Timesheet Automation with Intelligent Document Processing

Business challenge

Working with one of our clients, we faced the need to optimize employee time tracking by eliminating the burden of double reporting with the help of intelligent document processing. As part of the client’s development team, about 60 Intellias engineers had to log work in both the client’s time tracker and our internal time tracker to ensure correct billing and payroll. This manual effort put an extra strain on employees, taking up their time and imposing unnecessary overhead costs.

To record working hours in both systems, our engineers had to switch between accounts, which required additional time for setup. When offloaded to the operations specialists, the effort of collecting and converting individual timesheets into a single report for client invoicing was just as challenging. Apart from being annoying and time-consuming, this routine introduced human errors such as wrong inputs and overlooked data, resulting in inconsistencies between the systems.

Intellias managers also felt constrained in this situation, as they didn’t have centralized oversight of the team’s activities to track costs and make necessary adjustments. Having analyzed the problem, we decided to use robotic process automation (RPA) to develop an intelligent document processing solution and thus reduce administrative overhead related to timesheet management.

Solution delivered

Low-code integration

As there was no unified system for tracking and auditing time spent on our client’s project, we solved this constraint by looking into intelligent document processing solutions. Based on feedback from all affected stakeholders — developers, operations specialists, and managers — our Business Process Management (BPM) team introduced an idea to create an automated software agent to perform timesheet-related operations. Our RPA office built an automation solution that provides document processing services to free up time for our employees.

To meet our specific needs, we had to find an appropriate technology. We wanted to use SharePoint for timesheet storage and Excel for data aggregation, so we chose Microsoft Power Automate to get all the advantages from a native integration. By doing so, we eliminated the need for costly customizations and development. This aligned with our goal, as we aimed to execute an automated flow with minimal effort yet maximum effect.

Orchestrated flow

By fine-tuning the process of uploading timesheets from the client’s system to the Intellias SharePoint platform, we established a centralized data storage. Our managers can now easily track, review, and approve employee time spent across the client’s projects. Engineers only upload individual timesheets once per month, after which the automation solution performs intelligent document processing.

Each upload of a PDF timesheet triggers an automated flow that extracts the employee’s work time information and adds it to a single comprehensive Excel report. As part of the automation logic, an AI model discerns and processes all relevant data for a given month. For example, other paid hours such as vacations, sick leaves, and business trips are also transferred and marked accordingly.

Then, the operations specialist can import the aggregated spreadsheet to the Intellias task tracker in just a few clicks, thereby ensuring consistent employee time records in both systems. The internal Intellias system further generates invoices itself based on the provided timesheet data on par with smart document processing solutions.

Automation effect

The intelligent software agent developed in record time by our RPA engineer to perform timesheet document processing services has added significant value across roles and departments:

• For engineers: The automated flow for timesheet transfer removed the inconvenience of double reporting to two systems. It allows engineers to spend half the time logging work.
• For managers: Robotic process optimizations set the stage for centralized reporting to provide an easy and transparent overview of the team’s activities. It’s expected to release about 20 hours per month spent on reviewing and approving employee time reports.
• For operations specialists: The automation solution helped save about 60 hours per month by escaping the need to manually enter timesheet data for engineers. Otherwise, this would have required spending at least one hour a month per development team member.

Overall, timesheet automation with document processing solutions reduced human errors due to manually transferring data between systems. It also streamlined billing approvals, promoting faster business operations and profitability.

Business outcome

To resolve the problem of double reporting and manually coordinating entries between two time trackers, we adopted timesheet automation based on intelligent document processing solutions. Leveraging our RPA expertise, we created an automated flow allowing us to free up valuable time for our employees and considerably reduce administrative overhead.

In terms of implementation complexity, this was a simple and fast yet efficient solution, providing immediate results across the company. By relying on RPA to optimize our workflows, we sped up our business processes while boosting efficiency, productivity, and employee satisfaction.