Question on how track hours and bill.

[Ronna Nichter]

I have used FM for about five years but have been out of the loop for a year or so. I am starting with an advertising company and they are ready to purchase a database. They have one copy of FM pro 6 and I have a question about how I can make this work for them. We have a need to track time, several people will need to add time to the job (record). Then at the end of the month we need the totals to show for all open jobs. At the same time we need to show if we are meeting our billable hours every day. Is there a plug in that has been created to help traffic jobs through and be able to give totals to all open jobs?

Thanks. I want to stay with FM and not have go to C&P.

[Steve T.]

Hi, Ronna! No one's answered you yet and I think it might be because you asked for a plug-in. I think what you want is relatively straight-forward FileMaker and does not really require a plug-in to do. If there are no sample files by FM or FMFORUMS that work for you, I'm sure there's plenty of folks here who will help if you get stuck. Your solution will probably involve relationships and portals, though. If you have not worked w/relational db's yet, simple ones aren't too bad to learn quickly.

--ST

[Ronna Nichter]

Thanks Steve. I just started to work with portals when the company I was with moved. So I've not been in FM for about one year. We have an existing database now. Each record is a job and each job has many people touch it every day for billable time. I need to set this up so while a job is open, no mater what the status is, it can be billed. I have no idea how to do this or if I can link them to an invoice page. Can you refer me to any help page or give me some scripts to wright? I have written scripts but's it's been a year since I've written any.

Thanks for any help you can give.

P.S. I found a contractor who has a database that does some of this but I don't think he wants to invest in that. I know he may down the road but my goal is to do what I can with what we have. He will buy me more FM software for more users.