DATABASICS Time & Expense

TechnoServe looked for a Time & Expense solution for many years but, due to the complexity of our organizations project based accounting and distributed geography, it was difficult to find a solution that would work for us. With Databasics we found a product that met all our requirements. First of all, Databasics is very flexible. We were able to configure our complicated accounting structure and our diverse geography into the software without customizations. This was a major accomplishment. Secondly, we have been able to seamlessly automate our 1500+ users with our HRIS and we have been able automate our constantly changing accounting dimensions into Databasics making it very easy to maintain. Also by using Databasic's extract routines, we have be able to greatly simplify the loading of Time and Expense data into our accounting system. Finally, with Databasics intuitive UI, it's multiple language capability, and it's simple system administration, the software has been embraced by our end users, our accounting team, and our system administrators.

I would say the weakest part of Databasics is it's reporting system. Databasics uses a BI tool called Jaspersoft to access the Time & Expense Data. While all the necessary reports are available and complex custom reports can be built using Jaspersoft, the connectivity and cumbersome interface of Jaspersoft is not quite up to the standard of the rest of the application.

I like most:
1. Customer Support through the Databasics support website/portal
2. Application stability - little to no downtime
3. Application functionality
4. Ease of administration
5. End user experience

We have a 360+ employee user pool who all use the time sheets with a good portion of that total also using the expense reporting. We have used Databasics since version 4x, through the years upgrading to version 5x and now version 6x in the hosted environment.

The application is generally easy to use, in most cases, requiring only a brief initial orientation and from there, minimal end user support for the application. Many employees have taken advantage of the mobile application to enter either time or expenses while traveling and this was a welcome functional addition received with version 6x. Receipt imaging and organization was another welcome addition.

We extract and interface expense data (weekly) and time sheet data (semi-monthly) from Databasics to our accounting application. We also import and interface organizational data (employee information, accounting structural data, etc...) into Databasics from both our accounting and HRIS applications. While managing these interfaces requires some training, assistance is always available if needed.

User feedback indicates that the time sheet form could be improved. The one recurring complaint/suggestion sine version 4x is that time sheet lines cannot be drag-n-drop managed for user sorting preferences.

As an administrator, I dislike the fact that I no longer have physical custody of the database for other analysis or reporting needs. All ad hoc reporting must be done through the embedded Jasper reporting application. This generally meets the needs but is sometimes inconvenient to use.