HR Time Allocation System

Description

Our client was a mid-size professional organization providing HR and employment legal counsel to the wood products industry of the Northwest, funded by membership dues and consulting fees. Its employees travel to members' locations and are reimbursed for travel and expenses, which are self-reported to the accounting department. The reporting tool for entering reimbursement requests and time allocations was originally designed as a web form that could only be viewed on the desktop, and was the subject of many complaints internally.

Parthenon proposed a new application to replace the existing tool, written in the Python/Django framework, with a Javascript-based front end that allowed users to enter their time allocations quickly and in a user-friendly format. Django's built-in admin system made it the best fit for the company accountant to run reports and view reimbursement requests.

Parthenon built the new application using a layout reminiscent of the old version to make employee transitions to the newer one more comfortable. The new app had a responsive and mobile-friendly front end that was compatible with all major smartphone browsers, and calculated allocation and reimbursement totals in-browser, decreasing data entry time. Formerly, employees had to turn in their receipts; the new app let them take a picture of it on their smartphone for each reimbursement, which stored it in the admin area, viewable by the senior accountant. The new application was moved to a cloud server with similar specs, but vastly lower maintenance costs.