The Children’s Advocacy Centers of Texas Increases Efficiency and Ensures Compliance with ClickTime

The Children’s Advocacy Centers of Texas (CACTX) is a statewide membership association serving a network of 71 local child advocacy centers throughout the state. The network of local children’s advocacy centers helps coordinate investigations related to child sexual abuse, and provides their members with guidance and technology to most effectively help children and families in need.

Through ClickTime, CACTX and its members are better able to track time, manage grants, and ensure compliance with state and federal grant regulations.

Easy-to-Use Timesheets

Before ClickTime, most children’s advocacy centers were using a timesheet template in Excel to track their hours. Because timesheets are a crucial part of grant reporting, easing the burden of work and modernizing this process creates stronger controls and increases compliance. An online solution reduces issues arising around template updates, formula errors, and version control.

“Employees are able to enter time 25% faster with ClickTime,” said Alex Cantu, Grant Administrator at the Children’s Advocacy Center’s of Texas. “But where you really save time is the administration and management of timesheet data.”

Accidental changes to templates or incorrect data could take hours to fix, only to need to be updated again. ClickTime’s automated time management system reduced errors and allowed programs to focus on critical, mission-driven work said Cantu.

“The time tracking in ClickTime works really well, and the mobile app makes it easy to track expenses,” said Cantu. “It’s simple to add staff, update budgets, and ensure compliance.”

A Framework to Understand and Increase Compliance

State and federal grant regulations require all grant-funded employees to maintain timesheets as supporting documentation for salary expenses. Because the majority of grant funds are used for employee salaries, timesheets are a crucial part of a grant management system.

“We have specific requirements from our state and federal grants. Through ClickTime, I can print off a timesheet that looks exactly like what our government oversight wants me to use,” said Cantu.

Additionally, ClickTime allows centers to assign only certain funding sources to employees and specific activities to funding sources. This reduces the likelihood of an employee billing to an incorrect funding source or assigning the wrong activity to a grant.

“ClickTime offers our centers an easy way to ensure the proper management of grants and employee time,” said Cantu.

“Additionally, ClickTime allows for supervisors to approve timesheets online. This is ideal for centers with staff who are often out of the office or work from a satellite facility.”

Powerful Nonprofit Reports

CACTX typically manages between 10 and 12 grants, supported by a 22-person staff. ClickTime’s Resource Planning tools help the organization manage employee hours against these grants, ensuring effective grant budgeting and program management.

“Resource Planning helps us manage our hours against grants,” said Cantu. “We no longer have to spend time in one-off discussions to determine our grant splits. Instead, we have a one-click report that automatically does the math for us. It shows grants and percent of time on those grants,” said Cantu.

“We even have a report where our members can easily obtain data needed to submit monthly reimbursement requests to funders — all without having to touch a spreadsheet” said Cantu.

Exceptional Support and Customer Service

The ClickTime team works closely with CACTX and their member organizations to make certain that it is easy for everyone to track their hours and manage budgets. CACTX also uses ClickTime for its internal use.

“We were overwhelmingly impressed with the customer service we received when we implemented ClickTime,” said Cantu.

“Even those of us who are not particularly tech savvy — we’re all able to use ClickTime quickly and with ease. I had an employee who told me ‘the fact that I can use this is a testament to how easy it is,'” said Cantu.

There are few things more important to ClickTime’s customer success and support teams than for CACTX to more effectively track and manage their time.

“One of the reasons we’ve recommend ClickTime to our members is how simple it is to set up,” said Cantu. “And the ClickTime team is willing to go above and beyond to make sure we are successful,” said Cantu.

“We love using ClickTime.”

Want to learn more?

Check out how nonprofit organizations can better track time and manage projects.