Human Resource modules (HRM)

bron: openerp.com

This chapter describes OpenERP’s main Human Resources and Employee Services features. Most of
the solutions discussed after this chapter concern management by business or by project and depend
mostly on analytic accounting, with each business or project represented by an analytic account.

A company’s effectiveness depends on its employees’ good work. OpenERP’s Human Resources modules enable
you to manage important aspects of staff work efficiently, such as their skills, contracts, and working time.

For this chapter you should start with a fresh database that includes demo data. To configure the Human
Resource Application you should check the Human Resource in the following configuration wizard.

Human Resource application configuration wizard

1.1  Managing Human Resources

To establish a system that is integrated into the company’s management you need to start with a current list of
collaborators.

Here are some examples of functions which depend on the accuracy of the employee list:

• the cost of a service, which depends on the employee’s working contract,
• project planning, which depends on the work pattern of the project contributors,
• the client billing rate, which probably depends on the employee’s job function,
• the chain of command, or responsibilities, which is related to the hierarchical structure of the company.

1.1.1  Management of staff

To define a new employee in Open ERP, use the menu Human Resources → Employees.

Form describing an employee

Start by entering the employee’s name in Employee and the company that this employee works for in Company.
You can then create a new user of the Open ERP system linked to this employee by filling in a new User form
through the User field.

Even if the employee is not a user, it is best if you create a system access for most of your staff just so that you
can control their access rights from the outset (and you can do that through this field if you need to).

Then enter the employee’s address.

This appears in the partner contact form in Open ERP. Since employees are people that have contacts with your
company, it is logical that they have entries like any other partner in your database. So enter the name of the
employee as a new partner Name and the address in the Contact form. Then all of the functions that apply to a
partner can also be applied to an employee. This is particularly useful for tracking debits and credits in the
accounts – so you can track salary payments, for example.

You can then set both an analytic journal and a linked product to this employee in the Timesheets tab. If you do it
that way, then this information can be used to track services. For now, just complete the form with the following
information:

• Analytic Journal : usually a Timesheet  Journal,
• Product : a service product that describes how this employee would be charged out, for example as
  Service  on  Timesheet.

1.1.2  Contract Management

If you install the hr_contract module you can link contract details to the employee record. The configuration
wizard to install this module is shown below.

configuration wizard to install hr_contract

Using Human Resources → Human Resources → Contracts you can create and edit new contract.

Definition of a working contract for a given employee

You can enter information about the employment contract for the employee, such as:

• Contract Reference
• Job Title
• Working Schedule
• Start Date
• End Date
• Wage Type like Monthly Gross or Monthly Net or or Monthly Basic

1.1.3  Sign in and out

In some companies, staff have to sign in when they arrive at work and sign out again at the end of the day. If each
employee has been linked to a system user, then they can sign in on Open ERP by using the menu Human
Resources → Attendances → Sign in / Sign out.

If an employee has forgotten to sign out on leaving, the system proposes that they sign out manually and type in
the time that they left when they come in again the next day. This gives you a simple way of managing forgotten
sign-outs.

Find employee attendance details from their forms in Human Resources → Employees.

To get the detail of attendances from an employee’s form in Open ERP you can use the three available reports:

• Print Attendance Error Report
• Print Attendances By Month

The first report highlights errors in attendance data entry. It shows you whether an employee has entered the time
of entry or exit manually and the differences between the actual and expected sign out time and the time.

The second report shows the attendance data recorded.

1.2  Timesheets

In most service companies where Open ERP has been integrated, service sheets, or timesheets, have
revolutionized management practices. These service sheets are produced by each employee as they work on the
different cases or projects that are running. Each of these is represented by an analytic account in the system.

Throughout the day, when employees work on one project or another, they add a line to the timesheets with
details of the time used on each project. At the end of the day, each employee must mark all the time worked on
client or internal projects to make up the full number of hours worked in the day. If an account is not in the
system then the time is added to the hours that have not been assigned for the day.

Timesheet for a working day

The figure Timesheet for a working day gives an example of a timesheet for an employee.

To enable your system with all the features related to Timesheet, your configuration wizard should be like this.

Configuration wizard for Timesheet

Amongst the many uses of such a timesheet system for a company, here are some of the most important:

• enabling tracking of the true costs of a project by accounting for the time used on it,
• tracking the services provided by different employees,
• comparing the hours really used on a project with the initial planning estimates,
• automatically invoicing based on the service hours provided,
• obtaining a list of the service hours for a given client,
• knowing the costs needed to run the company, such as the marketing costs, the training costs for a new
• employee, and the invoicing rates for a client.

1.2.1  Timesheet categories

The different timesheet categories (working time sessions) can be defined in the menu Manufacturing →
Configuration → Resources → Working Period and select one of the groups there such as 38 Hours/Week.

Timesheet category for full time 38 hours per week

1.2.2  Employee configuration

To be able to use the timesheets at all, you must first define those employees who are system users. The employee
definition forms contain the information necessary to use that sheet, such as the job title, and hourly costs.

Two fields will be of particular interest to you for managing timesheets: the Analytic Journal and the Product.

In the analytic journal will be stored all the analytic entries about the costs of service times. These enable you to
isolate the cost of service from other company costs such as the purchase of raw materials, expenses receipts and
subcontracting. You can use different journals for each employee to separate costs by department or by function.

The employee is also associated with a product in your database in Open ERP. An employee is linked with a
product so they can be ‘bought’ (subcontracting) or ‘invoiced’ (project management). You have to create a
product for each job type in your company.

The following information is important in the product form:

• Name : Secretary Salesperson Project  Manager
• Product Type : Service
• Unit of Measure : Hour Day
• Cost Price
• Sale Price
• Costing Method : either Standard  Price or Average  Price

In summary, each company employee corresponds, in most cases, to:

• Partner
• an Employee form,
• System User.

And each company job position corresponds to a Product.

1.2.3  Entering timesheet data

To be able to use timesheets fully, install the module hr_timesheet_sheet. Once this module has been
installed and the employees configured, the different system users can enter their timesheet data in the menu
Human Resources → Time Tracking → Working Hours, then click New.

For a new entry:
1.  The User : proposed by default, but you can change it if you are encoding the first timesheet for another
company employee.
2.  The Date : automatically proposed as today’s date, but it is possible to change it if you are encoding the
timesheet for a prior day.
3.  Analytic Account : for the project you’ve been working on - obviously it should be predefined.
4.  Description : a free text description of the work done in the time.
5.  Quantity : number of units of time (the units are defined as part of the product).

The other fields are automatically completed but can be modified: the Product which is the service product such
as consultancy, the Unit of Measure (predefined, and could perhaps be minutes, hours or days), the Cost of the
service (which is calculated by default), and the associated General Account.

The hours are then encoded throughout the day by each employee. It helps to revisit the list at the end of the day
to verify that the number of hours of attendance in the company has been properly accounted for. The total
entered is shown at the bottom right of the list of service hours.

The accuracy of the services entered is crucial for calculating the profitability of the different jobs and the
recharging of services. Different reports are therefore available for verifying employees’ data entry. Employees
can verify their own timesheet using the following reports:

• Printing the particular employee’s timesheet, using the menu Human Resources → Reporting → Timesheet
  → Employee Timesheet.
• Printing the more then one employees’ timesheet, using the menu Human Resources → Reporting →
  Timesheet → Employees Timesheet.You can print a summary in the form of a table per user and per day.

Employees’ monthly summary timesheet

• Reviewing profit of timesheet, using the menu Human Resources → Reporting → Timesheets → Timesheet
  Profit.
• You can then use the statistical reports to analyze your services by period, by product or by account using
  the menu Human Resources → Reporting → Timesheets → Timesheet Analysis and Human Resources →
  Reporting → Timesheets → Timesheet Sheet Analysis.

Chart of timesheet by account

The data making up these list view can be varied using the filters available in the upper part of the screen. If you
want to see more detail, switch to the graph view.

1.2.4  Evaluation of service costs

You already know that timesheets are closely linked with analytic accounts. The different projects reported on
the timesheets correspond to analytic accounts. The timesheet entries themselves are analytic entries.

These entries comprise various analytic operations that don’t correspond to any of the general accounts.
Therefore all operations that modify and create timesheet lines automatically impact the corresponding analytic
line and, conversely are automatically modified by changes in that line.

This is not a classical approach but it is logical and pragmatic. Employee timesheets are a good indication of how
the costs of a service enterprise are spread across different cases as reported in the analytic accounts. An analytic
account should be reflected in the general accounts, but there is no direct counterpart of these analytic accounts in
the general accounts. Instead, if the hourly costs of the employees are correctly accounted for, the month’s
timesheet entries should be balanced by the salary + benefits package paid out to all the employees at the end of
the month.

Despite all this it is quite difficult to work out the average hourly cost of an employee precisely because it
depends on:

• the extra hours that they have worked,
• holidays and sickness,
• salary variations and all the linked costs, such as social insurance charges.

The reports that enable you to relate general accounts to analytic accounts are valuable tools for improving your
evaluation of different hourly costs of employees. The difference between product balances in the analytic
account and in the general accounts, divided by the total number of hours worked, can then be applied to the cost
of the product. Some companies adjust for that difference by carrying out another analytic operation at the end of
the month in an account created for that purpose. This analytic account should have a balance that tends towards
zero.

Because you’ve got a system with integrated timesheets you can then:

• track the profitability of projects in the analytic accounts,
• look at the history of timesheet entries by project and by employee,
• regularly adjust hourly costs by comparing your rates with reality,

The analyses of profitability by project and by employee are available from the analytic accounts. They take all
of the invoices into account, and also take into account the cost of the time spent on each project.

1.2.5  Managing by department

When they are used properly, timesheets can be a good control tool for project managers and can provide
awareness of costs and times.

When employee teams are important, a control system must be implemented. All employees should complete
their timesheets correctly because this forms the basis of planning control, and the financial management and
invoicing of projects

You will see in Deliver Quality Services that you can automatically invoice services at the end of the month
based on the timesheet. But at the same time some contracts are limited to prepaid hours. These hours and their
deduction from the original limit are also managed by these timesheets. In such a situation, hours that are not
coded into the timesheets represent lost money for the company. So it is important to establish effective
follow-up of the services timesheets and their encoding. To set up a structure for control using timesheets you
should install the module hr_timesheet_sheet.

Process of approving a timesheet

This module supplies a new screen enabling you to manage timesheets by period. Timesheet entries are made by
employees each day. At the end of the week, employees validate their week’s sheet and it is then passed to the
services manager, who must approve his team’s entries. Periods are defined in the company forms, and you can
set them to run monthly or weekly.

To enter timesheet data each employee uses the menu Human Resources → Time Tracking → My Timesheet.

Form for entering timesheet data

In the upper part of the screen the user starts with the sign-in and sign-out times. The system enables the control
of attendance day by day. The two buttons Sign in and Sign out enable the automatic completion of hours in the
area to the left. These hours can be modified by employee, so it is not a true management control system.

The area to the bottom of the screen represents a sheet of the employee’s time entries for the selected day. In
total, this should comprise the number of hours worked in the company each day. This provides a simple
verification that the whole day’s attendance time has been coded in properly.

The second tab of the timesheet By day gives the number of hours worked on the different projects. When there is
a gap between the attendance and the timesheet entries, you can use the second tab to detect the days or the
entries that have not been correctly coded in.

Detail of hours worked by day for an employee

The action Timesheet by Account shows the time worked on all the different projects. That enables you to step
back to see an overview of the time an employee has worked spread over different projects.

At the end of the week or the month, the employee confirms his timesheet. If the attendance time in the company
corresponds to the encoded entries, the whole timesheet is then confirmed and sent to his department manager,
who is then responsible for approving it or asking for corrections.

Each manager can then look at a list of his department’s timesheets waiting for approval using the menu Human
Resource → Reporting → Timesheet → Timesheet Sheet Analysis by appling the proper filters. He then has to
approve them or return them to their initial state.

To define the departmental structure, use the menu Human Resources → Configuration → Human Resources →
Departments.

Once the timesheets have been approved you can then use them for cost control and for invoicing hours to clients.

Contracts and their rates, planning, and methods of invoicing are the object of the following chapter, Deliver
Quality Services.

1.3  Keeping Track of Expenses

Employee expenses are charges incurred on behalf of the company. The company then reimburses these expenses
to the employee. The receipts encountered most frequently are:
car travel, reimbursed per unit of distance (mile or kilometer),
subsistence expenses, reimbursed based on the bill,
other purchases, such as stationery and books, destined for the company but carried out by the employee.

1.3.1  An integrated process

Process for Dealing with Expense Reimbursements

Expenses generated by employees are grouped into periods of a week or a month. At the end of the period the
employee confirms all of its expenses and a summary sheet is sent to the department manager. The manager is
responsible for approving all the expense requests generated by his team. The expense sheet must be signed by
the employee, who also attaches its receipts to the expense sheet.

Once the sheet has been approved by the head of department it is sent to the Accounting department, which
registers the company’s liability to the employee. Accounting can then pay this invoice and reimburse the
employee who originally advanced the money.

Some receipts are for project expenses, so these can then be attached to an analytic account. The costs incurred
are then added to the supplementary cost of the analytic account when the invoice is approved.

You often need to invoice expenses to a customer, depending on the precise contract that has been negotiated.
Travelling and subsistence expenses are generally handled this way. These can be recharged to the customer at
the the end of the month if the contract price has been negotiated inclusive of expenses.

If you have to go through many steps to reclaim expenses, it can all quickly become too cumbersome, especially
for those employees who claim large numbers of different expense lines. If you have got a good system that
integrates the management of these claims, such as the one described, you can avoid many problems and increase
staff productivity.

If your systems handle expenses well then you can avoid significant losses by setting your terms of sales
effectively. In fixed-price contracts, expense reimbursements are usually invoiced according to the actual
expense. It is in your interest to systematize their treatment, and automate the process to the maximum, to
recharge as much as you are contractually able.

1.3.2  Employee Expenses

Install the module hr_expense to automate the management of expense claims. The configuration wizard to
install this module is shown below.

Configuration wizard to install hr_expense module

Users can then enter and review their expenses using the menu Human Resources → Expenses → Expenses.

Expenses form to enter and review expenses

Create templates for the various expenses accepted by the company using OpenERP’s product form. You could,
for instance, create a product with the following parameters for the reimbursement of travel expenses by car at
0.25 per kilometer:

• Product : Car  travel ,
• Unit of measure : km ,
• Standard Cost : 0.25 ,
• Sales price : 0.30 ,
• Type of product : Service .

The employee keeps its expenses sheet in the Draft state while completing it throughout the period. At the end
of the period (week or month) the employee can confirm its expense form using the Confirm button on the form.
This puts it into the state Waiting  Approval .

At the end of the period the department manager can access the list of expense forms waiting for approval using
the menu Human Resources → Expenses → Expenses.

The department manager can then approve the expenses, which automatically creates a supplier invoice in the
employee’s name so that the employee can be reimbursed. An analytic account is coded onto each line of the
invoice. When the invoice is confirmed, general and analytic accounting entries are automatically generated as
they would be with any other invoice.

If you base your invoicing on service time or analytic costs, the expense will automatically be recharged to the
customer when the customer invoice is generated for services associated with the project.

Invoicing from timesheets allows you to prepare all your invoices, both expenses and timesheets for a project’s
customer.

You can view the statistical analysis of expenses using menu Human Resources → Reporting → Expenses
Analysis.

1.4  Hire New People

Using OpenERP you can efficiently manage the process of hiring the new people for your organization. It is a
well managed recruitment process from initial contact to hiring the applicant.

1.4.1  Recruitments

You need to install hr_recruitment module to efficiently managed recruitment process. The configuration
wizard to install this module is shown below.

Configuration wizard to install hr_recruitment module

The Applicant form can be seen from the menu Human Resources → Recruitment → Applicants.

Applicant recruitment form

You can manage following information using applicant form.

• Applicant’s Name
• Applied Job
• Department
• Stage: can be Initial Job Demand, Salary Negotiation, ...
• Responsible: Responsible person who conducts the interview
• Contact Information
• Contract Data: including Availability, Expected Salary, Proposed Salary
• Qualification of Applicant
• Status: reflects the actual status of the recruitment process like In Progress, Pending or Hired

Initially the applicant states is New after that it can be converted into In Progress. If the applicant is at one of the
different stages like it may be in Waiting for approval by human resource department or Waiting for offer
acceptance by applicant, in these cases applicant states should be Pending. When the status is Hired, you can
find that applicant from the list of employees.

The information about the Job Position can be maintained by the menu Human Resources → Recruitment → Job
Positions.

Job Position in the organization

The key features of OpenERP for the process of hiring the new people using hr_recruitment module.

• Manages job positions and the recruitement process.
• It’s integrated with the survey module to allow you to define interview for different jobs.
• This module is integrated with the mail gateway to automatically tracks email sent to
  jobs@yourcompany.com.
• It’s also integrated with the document management system to store and search in your CV base.

You can analyse data of recruitment process through the menu Human Resources → Reporting → Recruitment
Analysis.

1.5  Inspire your People

Motivated workforce of people can give the best out come for the organization. OpenERP can maintain this
motivational process by periodical evaluation of employees’ performance and efficient holiday management.

1.5.1  Assessments

The regular assessments of human resources can be benefited to your people as well organization. For efficient
periodical evaluation of employees’ performance you need to install hr_evaluation module.The
configuration wizard to install this module is shown below.

Configuration wizard to install hr_evaluation module

To create and manage new evaluation you can use the menu Human Resources → Evaluations → Evaluations.

Employee’s evaluation form

Each employee can be assigned to an evaluation plan. These plans define the frequency and the way you manage
your periodic personal evaluation. You will be able to define steps and attach interview forms to each step.
OpenERP manages all kind of evaluations: bottom-up, top-down, self evaluation and final evaluation by the
manager.

The main features of the evaluation process covered by OpenERP are as follow.

• Ability to create employees evaluation.
• An evaluation can be created by employee for subordinates,juniors as well as his manager.
• The evaluation is done under a plan in which various surveys can be created and it can be defined which
  level of employee hierarchy fills what and final review and evaluation is done by the manager.
• Every evaluation filled by the employees can be viewed by nice pdf form.
• Interview Requests are generated automatically by OpenERP according to employees evaluation plan.
  Each user receives automatic emails and requests to perform evaluation of their colleagues periodically.

You can analyse evaluation data through the menu Human Resources → Reporting → Evaluations Analysis.

1.5.2  Holiday Management

you can manage the leaves taken by employees using hr_holidays module.The configuration wizard to
install this module is shown below.

Configuration wizard to install hr_holidays module

Using the menu Human Resources → Holidays → Leave Requests employee can put the leave request.

Leave request form

Leaves requests can be recorded by employees and validated by their managers. Once a leave request is validated
it appears automatically in the agenda of the employee. You can define several allowance types (paid holidays,
sickness, etc) and manage allowances per type.

OpenERP can provide following features for efficient holiday management process.

• It helps you to manage leaves and leaves’ requests.
• A synchronisation with an internal agenda (use of the CRM module) is possible: in order to automatically
  create a case when an holiday request is accepted, you have to link the holidays status to a case section.
• You can set up colour preferences according to your leave type like Seak Leave should be red in reports.
• An employee can make an ask for more off-days by making a new Allocation

The statistical report for the leaves can be seen using Human Resources → Reporting → Holidays → Leaves
Analysis menu.