Aika - work time tracking solution

Aika is a quick-to-deploy solution for simple work time tracking. It is suitable for all companies that use Procountor and need to record and track work time.

• Aika is easy and fast to deploy in a few minutes without additional costs. The price of the service is based on the number of users: there is no separate monthly charge.
  • EUR 6.00 + VAT 25,5% per user per month
• Aika offers an export file for transferring data to Procountor.
• For the user, Aika is a handy way of recording one’s working hours.
• For the employer, Aika makes the hours worked transparent by offering an easy way to approve the hours and allocate them to cost centres.
• For the payroll accountant, Aika is a simple and efficient way to collect working hours from the end clients: More efficiency for salary calculation.

 

How can I deploy Aika?

• You can deploy Aika quickly by filling out the deployment form here. You will get access to the service immediately after registration.
• Log into the Aika service at https://app.ecomjet.com/sign-in.

 

How does Aika work?

• The employee records their working hours in the service. Aika is also available for mobile use.
• The supervisor, payroll accountant or other main user checks the recorded hours in the work expense entries in the Aika service, after which the recorded hours can be exported as a CSV file and imported to Procountor or other salary calculation software. 

The Aika service can be implemented even if salaries are calculated with a different program. However, Aika has been developed to match the salary calculation function of Procountor and, for example, the export file has been optimized for Procountor’s needs.

The full instruction manual for the service is available here (in Finnish). The usage instructions can also be accessed directly from the system by clicking the instruction manual button at the bottom left corner.

 

Settings: things to remember before implementing the service

Below is a list of the important settings for a successful use of the Aika service with Procountor. These should be specified and agreed upon together with the payroll accountant/accounting office before implementing the service.

• The personal IDs and salary type codes of the Aika service must correspond to the similar data in Procountor in order to export the data successfully. This ensures that the salaries can be exported to Procountor without problems.
• If you want to export dimensions from Aika to Procountor salary calculation, the dimensions must be the same in both programs.
• The Aika application does not have collective agreement interpretation, which means that the application does not automatically calculate, for example, overtime. However, overtime can be recorded by salary type, which makes transferring it to salary calculation easy.

To open the settings, click the Cogwheel icon on the left-hand sidebar of the program.

• User settings: User’s own information, such as the e-mail address and password setting. Includes also the enabling of two-step identification
• Company information: Company address and logo
• Subscription: Order and payment information for the service
• Dimensions: Setting dimensions
• Expense settings: Adding/editing salary types
• Users: Adding new users to the service
• Reset default settings: resetting the UI experience settings. The action require signing out.
• Language: The service language can be changed at the bottom of the program. The alternatives are Finnish, English and Swedish

 

1. Adding users

• You can add new users to Aika via the service settings under Settings > Users.
• Click the Invite user button to enter the information of the new user and specify their user role:
  • Admin: grants the main user rights: the opportunity to edit settings, add users and approve work expense entries

  • Normal: Normal Time user. Cannot modify settings or invite users.

  • Employee: Limited access rights. Cannot invite users. Can record work hours. Designed for employees who record their work hours into the service.

  • Inactive
• The Send Invite button sends the invitation to use the service to the new user via e-mail.

 

Person id

• When adding the user, the user’s id must be edited to correspond to the personal ID in Procountor.
• In Procountor, the personal IDs of employees can be checked under Salaries > Employee register.
• In Aika, the user identifier can be changed in the Settings > Users view by clicking on the user's name, and entering the new number in the Person id field. Then click the Save button.  

 

2. Adding Expense types together with the payroll accountant

• After implementation, the expense types used by the company must be set up in the Aika service separately.
• The expense types added to Aika must correspond to the salary types in Procountor in order to export the work expense entries to Procountor. Procountor Salary types and their codes are available in the Procountor Salary types Excel sheet.

Setting up the salary types:

1. Expense types are set up in Aika under Settings > Expense settings.
   1. If there is no need to allocate expense types to a project, for example, you can check the Allow unallocated expenses handling box.
   2. If you want the expense entries to be approved automatically, select Allow expenses auto-approving.
2. To Create a new expense type, click the New expense type button. The new expense type will appear at the bottom of the list.
3. Enter the expense type information:
   • number: must correspond to the Procountor salary type code
   • name: expense type name
   • salary type category and unit: time (h) or compensation (for example, daily allowance or kilometer allowance, pcs)
   • If necessary, enter also the expense and indirect expense that are used in the expense calculation of the project specified for the salary type in Aika. If the salary type is compensation, no indirect expenses are specified for it.
   • Default expense type: Checking this box will move the expense type to the program's Hour card - Daily view.

4. With the Add expense product button, you can add products to the expense type or assign the pay type to specific users. When a expense type is assigned to a user, they can only select those expense types assigned to them when they record their work expenses.

5. Finally, save the information by clicking the Save button.

 

3. Setting up dimensions

• If the company uses dimensions, these can be entered separately under Settings > Dimensions. Dimension information (dimension and item) must correspond to the dimensions in Procountor.

 

4. Project information

• If the work entries involve projects, these can be recorded in the Work and projects > Projects view. In this case, the user can add allocation information to the work expense entry, such as projects.
• If the work entries are allocated to a project, the project information will include work expenses that consist of the salary type expense and indirect expense, which are specified in the settings.

 

 5. Agreeing on the cooperation between the end client and the accounting office

• The cooperation between the end client and the accounting office should be taken into consideration when starting the use of the service. Does the accounting office or the end client serve as the service’s main user? The main user administers salary types, for example, and invites new users to the service.
• In addition, it should be agreed whether the end client submits the recorded working hours as a CSV file to the accounting office/payroll accountant or whether the accounting office/payroll accountant receives their own username for the service, in which case they can retrieve the information from the service themselves.

 

Work expense entries by the employee

Preparing work expense entries

Work expense entries are prepared under New > Expense by clicking the Expense button.

The instructions for entering the work expense entries

1. Enter the appropriate expense type, such as hourly work, in the Expense type field. Only the salary types allocated to the user are available for selection. 
2. Select the status and enter record date.
3. The name of the project of the customer can be entered into the Allocation field, if the hours should be allocated to a specific customer or project.
4. The duration of the work day is entered in the Start date/time and End date/time fields.
5. The dimension information allocated to the work can be specified in the Dimensions field, if used. To see all the dimensions added to the service, click the magnifying glass.
6. When you click the Save button, the Slip notes and Working time specification fields open, and you can add further details in these fields.

 

Hour card - daily

Work expenses can also be entered as hour cards. A hour card only includes the date, allocation and expense type fields. To open the hour card view, select New > Hour card - daily. The Hour card shows all the salary types that are allocated to the user and marked as default salary types.

 

Work timers

Working time can also be clocked by clicking the clock icon on the upper right corner.

You can also clock your work hours. Follow these steps:

1. Click the clock icon at the top right corner of the service.
2. A work timer window will open. Click the New work timer button and select Start to begin the timer.
   1. The work timer can be assigned directly to a project or started without an assignment.
3. When the timer is running, the clock icon turns green.
   1. You can stop or resume the timer by clicking the clock icon and selecting or .
   2. To stop the timer, click the button, which will save the work expense entry.
   3. If needed, you can discard the work time by clicking the  icon.

 

Mobile work expense entries

Aika is also available for mobile use, supporting the entering of working hours on a mobile phone.

 

Exporting work expense entries to procountor

Work expense entries are exported from Aika to Procountor with an export file. The export file is in the CSV format.

 

Retrieving and approving work expense entries

• You can view the work expense entries in the Work and projects > Expenses -view. 
• You can filter the entries by specifying the search criteria, such as date, location or employee. 
• The service main user can approve the recorded working hours by clicking the Approve button at the end of the row or opening the entry details and approving the transaction after checking.

• The entry can also be rejected if it requires additional information.
• When the user clicks the Reject button, the service asks them to confirm the rejecting and enter a reason for it. When the work expense entry has been rejected, its status changes to In progress.
• The returned entry is returned to the employee with the In progress status.

 

Creating the csv export file

• The approved work expense entries that meet the search criteria can be saved on the computer as a CSV file by selecting Work and projects > Expenses > More actions > Export expenses in the menu.
  
• Select Procountor as the file format in the window that opens.
• The Export button creates a CSV file of the salary data, which can be saved to the local computer and imported to Procountor or sent to the accountant or other person who imports the file to Procountor.
• The CSV file contains the row type, personal ID, salary type code, salary type name and number of rows.

Columns:

A Row type

B Personal ID

C Salary type code

D Salary type name

E Number

 

Importing salary data to Procountor

• The CSV file created by the Aika service is imported to Procountor under Salaries > New salary list.
• The Salary list date must be specified before importing the file.
• Click the Select file button to select the CSV file for importing.
• Click the Continue button to make Procountor create a new salary list in the program based on the data. 
• The salary data is allocated to employees based on their personal ID. The salary data cannot be transferred if the person’s identifier in Aika does not match the personal ID in Procountor.

 

How to terminate the service?

• You can terminate the service within the program by selecting Settings > Subscription > Cancel subscription. 
• The contract ends at the end of the billing period.