses is on hand in an available location.  In short its available to refer to when it is needed.

Our software quietly keeps track of who has read which documents and when so in the case of an employee not seeing a memo or a revision to the handbook, you can check.

Emails simply do not offer the same access, controls, security or availability as we can offer. 

Document management system

We have added a smart and reliable system that allows for files and documents to be uploaded against their relevant records or for an individual.

Files such as xls, pdf and doc and others can be uploaded to all staff (such as a Company Handbook), for a specific employee (such as a Contract of Employment) or to support other information (such as an employees passport or the certificate for a training course).  All files can log their downloads to show who has read them and when, with a report to show this information at Admin > Files > Download Access logs. All files will keep track of their versions and clearly present the latest version and the software will keep historical files for compliance purposes.  No documents will be deleted - only replaced with the newer version.

...TO ALL STAFF

Client Admins can upload files (Admin > Files > Files (dropdown) > Add...) under the existing categories (such as Company Handbook) that will then be available to staff at My Details > Files > Company.  An email should be sent if the file is to be viewed rather than being uploaded for availability purposes only.  The access logs will let you know who has seen the file.

...FOR A SPECIFIC EMPLOYEE

Personal documents such as Contract of employment or Letter of engagement can be transferred by Client Admins, Group Managers and the employee themselves. 

Client Admin:

Go to People > employee name > Files

Group Managers

Go to My Details > Groups > Employee name > Files

Employees

Go to My Details > Files > Personal Company. 

**These areas are protected and must be unlocked to access them.**

...TO SUPPORT OTHER INFORMATION

Furthermore supporting documents can be added to specific records with in the software.  For instance uploading a scanned copy of an employees passport or insurance documents on the Work Documents page for a member of staff.  While we have added some of the types of documents you might consider adding others against a particlar record, and you can do so by going to Admin > Files -> 'Bulk File Headers - Add New'.  For instance you could select Salary and add a salary review document or add a new personal document such as the employees dimensions for their company uniforms.

In addition to the above, templates can also be added to support a process that requires written letters or information that can't be collected from the system alone.  These can be added on the Admin > Files > Add... page or from the modules that they belong and the first example of this will be the disciplinary and grievance module that is soon to be made available.

All files are stored on our secure file server and within your own client folder for added security and clear seperation of data.  The system automatically creates a folder heirachy depending on the class of files being uploaded, e.g. Sick notes, training certificates etc.  All files are backed up on a daily basis.

The document management system comes ready to use with 10MB of storage which is enough to test with or to add your high level documents such as your Company Handbooks.  If you want to upload documents to specific staff or to support other information you will want to increase your storage.  See below for pricing:

10MB	0.5GB	1GB	2GB
Free	£99	£179	£299

All prices are charged annually and subject to VAT at 20%

System documents such as upload templates are also available to support the system but these do not count against your allocated storage.

For further information please contact Lee Porter on 02891823001