What the company profile is
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The company profile in your account settings.
Your company profile is the top-level record that defines who your organization is inside Hour Timesheet. It holds the information that every other part of the system — timesheets, approval workflows, payroll exports, and audit reports — reads from and stamps onto its records.
Setting the profile correctly is the first thing you should do after your account is provisioned. Most other configuration (employees, pay periods, leave policies, cost categorization) depends on it.
Why it matters for DCAA compliance
If your organization works on government contracts, the company profile is more than cosmetic. The DCAA requires a clear, auditable record of who tracked time, for which employer, under what pay period, and against which cost objectives. The values you enter here become part of the audit trail on every timesheet your employees submit.
In practical terms, that means:
- The legal company name stored here appears on exported timesheet records and certifications.
- The pay period configuration governs how time is grouped and locked for audit purposes.
- The fiscal calendar determines how time rolls up for year-end reporting and indirect rate calculations.
Getting these right at setup — before employees start entering time — avoids painful corrections later.
What you’ll think about
The company profile gathers the foundational facts about your organization that the rest of Hour Timesheet builds on. You won’t necessarily decide every setting on day one, but you should be ready to think through these topics:
| Topic | What you’ll decide |
|---|---|
| Company identity | Your legal name, primary contact, and address |
| Fiscal calendar | When your fiscal year starts |
| Pay periods | How often you run payroll and when the current cycle began |
| Time tracking defaults | Standard workday length, overtime rules, and rounding conventions |
| Compliance | The DCAA-related controls that govern daily entry and the audit trail |
| Integrations | How payroll and accounting systems connect to Hour Timesheet |
Filling in the company profile
The first time you open the company profile, an administrator should walk through it top to bottom. Most fields only need to be set once.
Open the company profile
From the admin area, open the settings section and select your company profile. Only users with administrator permissions can edit these values.
Enter your company identity
Provide your legal company name exactly as it appears on contracts and tax filings — this is the value that appears on audit-ready exports. You can also set a shorter display name for use inside the application, along with your primary address and contact details.
Confirm your fiscal calendar
Make sure Hour Timesheet’s fiscal calendar matches what your accounting system uses. Government contractors often follow the federal fiscal year (starting in October), but any choice is fine as long as it lines up with how your finance team reports.
Configure pay periods
Tell Hour Timesheet how often you run payroll (weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, or monthly) and when your current cycle began. The system uses this to group timesheet records, generate upcoming pay periods, and lock periods once they close.
Set time-tracking defaults
Configure the standard workday length, overtime rules, and any rounding conventions that should apply across your organization. Individual employee records can override these defaults where needed.
Review your compliance posture
If your organization is subject to DCAA audit, confirm that the compliance behaviors Hour Timesheet provides — daily time-entry enforcement, a complete audit trail of edits, and a documented reason for any change to a saved entry — are active for your account. These are the foundation of a DCAA-defensible timekeeping program.
Review and save
Walk through each section before saving. Some choices — especially the fiscal year start and pay frequency — are difficult to change once employees have started recording time, so verify them carefully.
Updating the company profile later
Most profile fields can be edited at any time — for example, updating your address, changing a contact phone number, or adjusting overtime thresholds. A few fields, however, have downstream effects:
- Legal company name: changes apply going forward. Existing exported records keep the name they were generated with.
- Fiscal year start: changing this after time has been recorded affects how historical data rolls up for reporting. Coordinate with your finance team before changing.
- Pay frequency / pay cycle start date: changing these mid-stream can leave partial pay periods. If you need to switch pay schedules, contact Hour Timesheet support so we can help plan the transition without disrupting open timesheets.
Frequently asked questions
Who can edit the company profile?
Only users with administrator permissions. We recommend keeping the list of administrators small and assigning the role to people who understand your payroll and compliance setup.
Does the company profile affect employee permissions?
No — employee roles and permissions are managed separately on each employee record. The company profile controls organization-wide defaults and the values that appear on exports and audit reports.
Can we have more than one company profile?
Each Hour Timesheet account corresponds to a single legal entity. If your organization operates multiple legal entities that need their own audit trails, contact our team to discuss how best to structure your account.
What happens if we change the fiscal year after employees have entered time?
Existing time entries are preserved, but the way they group into fiscal periods for reporting will shift. If you’re considering this change and you’ve already recorded time, reach out to support before making the change so we can advise on the impact to historical reports.
Next steps
Once your company profile is configured, you’re ready to add employees, set up projects and cost categories, and connect your payroll or accounting integration. If you need help at any point, contact our support team at support@hourtimesheet.com.