Resources and presentation notes - Unanet Technologies

Unanet Professional Services 

West Coast Customer Meeting 

Procedures for Administrators 

October 27, 2011

Unanet Administrator’s Guide 

CLIENTCOMM.0019-2.0 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Unanet Technologies Product Training 

INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................................... 3 

PERIOD END PROCEDURES .................................................................................................................................. 3 

DOWNLOADING PER DIEM FILES .................................................................................................................................... 3 

Requesting a Support Id ............................................................................................................................................ 3 

Login to Support Site ................................................................................................................................................ 4 

Navigate to CONUS and OCONUS Files ................................................................................................................. 5 

Import Per Diems into Unanet .................................................................................................................................. 6 

POSTING ACCRUALS ....................................................................................................................................................... 7 

EXTRACTING TIMESHEETS AND EXPENSE REPORTS ........................................................................................................ 8 

ADJUSTING TIMESHEETS................................................................................................................................................. 9 

YEAR-END HOLIDAY SETUP ......................................................................................................................................... 12 

REMINDERS ............................................................................................................................................................. 13 

SCHEDULE .................................................................................................................................................................... 14 

Project Alerts .......................................................................................................................................................... 14 

EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS ...................................................................................................................................... 14 

IMPORT AND EXPORT .......................................................................................................................................... 14 

ORGANIZATIONS ................................................................................................................................................... 14 

ORGANIZATION TYPES .................................................................................................................................................. 15 

APPROVAL GROUPS ............................................................................................................................................. 15 

TIME KEEPING ....................................................................................................................................................... 15 

BUSINESS WEEK ........................................................................................................................................................... 15 

HOLIDAYS .................................................................................................................................................................... 16 

ACCRUALS .................................................................................................................................................................... 17 

Accrual Plan Setup ................................................................................................................................................. 17 

Cap Enforcement .................................................................................................................................................... 18 

Exceed ..................................................................................................................................................................... 18 

Accrual Carryover .................................................................................................................................................. 18 

EXPENSES ................................................................................................................................................................. 20 

EXPENSE TYPES ........................................................................................................................................................... 20 

MILEAGE RATES ........................................................................................................................................................... 20 

PER DIEM RATES .......................................................................................................................................................... 21 

© 2008 Unanet Technologies 2 of 24



Unanet Technologies Document 

INTRODUCTION 

The Unanet application restricts access to the Admin menu based on a user’s Role. Only 

employees with the Role of Administrator or HR Administrator will have access to this menu. 

Procedures for Unanet Administrators documents actions that the Unanet administrator will 

need to perform in order to maintain the system. This document does not cover all aspects 

of the Administrator menu functionality. Please refer to the Help documentation in your 

system for additional information. 

PERIOD END PROCEDURES 

There are a few periodic functions that need to be performed by a Unanet administrator to 

maintain the system. The activities perform functions such as posting vacation and sick 

accruals to employee profiles, extracting timesheets and expense reports after they have 

been approved and adjusting timesheets after they have been extracted. 

Downloading Per Diem Files 

For the convenience of Unanet clients, the per diem files created by the Department of 

Defense (DOD) are converted into a format compatible with the Unanet per diem import. 

These files are updated periodically by the DOD and made available on our Unanet support 

site (http://support.unanet.com). The frequency of update is about 1 month. 

Requesting a Support Id 

In order to access the files, you must register for a Unanet support login. You can request a 

support id at the bottom of the site. See link marked in red below. 




Login to Support Site 

Once you receive your support login id (e-mail address) and password, login to the site and 

click on the Downloads link in the left margin. From the Downloads screen, scroll down to 

the per diem files. See below. 




Navigate to CONUS and OCONUS Files 

Click on the symbol to expand on the list of per diem files (above). Note the per diem 

files marked in red in the screen shot below. Click on the link identifying the CONUS 

(Continental US) and OCONUS (Outside the Continental US) to download the files to your 

computer. Once you have saved the files, they can be imported into Unanet. 




Import Per Diems into Unanet 

Login to Unanet as an administrator and navigate to the Admin/Import menu/submenu. 

From this screen select the import type (1), browse to the appropriate folder (2) and select 

the per diem file saved to your computer (3). Click on the Import button to upload the file. 

You must load the per diem files one at a time. 

NOTE: the CONUS file is very large and can take several minutes to load. You will notice a 

record count is updated as the records are written to the database. 

The new per diem rates will now be accessible within expense reports. 




Posting Accruals 

Accrual plans are typically created during the Unanet implementation project and identify 

the how leave accrues for employees. Separate accrual plans can be created for vacation, 

sick and other types based on company policy. When an accrual plan is created an accrual 

period is established as weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly or monthly. At the end of each 

period accruals must be posted to each of the accrual plans configured. This section 

describes the procedure for posting accruals. 

The accrual posting function is accessed as a submenu item (Accruals) from the Admin 

menu. Accruals available for posting will be displayed when invoking the accrual function. 

See below. In this example, there are two accruals plans, one for Paid Time Off (PTO) and 

one for sick leave. The process of posting accruals updates each employee’s balance of PTO 

and sick based on the definition of the accrual plan. Accruals are posted by selecting the 

period to post and clicking on the Post button. This function must be performed periodically 

based on the frequency of the accrual plans. In this example the accrual plans are semimonthly. 




Extracting Timesheets and Expense Reports 

At the end of each time period, timesheets are submitted and flow through the approval 

process. Expense reports are not associated with a time period and can be submitted when 

they are completed by the expense user. When all approvals have been completed, the 

timesheets and expense reports are set to a COMPLETED state. Note that completed 

timesheets and expense reports can be opened by the submitter and edited. To insure that 

timesheets and expense reports are not inadvertently edited after they have been exported 

to the accounting system, a LOCKED or EXTRACTED status is available in Unanet. This 

section describes how to lock timesheets and expense reports. 

Timesheets and expense reports are exported from Unanet from the Export submenu item 

from the Admin menu. See below. When exporting timesheets and expense reports there is 

an option to lock them as part of the export process. 




For example, take the QuickBooks Expense export. This export is run by clicking on the blue 

triangle to the left of the row ( ). Selecting this button displays a filter screen with a 

variety of export options. Refer to the partial screen shot below. 

Expense reports and timesheets are locked when the Mark Data as EXTRACTED field is 

checked. For expense reports, a Post Date can be set to represent the date the data is 

extracted. The post date is not available on Timesheet exports. Also note that only 

completed (fully approved expense reports and timesheets can be set to EXTRACTED). 

During the export process, all timesheets and expense reports are set to an EXTRACTED 

state. Note that changes cannot be made to EXTRACTED expense reports. To adjust an 

expense report, a new expense report must be created with an adjusting entry. Timesheets, 

however, can be adjusted. Refer to section on Adjusting Timesheets for a description of 

this process. 

Adjustments to timesheets do not change the original values recorded, but record the 

changes independently. An adjustment or post date is associated with the change. When 

exporting timesheets it is necessary to include adjustments where the post date falls within 

the time period begin and end dates. This option is located at the bottom of the export 

screen. The field titled, Adjustments should be set to “Include adjustments using 

posted date”. Following this procedure will ensure that all timesheet data (both new 

timesheets and adjustments made during the period) will be picked up in the export. 

Adjusting Timesheets 

When timesheets are in an EXTRACTED state, adjustments are the mechanism used to 

change them. There are two types of adjustments, admin adjustments and end-user 

adjustments. Admin adjustments are performed by a Unanet Administrator. For Admin 

adjustments to be enabled a global Unanet property must be set. Check with the Unanet 

Support group if you are unable to perform admin adjustments using the following steps. 




Look up the employee from the People menu whose timesheet is to be adjusted and click on 

the hourglass next to their name. See below. 

Extracted timesheets will be displayed under the Completed Timesheet link. Note the 

icon next to EXTRACTED timesheets. Clicking on this icon will display the adjustment screen 

for the selected timesheet. 

The adjustment screen displays each line of the timesheet with the icon to the left of 

each row. Click on this icon to adjust a row of the timesheet. See below. 




Any of the fields on this screen can be set. The values provided in the fields will apply to 

any day where a number has been entered in the Change row. If there are no changes to 

the hours, a 0 can be put in the Change row so that other attributes of the time can be 

changed. In the example above, the bill rate was adjusted to $175 / hour to the time 

posted to Tuesday the 4 th . A post date must be entered along with a change reason before 

the adjustment can be saved. 

End User Adjustments follow a different process. For End User Adjustments to be enabled a 

global Unanet property must be set. Check with the Unanet Support group if you are unable 

to perform End User Adjustment adjustments using the following steps. 

For End User Adjustments to be enabled, a time period must be updated to enable the 

attribute, Allow Adj. This is done by selecting the Time Periods option from the Setup 

submenu from the Admin menu. 




Once a time period is enabled for End User Adjustments, all timesheets from the time period 

can be adjusted. As a result, it is important to turn off this attribute after the adjustment 

has been completed. 

After the time period is open for adjustments, the timesheet user can navigate to the 

timesheet from the Completed Timesheet link on their Home dashboard and edit the 

timesheet. After changes are made, the user submits the timesheet. After the confirmation 

dialog is presented and the Submit button is selected, a change reason screen is displayed. 

The user is required to enter a change reason in this screen. See below. 

After the change reason is saved, the timesheet follows the standard approval process. 

Year-end Holiday Setup 

In order for holidays to automatically display in a person’s timesheet, the following 

relationships must be maintained in Unanet. 

1. Holidays must exist in the holiday table 

2. Users must be assigned to the holiday project or task 

When these two conditions are met, a user’s timesheet will automatically be populated with 

time to the holiday project or task on the appropriate day. 




Most implementations of Unanet setup a project called HOURSOFF or TIMEOFF with the 

tasks PTO/Vacation, Sick, Holiday, etc. Employees are assigned to this project with an open 

ended assignment (no begin and end date). It is necessary for the Unanet administrator to 

setup supported holidays under the ADMIN/SETUP Holidays menu. Holidays recorded in this 

table represent a specific holiday on a specific day. It is therefore necessary to enter 

holidays for each year. To enter a Holiday navigate to the Holiday screen and click on the 

add holiday link . 

Fill out the appropriate date and name of the holiday and select the appropriate project and 

task. For some implementations the project itself may be named HOLIDAY. In this case the 

option to choose a task will not be available. After saving the holiday, the next holiday can 

be entered. This activity can be performed at the end of each year, or multiple years of 

holidays can be entered at the same time. Note however, that the holiday must be recorded 

in the system for it to show up on a person’s timesheet. 

REMINDERS 

The Unanet system includes functionality to send Reminders to a subset or all of your 

employees. Reminders are normally sent to anyone who has not yet completed an action 

(with the exception of the Broadcast option), and must be sent via a schedule. The email is 

delivered to the email address in the People profile of each employee. Reminders are not 

governed by the notification preferences that each employee can control. 

The Admin – Setup – People – Email Reminders section allows you to modify the text for the 

standard reminders, as well as creating your own custom reminder. 

The Admin – Reminders section allows you to setup schedules for the reminders. You may 

have setup some reminders during the implementation. This is not the area to modify an 

already scheduled reminder. 




Schedule 

The Admin – Schedule section allows you to review scheduled reminders. Here, you can 

manipulate reminders that have been established in the Admin – Reminders section. 

Project Alerts 

In addition to scheduling Reminders, the System Administrator can also schedule the Project 

Alerts to run. Project Alerts are setup on the Project – Alerts tab of each project. However, 

the alerts are not generated if they Project Alerts schedule does not run. As a default, this 

option is not scheduled. If your Project Alerts were scheduled during the implementation, 

you will see the schedule in this section. Otherwise, you can schedule them to run here. 

EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS 

The Unanet system is configured to send users notifications when particular events occur. 

Each individual has access to their preferences to receive timesheet and/or expense 

notifications. If they have unchecked this option, they will not receive the emails. 

The system administrator can determine which activities in the system generate a 

notification, and what text is included in the email. This is controlled in the Admin – Setup 

– people – Email Notifications section. The system is pre-configured with numerous default 

notifications. To de-activate any of the selections, edit the notification and deselect the 

Active checkbox. 

The notifications also include a description which indicates who will receive the email 

notification. The Administrator cannot modify who receives the notifications. 

IMPORT AND EXPORT 

The Unanet System Administrator has the ability to create exports and import information 

into the Unanet system. The Unanet exports and imports through a CSV file format. Each 

table that holds the data is listed as a separate import/export option. You must enter the 

information in the format specified in order for it to import correctly to Unanet. 

The easiest way to create an import template for the Unanet system is first by running an 

Export for the same table. When you open the generated export file in a program such as 

MS Excel, you will see the fields and real values from your system. Refer to the Unanet 

system Help files for more information about applicable field values and file formatting for 

Import. 

Your system may be configured with additional export templates. Please contact Unanet 

support at support@unanet.com if you are interested in creating a custom export template. 

ORGANIZATIONS 

Unanet organizations serve many functions within the system. Each person and project is 

connected with an organization. Connecting each person and project to an organization 

allows you to report based on the organization(s). Additionally, you can use the project 

organization to correspond to a Customer value in a down-stream system that you may be 

interfacing with from Unanet. 

In order to associate a person or project with an organization, the organization must first be 

created in the Admin – Organization section. Refer to the Unanet system Help files for 

information about creating organizations. 




Organization Types 

One of the options when creating an Organization is to specify an Organization Type. A 

pull-down menu of options is available when creating a new Organization. In order to add 

options to this pull-down menu, you can create custom organization types. Go to the Admin 

– Setup – Project section and choose Organization Types. The organization types are not 

available on the standard reports, but can be used in Ad Hoc or exports. 

APPROVAL GROUPS 

The Unanet system allows a great deal of flexibility to help you configure an appropriate 

chain of command for approving timesheet and expense reports. There are many 

dependencies through property file settings and other options to control timesheet and 

expense approvals. Please refer to the Unanet Help documentation for further information. 

Approval Groups allow you to specify the broadest approval for time and/or expense. The 

Approval Group consists of the approver(s), the timesheet submitter(s) and the expense 

report submitter(s). The approver(s) of an Approval Group must have a Manager role in 

their People profile. If numerous approvers are specified, the timesheet (or expense report) 

will go to each approver in the order specified in the Approval Group. 

TIME KEEPING 

Time keeping is one of the key factors of the Unanet system. In order for reports to be accurate, 

the time keeping practices must be consistent and accurate. While there are many interconnected 

features that control the way timekeeping is managed, this section focuses on a few areas that the 

Administrator can control to ensure efficient and accurate time keeping. 

Business Week 

The Unanet Business Week defines the expected hours that an employee will work. The default 

business week shows an 8-hour/5-day work week. All individuals have a business week 

associated with their People Profile through the person dashboard. The Utilization reports 

specifically use the business week hours to determine the employee’s productive utilization. The 

project planning feature can also look at the Business Week to determine capacity. 

If you have employees that work a non-standard Business Week, you can create your own 

Business Week definitions. From the Admin – Setup – People menu, choose Business Week: 

When creating a new business week, give the entry a name. The name will appear in the pulldown 

list in the Person Profile, so ensure it accurately describes the week. Enter the number of 




hours worked in a day and check the days that the employee(s) work. The system will calculate 

the hours in a business week field on the right. When you save the new entry, it will be available 

on the Person Profile to match with an employee. 

As a note, as a default the business week does not affect what an employee records as an actual 

on their timesheet. Employees can enter any number of hours on any days of the week. 

Holidays 

The Unanet system has a Holidays feature that will allow you to pre-populate holidays on the 

timesheet. This feature will insert 8 hours on the determined date, and enter the holiday name 

into the time cell comments box. The Holiday feature populates this information for all 

timesheet users, regardless of exemption status or business week definition. 

To setup your holidays, go to the Admin – Setup – Time section and choose Holidays. The 

default criteria screen shows any holidays configured for the current year. You will need to setup 

holidays by date, and can enter many years at one time. 

To enter a new holiday, choose the +Holiday option. 




On the resulting screen, populate the holiday date and name of the holiday. Search for and 

associate this holiday with your company’s holiday project (and task, if applicable). Save the 

screen. 

As a note, the holiday will populate the timesheet when the timesheet is created that contains that 

date. If you setup the holiday after the timesheet is created, it will not auto-populate. Many of 

our customers will setup their annual holidays right before the new year so that they are all 

available for the next calendar year. 

Accruals 

Unanet has an integrated Accruals functionality. This functionality allows you to setup one or 

many accrual plans that provide employees with a budget of hours to use on a specified project 

(primarily vacation and/or sick). You will need to defined a schedule that includes the months of 

service (as determined by the employee’s hire date set in the People Profile), and number of 

hours accrued over the defined timeframe. The Unanet system also allows you to define accrual 

caps and carryover policies. 

Accrual Plan Setup 

In order to setup an Accrual Plan, obtain a copy of your company’s policy. You will need to 

refer to it to ensure the rules are enforced properly. 

From the Admin – Setup- Time menu, choose Accrual Plan. Create a new plan by choosing 

+Accrual Plan. On the resulting screen, enter the plan name, description, period type (how often 

you accrue time), the accrual begin date, and choose the Active checkbox. The accrual begin 

date should be the date you receive the next accrual for simplicity. 

On the schedule tab, you will create the accrual schedule. Based on the months of service with 

the company, determine the accrual level in hours for each rate. This will provide the employees 

with the number of hours specified for the period specified. The system shows a calculation to 

the annual accrual. 




Cap Enforcement 

If you cap the number of hours that can be accrued, you can specify this for each level of the 

plan. Accruals can be capped per period accruing, annually at date of hire or annually for the 

calendar year. When the cap is reached, the employee will not receive an update to the budget 

until some of the leave is used. The cap is enforced with accruals are posted. For the cap, 

specify the maximum number of hours that can be accrued. 

Exceed 

The Exceed checkbox is used if you allow employees to exceed their accrued balance. This, in 

essence, allows the employee to carry a “negative” leave balance. If you do not allow employees 

to have a negative balance, do not check this box. The employee will not be able to enter leave in 

their time sheet in excess of their budget. 

Accrual Carryover 

If you allow employees to carryover a maximum accrual balance from one year to another (or 

other timeframe), you can setup your accrual plan to carryover into a new project. The carryover 

can be capped to include a maximum number of hours. Additionally, an expiration date on the 

hours can be set so that the employees “loose” the hours if they are not used by a particular date. 

To setup the accrual carryover, you must setup a project to store the hours. You cannot use the 

same project with the original because of the resulting overlapping assignments. Additionally, an 

Accrual Plan for carryover needs to be created. 




When creating the Carryover plan, setup the plan with the same Period Type as the original plan. 

Check the Carryover Type checkbox. 

When the time comes to transfer the hours into the carryover plan, go to Admin – Accruals and 

choose Carryover on the top left. Populate the resulting screen with specifics for your carryover 

policy. 

• Accrual Plan - Select the plan that your transferring balances from. 

• As of Date – typically the last day of the prior year; the date to include hours through. 

• Person – select individual(s) as needed 

• Classification – choose eligible employees based on Classification 

• Transfer Cap – enter maximum number of hours than can be carried over. If there is no 

maximum, enter nothing. 

• Accural Plan – chose the Carryover Plan 

• Accrual Begin and End Date – enter the dates that the employees are eligible to use the 

carryover hours. 

• Project – specify the project that the employees will record their hours against. Include a 

task if needed. 




After the carryover criteria is populated, choose the List tab. This tab will show the employees 

and the number of hours to be transferred. If the employee had more than the maximum allowed 

number of hours, the total balance of hours is shown with an asterisks indicating it will be 

truncated. This balance is not recorded in the system, so if you do payout for the balance please 

record it or print out the resulting screen. 

Choose the Transfer option at the bottom to complete the transfer. 

EXPENSES 

Expense Types 

The Unanet system comes with 13 built-in Expense Types (ex. AIR, MILEAGE, LODGING, 

etc.). A Unanet Administrator may add additional Expense Types (ex. TAXI, TOLLS, 

PARKING, etc.). The Admin – Setup – Expense Types section allows you to modify these 

default expense types and add new expense types as needed. 

Mileage Rates 

The Unanet system has a default expense type labeled “Mileage”. In the Admin – Setup – 

Expenses menu, there is an option for Mileage Rates. Here you can set the mileage 

reimbursement rate and date range. The system will use this rate when an employee enters an 

expense type mileage on an expense report. 

To setup the Mileage reimbursement rate, go to Admin – Setup - Expenses – Mileage Rate. Enter 

the start date and rate for mileage. The system will look at this table, and based on the date the 

expense was incurred, will determine which rate to apply. Save the rate to make it available 

immediately. 




Per Diem Rates 

The Unanet system is configured to allow users to lookup and use government Per 

Diem rates for lodging and meal and incidentals (MIE). A user will pull the state 

and city/county location for the rate, and the Unanet system will populate the 

applicable per diem rate in the expense report. 

The primary way to utilize Per Diem rates in the system is to load them through a 

file import. Unanet’s support website does provide import files for your use and are 

updated regularly. You can access the rates from the download section of the 

Unanet support site. 

http://www.unanet.com/support/WebServlet 

Additionally, the Admin – Setup – Expenses menu does contain options to build 

tables through the Per Diem rates options. See Unanet’s help file for additional 

information on using these tables. 

The per diem rates are available in 4 standard Expense types in Unanet. 

• Lodging_Allowable – this expense type is used if you allow your employees to 

charge over per diem and will reimburse the employee for any “overage”. 

The Per Diem rate is shown, and overage is calculated for the employee. 




• Lodging_Per Diem – this expense type is used if you will reimburse only the 

Per Diem rate for the lodging. 




• MIE_Allowable - this expense type is used if you allow your employees to 

charge over per diem and will reimburse the employee for any “overage”. 

The Per Diem rate is shown, and overage is calculated for the employee. 

• MIE_Per Diem – this expense type is used if you will reimburse only the Per 

Diem rate for the meals and incidentals.

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