Building in Extensibility

BigTime is an open system, so you can create features that don't exist as a part of the core program. In fact, we have a professional services team that is dedicated to extending the functionality of the system for clients with specialized requirements. In addition, our customization engine was built to permit your firm to create (or commission) changes to the system that won't be overwritten when the system is updated.

If you have a special need that's not met by our off-the-shelf features, contact your sales representative about getting help from our professional services team. Our team has worked with hundreds of firms on projects large and small, including changes in the following areas:

• Customized data entry screens. Our team can create customized versions of the time or expense entry screens that your users see when they're entering data. We can also create custom versions of the offline entry forms.
• Customized Time/Expense Submission Rules. When your users submit their timesheets or expense reports, the system can be set up to apply your own set of firm-specific "rules." You might, for example, ask the system to mark all of your internal time as non-billable, or you might automatically fill in the estimate line item based on the category or project settings the user has entered. You can even configure BigTime to reject a user's time and expenses if they don't meet your organization's requirements.
• Payroll Reporting/Exports. Many BigTime users link their employee timesheets directly to their payroll system, and BigTime's services group has created standard links between BigTime and many popular payroll services. We can help you create a link that takes advantage of your specific rules on overtime, PTO, and other policies.
• Specialized QuickBooks Integrations. BigTime ships out of the box with a fairly advanced QuickBooks integration engine that many of our customers ask us to tweak or configure to meet their specialized needs. We've created links to post specialized journal entries, customized invoice formats, and more.
• Custom Billing Rate Schedules. While the billing rate engine accommodates most of the billing scenarios that you can throw at it, some customers have complex billing rate rules that they have trouble articulating within the system. Our services team can help you figure out the best approach and can even design specialized rate filters that apply billing rate logic our standard rate cards can't.
• Invoicing Logic. We'll help you create complex invoicing scenarios and we'll help you figure out how to articulate your specific needs within the invoicing engine.
• Specialized Invoice Output Formats. If your customers need to see specific information on their printed invoices and your team would rather hand the entire custom format off to our experts, we can help you get up and running quickly with a custom printed invoice.
• Custom Reporting. Most of our customers have custom reporting needs, and BigTime can satisfy most of them out of the box. For the reporting needs that your team can't quite satisfy, our group of experts can get new reports designed and deployed quickly.
• Import/Export Services. If you're moving into BigTime from another system, or you'd like to export data for your team to play with on their own, our professional services team can get you the specific data you need in whatever format your team requires (XLS, DOC, CSV, MDB and more).
• Integration with External Systems. BigTime's database is 100% open, so we can help you connect it to other systems within your company (whether you're just viewing BigTime's data or you're posting data between the two systems).

Getting Help with Customizations

As you start to use BigTime, keep in mind that the areas outlined above are often customized by other BigTime users. If it makes sense to create custom adjustments to the system in any of these areas for your firm, contact your sales representative (or a local BigTime consultant) to help scope out an engagement for you.

Open Source. Note that BigTime is an open system (meaning you can create additional screens, tables, menu items and more), but it is not an open-source system (meaning your team doesn't have access to the source code our developers have created).