Where do you want the contract labor category to default from?

You can select where you want the labor category to default from in time card entry. The table below explains your options.

Option

Explanation

Labor category defaults from the personal job list

When an employee enters a job on a time card, the labor category that the employee entered the last time s/he charged to the job appears on the time card line. If the employee manually changes the labor category, then the program stores the new labor category with the job and overwrites the old labor category in the personal job list.

Labor category defaults from labor category mapping

When an employee enters a job on a time card, the labor category defaults from the Labor Category Mapping screen, where you link employees and cost elements to labor categories. The program first checks if there is a labor category mapped to the employee. If it doesn’t find one, then the program checks if there is a labor category mapped to the cost element on the time card line.

Labor category does not default

When an employee enters a job on a time card, no contract labor category defaults. You may choose this option if your company requires employees to enter the labor category manually. Keep in mind that if you choose to not default the labor category, and if you set the labor category to be required on the e-timecard Initialization screen, Time Card Setup tab, then employees will always have to enter a labor category manually on every line in order to save the time card.

Use cost elements in place of labor categories in the personal job list

e-timecard lets you save the cost element along with the job in the personal job list. Because e-timecard saves the cost element to the labor category field, you can save only one of these entities to the personal list, not both. The items below explain how it works.

  • When an employee enters a job on a time card, e-timecard looks first to the employee pay code record, then to the employee’s personal job list, and then to the employee master record to find a cost element. When it finds one, e-timecard inserts it into the cost element field on the time card.

  • If the employee manually changes the cost element on the time card, and if the job is saved to the personal job list, then e-timecard writes the new cost element to the contract labor category field in the personal job list.

In order for e-timecard to default cost elements onto the time card, you must select the cost element as one of the time card’s user-defined columns.

Your choices for the Default labor categories from (user-defined label) field are:

Consider your setting carefully. For example, if you select Personal Job and an employee enters a job that s/he has never entered before, no labor category defaults. If entry of a labor category is required, the employee must enter a labor category manually before s/he can save the time card. In this case, it might help to give yourself a “backup” by selecting Personal Job, then Mapping Table. If the program doesn’t find a labor category in the personal job list, it then looks at labor category mapping.

Or, if you select Move CELM to Personal Job, e-timecard cannot save cost elements to the personal job list and default contract labor categories at the same time, so most likely you will not want to display the labor category on the time card. If you do display it and make it required, then employees will always have to enter labor categories manually.