Frequently Asked Questions (F.A.Q.)

1. How much does the service cost?
   The HourSmart standard price is 8 €/month per active user account and a handling fee of 10 € plus VAT valid at the time of order will be charged with each prepaid balance deposit. In addition to the standard features, you can activate one or more of the features we recommend for your business based on the Preliminary Questionnaire. The more features you use the higher both the service price but also the higher your savings. Please refer to our Price and Savings calculator for details.
2. Why are some of the features already checked in the Price and Savings calculator?
   HourSmart has both Standard and Optional Features.
   • Standard Features are included in each configuration by default and are not optional and thus can not be changed.
   • Optional Features have been pre-selected for your business based on your Preliminary Questionnaire answers. Feel free to activate or deactivate the optional features according to your company's needs at any time.
3. How much does an average customer save?
   • HourSmart customers save on average 30 € monthly per employee, or 360 € annually.
   • For example, if your company has 50 employees, the annual savings would be 18,000 €.
   Please refer to our Price and Savings calculator for details.
4. How do I get started?
   • Start with the free trial. No installations or sign-up required.
   • Follow the step-by-step guided tour within the trial.
   • In addition to watching a video tutorial, you will also be able to read/print an overview of the tour as text if necessary.
   • Our 24/7 helpdesk is available to you throughout the trial assiting you via chat or email in any additional questions you might have.
5. How do I find help when I need it?
   In addition to the step-by-step tutorials, our 24/7 helpdesk is available to assist you via chat or email in any additional questions you might have. You can contact our helpdesk through the link at the bottom right corner of all our web pages.
6. How do I cancel my account?
   • HourSmart service is provided based on Prepaid service fees. When your prepaid balance is used up, your account is put on hold. Your account information remains accessible for you in our system in case you wish to resume later.
   • If you wish to have your account deleted permanently, please notify our 24/7 helpdesk via chat or e-mail.
   • If you have unused pre-paid balance you wish to be returned, please notify our 24/7 helpdesk. A handling fee of 25 € per return plus 15% of the total remaining balance is deducted from the total refund. Handling fees are not returned.
   
   
   
   
7. How much experience do you have? Are you reputable?
   Since 2002 we have been in the business of creating great software that streamlines businesses. HourSmart was first created 2008 in Scandinavia by experienced staffing experts who got frustrated by inefficient time and resource management in their own work. Finland, Scandinavia, due to its rigorous labor laws and hundreds of collective bargaining labour agreements (CBA), was an especially challenging environment to develop an integrated software solution. Regardless of all the challenges, HourSmart was successful and now has more than 10,000 happy users worldwide. So, yes, we are reputable. Please have a look at our company page for full story and read some of our customer testimonials.
8. How safe and secure are my data files in the hands of your service? Is it guaranteed?
   To be honest, nothing is absolutely secure in the world wide web. However, we take all industry measures to protect data and network traffic. We use HTTPS/SSL data encryption to secure all data transfers. All data is stored securely in the cloud with daily backups, copied onto multiple, geographically distributed servers to ensure that your data is never lost.
9. Is it possible to use HourSmart for reporting different types of earnings and deductions?
   In HourSmart you can create unlimited own custom types of earnings and deductions.
10. What types of reports will I be able to run?
    HourSmart generates a wide range of reports, for example:
    
    • Employee perspective: Worked hours and compensations for payroll, per employee or grouped by organizational units.
    • Project perspective: Worked hours and compensations for billing, per employee or grouped by project or organizational units.
    • Customer(s) perspective: Hours worked and compensations for billing, per employee, per project, grouped by customer, project, or organizational units.
    • Sickleave statistics.
    • Absence balance reports.
    • List of employees, list of employee contracts, list of employee skills, list of projects, list of customers, customer data, etc.
11. How does HourSmart work with our company's current workflow and processes?
    HourSmart will align with your company's core procedures:
    
    • employees are reminded to save their hours on time,
    • employees' supervisors are reminded to review and approve their subjects reports after the end of custom reporting periods,
    • finally supervisors responsible for payroll and invoicing take care of salaries and billing. Each step can be delegated to your personnel and supervisors based on their expertise, responsibility, and organizational area.
12. How are my employees paid?
    Salary payment depends on how your payroll is processed:
    
    • If you choose to use HourSmart to collect data and then electronically transfer work time and compensations to your current payroll solution (or outsourced payroll provider), there will be no changes to your employees current payment arrangements.
    • If you choose to process payroll using HourSmart's one-click payroll, employees salaries shall be paid using SEPA transfer orders issued from HourSmart.
13. When do I have to do my payroll to ensure my employees get paid?
    This depends on the size of your company. For example, all payroll and billing for company with 100 employees can be done in 2 hours by an experienced supervisor. You should also consult your current payment processor what deadline to give for delivering salaries for a specific due date.
14. How do employees get their payslips/paystubs?
    Payslip/paystub delivery depends on how your payroll is processed:
    
    • If you choose to use HourSmart to collect data and then electronically transfer work time and compensations to your current payroll solution (or outsourced payroll provider), there will be no changes to your employees current payslip/paychek delivery arrangements.
    • If you (or your outsourced payroll provider) choose to process payroll using HourSmart’s one-click payroll, you can email them or choose to opt for for the delivery functionality where you can choose either web or regular mail delivery via iPost. iPost delivery requires a separate service agreement with OpusCapita Ltd.
15. How are my payroll taxes paid?
    Taxes are regulated by legislation in your country and paid according to directions provided by officials. If you use HourSmart's one-click payroll it shall provide payroll tax calculations along with monthly and annual reports/statements for officials - actual tax payments however, are made to tax officials according to standard guidelines.
16. Is it possible to prepare annual tax statements in HourSmart?
    If you use HourSmart's one-click payroll it shall provide payroll tax calculations along with monthly and annual reports/statements for officials.
17. Does HourSmart prepare my records of employment (ROE, Canada)?
    You will continue using your payroll software to do electronic ROE reporting as usual. Note: In usability test version the features are not restricted by country. In actual version features such as one-click payroll might not yet be available in some countries (for example Canada).
18. Should I wait until January 1st to change payroll services?
    No. You can change your payroll services at any time during the year. For fiscal end-of-year reporting, you will need to provide officials with tax reports/statements generated from both your old system and HourSmart. Tax office can add them up for the total sum of the year. When work time data history is needed, previous time and attendance data can be imported from Excel files into HourSmart.