Question

Subcontractors and tracking work assigned

  • 14 February 2022
  • 7 replies
  • 70 views

Userlevel 2
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All of my subs have their own practices so not sure that adding them as a Karbon user is the best idea.  How can I track work I’ve assigned to them in Karbon for my own purposes?


7 replies

We create a firm email address and an account for them in Karbon.  We tell them that it is part of doing business with us.  I building in the extra charge into my fees.  

Userlevel 7
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I’m curious to read about what you try and how it works out. 😀

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@max  - thanks...I’ll ponder that.  Basically, I just want to make sure who I’ve assigned a client to.  The detail is tracked in Liscio but I want a cross-reference of sorts so that when I’m freaking out at 3am about whether Mr. Snozzleboots is done or who is working on his books, I’ll know instantly.  Karbon is my source of truth in that aspect (thanks Ian!!).  

Userlevel 7
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If it helps, you can have as many “Fake” colleagues as necessary. Just invite a non-existent email in your domain and then let Karbon support know that they are not actual colleagues. (they will always sit in pending status)

I don’t love this idea, personally, but it may be worth considering in your situation.

Welcome to the Karbon community, by the way. Lol, I forgot to open with that. :)

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Kylene - great idea but I do need to know by sub as I have 4 of them.  1 has dedicated clients (2) so I don’t need to track her as much as the other 3 who are doing catch-up work but may later be assigned those clients.

Max - I think I’ll look into your idea…

 

Thanks!!

Userlevel 6
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@Nancy D'Amato Do you need to track per the specific contractor, or just know that work with with any of your subs?

We have a “fake” user (one set up to a fake email address that is not a billable or used user for anything other than assigning) in Karbon called Consultant, that way we can assign work to the person, but in a more generic type way.  Then we built a view to just show work assigned to the Consultant.  It works pretty well for us so far.   This could work for you, if you don’t need to know the specific sub.  It also helps when looking at work for all on the team, in Kanban.

 

Userlevel 7
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We do not use subs. I’ve seen posts from a couple people on here who use sub contractors or temp labor and they have added them to Karbon.

I’m curious to see how other firms handle this.

From my perspective, you would have the work in a status called “Waiting - Subcontractor” to keep track of what is waiting and why. If you regularly receive status information from your subs mid-work, you could add those as additional secondary statuses.

Once you get the work back from your sub, your work item would flow through the rest of your statuses.

Does that help at all?

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