FAQ
All frequently asked questions about Fortes Milestones. If you still haven’t found the answer to your question after reading this page,
If so, please use the button below to submit a question, and we’ll do our best to answer it as soon as possible.
General
What is Fortes Milestones in a nutshell?
Milestones is cloud-based software for service-oriented companies that allows you to track hours, efficiently schedule employees and projects, and invoice for hours, products, fixed prices, subscriptions, and advance payments. The system integrates with accounting software and provides real-time insight into projects and capacity.
What is the purpose of the software?
The goal is to be able to smoothly and efficiently complete all steps, from recording a new assignment through to invoicing. This results in fewer errors and saves time for the entire office.
Where can I find information about privacy and data protection?
Where is our data stored?
The data you add to Milestones is stored in the “Azure cloud.” This cloud is provided by Microsoft, and the data is stored in a data center in Amsterdam (Western Europe region). We have compiled all the information related to these topics on our website, Fortesgroup.com.
How secure is Fortes Milestones?
Milestones is highly secure. We have an information security policy in place, a disaster recovery plan, use advanced backup technology, support multi-factor authentication, and offer single sign-on based on Azure Active Directory. In addition, only “strong” passwords can be used. You can find more information about information security here: Privacy Policy
Who owns the data?
The licensee—that is, the company that uses the software—owns all the data.
Are you certified?
We are certified for Data Pro. We are also certified for ISO 27001.
Does Fortes Milestones integrate with other software packages?
Milestones integrates with Exact Online, Twinfield, AuditCase, Yuki, Exact Globe, Accountview, Exact Synergy, Afas, Mijn Kantoor, eVerbinding, SnelStart, Muis, ClockAssist, Minox, and Multivers Online. We also offer an API. For the most up-to-date integrations, visit the “Integrations” page.
In which languages is Fortes Milestones available?
Fortes Milestones is available in Dutch, English, Slovak, and Danish. Each user can select their preferred language, ensuring that the software remains user-friendly at all times, even within international organizations.
How often is the software updated?
Fortes Milestones is updated at least once a month. These updates always occur automatically in the cloud. This ensures you’re always working with the latest features and security standards, without any extra effort from your IT department. Read about the latest updates here.
Can I restrict access to certain information for specific coworkers?
Yes. With the comprehensive authorization and permissions structure in Fortes Milestones, you can easily determine who has access to which data. This allows you to restrict access to sensitive information—such as financial reports or payroll data—and make it available only to the appropriate employees.
Is Fortes Milestones also suitable for mobile use?
Yes. Fortes Milestones is entirely web-based and can be used on any device: laptop, tablet, or smartphone. This means that employees can log their hours or check their schedules even when they’re on the go.
Do I need to install software to use Fortes Milestones?
No. Fortes Milestones is a cloud-based solution. All you need is an internet connection and a browser. This ensures that updates are applied automatically.
What other software can Fortes Milestones integrate with?
Fortes Milestones integrates easily with commonly used accounting and ERP systems, such as Exact, AFAS, and Twinfield. Integrations with many other software programs are also possible. Visit the Integrations page to see which software programs are supported.
Can Fortes Milestones grow along with my organization?
Yes. The software is scalable and suitable for both small teams and large, complex organizations. You only pay for the modules you need and can easily expand as your organization grows.
Can I continue to use my existing (accounting) software?
Absolutely. Fortes Milestones easily integrates with popular accounting and ERP systems, such as Exact, AFAS, and Twinfield. This allows you to continue working with your trusted software while taking advantage of Milestones’ extensive features. Wondering if we integrate with your (accounting) software? Check out our integrations page.
Is Fortes Milestones suitable for accounting firms and project organizations?
Yes. Fortes Milestones was developed specifically for service-oriented organizations such as accounting firms, IT companies, and consulting firms. The software combines time tracking, project management, invoicing, and capacity planning into a single solution.
What specific benefits does Fortes Milestones offer me?
- Save up to 50% of the time spent on invoicing
- Fewer errors and greater transparency
- More efficient use of capacity and higher customer satisfaction
- Immediate insight into profitability by project or customer
- Seamless integration with existing systems
Too good to be true? Find out for yourself in our customer stories.
Hours registration
What are the concrete benefits of time tracking with Fortes Milestones?
- Time savings through automatic integration with invoicing
- Fewer errors and less duplication of work
- Complete insight into employee assignments and availability
- Transparency with Customers
- Better insight into profitability per project
Too good to be true? Find out for yourself in our customer stories.
How does time tracking work in Fortes Milestones?
With Fortes Milestones, you can easily track hours worked by project, client, or activity. Employees can enter their hours directly via desktop, tablet, or smartphone. All data is saved in real time, so you always have an up-to-date overview.
Can hours and expenses be recorded?
Yes, this is possible. These can also be entered using a tablet or a smartphone. It is also possible to enter hours and costs as drafts.
Can I save time by tracking my hours?
Yes. Because time tracking is automatically linked to projects and invoicing, you no longer have to enter data twice. This prevents errors and often saves a lot of administrative time.
Can I also track leave and sick days?
Absolutely. In addition to project hours, you can also track leave, sick days, and other types of absences. This gives you a single, comprehensive overview of employee availability.
Is there a way to block off the area where employees can write?
Yes, access can be restricted based on the work type or time codes that employees can enter. Restrictions can be set not only on a per-employee basis, but also by position or group. It’s also possible to temporarily prevent employees from logging time for a specific client or project by implementing a work stop.
Is time-for-time registration possible?
Yes. Fortes Milestones supports time-for-time. Compensatory hours are automatically tracked and included in reports and scheduling.
Are my hours directly linked to billing?
Yes. Hours are easily assigned to the correct client or project. This makes invoicing faster, easier, and error-free.
Can I generate reports based on recorded hours?
Yes. Fortes Milestones provides comprehensive reports on productivity, utilization rates, and project results. This lets you see at a glance how hours are spent and what the results are.
Is it easy to copy data?
To log hours very quickly, you can copy a project to another client (or a group of clients), or you can create a new project for the same client based on an existing project. All data from the source project is copied over (including rates, project members, and budgets), unless you specify during the import that a value needs to be adjusted (for example, the project start date).
Billing and Reimbursement
How does Fortes Milestones help with invoicing?
Fortes Milestones links time tracking directly to invoicing. This allows you to easily generate error-free invoices in no time. It saves a lot of time and prevents manual errors.
Can I submit expense reports faster with Fortes Milestones?
Yes. Employees submit expense reports digitally through the software. These are automatically linked to the appropriate projects and clients, so approval and processing are much faster.
Can I export invoices to my accounting system?
Absolutely. Fortes Milestones integrates with accounting software such as Exact, AFAS, and Twinfield. Invoices and expense reports are automatically transferred to your financial records.
What rates can I use?
You can use the following rates:
- A rate per project,
- per customer,
- per employee,
- for the combination of employee and job type,
- for the combination of client and type of work
Rates can be adjusted on a calendar or fiscal year basis. It is also possible to work with fixed fees. For example, you can invoice 50% at the start of the project and 50% upon completion.
How can I bill for subscriptions?
You can invoice subscriptions or recurring payments. You can specify the frequency of invoicing and set an end date. When renewing a subscription, you can adjust the subscription amounts to account for inflation.
How does invoicing for advance payments work?
Advance payments can be invoiced. When settling an advance payment, an invoice is generated that lists both the hours and the rate, as well as the advance payment already invoiced (as a negative amount). This invoice is then processed in the same way as other invoices. Advances are shown as negative amounts in work in progress.
Can I claim allowances and/or office expenses?
Irregularity surcharges can be set in a flexible manner. For example, you can charge 150% of the agreed-upon rate for work performed on Saturdays. In addition, it is standard practice to apply a set percentage for office expenses.
Can I change my booked hours?
During the invoicing process, hours can either be permanently written off or reversed, in which case the hours are returned to the OHW so that a decision can be made at a later time as to whether these hours may be invoiced. Hours can also be partially written off, allowing the remaining portion to be billed. An explanation can be provided when hours are written off. It is also possible to add or write off hours in draft invoices. A reason can be provided here as desired. The recorded hours and the billed hours can be tracked separately for purposes such as management reporting.
Can I easily edit expense reports?
There are many options available when editing proposal invoices:
- transfer to another customer,
- transfer to another job type,
- Modify descriptions in proposal invoices,
- Create zero-amount invoices,
- adding lines to the expense report,
- Deleting a reimbursement request and returning it to OHW so that it can be resubmitted at a later time,
- Create expense report proposals as draft invoices (on screen or on paper).
How flexible is the invoice layout?
This one is very flexible:
- Includes a comprehensive and fully customizable invoice layout,
- apply different invoice layouts for each customer,
- apply different invoice layouts for each project,
- separate invoices per customer for different jobs,
- A breakdown of hours, attached as an appendix if desired.
Budget Monitoring
How does Fortes Milestones support budget monitoring?
With Fortes Milestones, you can compare planned hours and costs with actual usage. This allows you to see immediately whether projects are staying within budget.
How can a budget be established?
For each assignment, you can set a budget with an unlimited number of budget lines that you can group across one or more levels. This allows you to determine the level of detail yourself. Among other things, you can budget by employee, item, etc. The budget can be set in hours or euros.
How flexible is working with budgets?
Very flexible. For example, you can link a start and end date to a budget line. Employees can record hours at the assignment level as well as at the budget line level. You can specify in advance which employees are authorized to do so. For each budget line, you can specify which item or set of items hours may be recorded against.
How do I monitor budgets using Fortes Milestones?
For each budget line item, you can see how many hours have been spent compared to the budget. Time tracking provides insight into the budget status, as does invoicing. A color code makes it immediately apparent at a glance when a budget has been exceeded. Budget lines can be closed so that no more hours can be posted to them.
Can I identify budget overruns in a timely manner?
Yes. The software provides real-time insight into progress and alerts you when limits are exceeded. This allows you to make timely adjustments.
Is it also possible to monitor budgets by customer or department?
Yes. You can set and monitor budgets at the project, client, and department levels. This gives you control over your organization’s overall cost structure.
Can I generate reports on budgets and variances?
Absolutely. Fortes Milestones offers comprehensive reports that give you quick insight into discrepancies and financial risks.
Planning
What are the planning options available with Fortes Milestones?
When scheduling an assignment, can you break down the schedule into multiple tasks? A start and end date can be assigned to each task. Employees can be assigned to tasks. It’s possible to assign multiple employees to a single task. Of course, existing schedules can be easily adjusted.
Please note: The Planning module is included in the Enterprise subscription. For more information, see the pricing page.
How does capacity planning work in Fortes Milestones?
Fortes Milestones shows how much capacity is available per employee, department, or project. This allows you to plan realistically and prevent overloading.
How flexible is planning with Fortes Milestones?
Milestones helps you plan efficiently. You can:
- to make a weekly schedule,
- to create a recurring schedule,
- set up permissions so that one person can create schedules and the others can only view them,
- linking tasks to budget rules,
- change tasks midway or reassign them to someone else,
- to copy a schedule from one year to another,
- view and adjust the schedules for multiple assignments at the same time.
Can I see how full the schedule is?
Yes. A visual overview lets you see right away where there’s still capacity and which teams are overloaded.
Can employees view their own schedules?
Yes. Every employee has access to their personal schedule via desktop or mobile.
Management Information
What management information does Fortes Milestones provide?
Milestones includes a standard report. In addition, you can use Power BI to create a clear report based on the desired (available) information. The standard report allows you to display the following information:
- OHW per client,
- OHW by date/period,
- OHW overview for billing, invoiced amounts, adjustments, and write-offs,
- advance payments, final OHW balance after invoicing,
- hours billed per client and amounts invoiced by type of work,
- productivity per employee,
- Revenue per customer, broken down by year, period, services provided, etc.
- number of sick hours per employee,
- leave status per employee,
- budget vs. hours recorded and/or billed,
- Results per customer / project
- project progress,
- financial forecast.
Can I export reports?
Yes. Reports are available in various formats, such as Excel and PDF. You can easily share them with colleagues or clients.
In what file format are reports created in Fortes Milestones?
The set of standard reports can be generated in PDF, Excel, or Word. Milestones also features information screens, which can be customized for each employee. Some of these information screens allow you to export data to Excel. Finally, Milestones has extensive integration with Power BI. Based on a data warehouse, a complete data model is available in Power BI, allowing users to independently develop their own management reports.
Is it possible to use dashboards?
Yes. Fortes Milestones offers interactive dashboards that provide real-time insights into performance, budgets, and capacity.
Can I set up and track KPIs?
Yes. You can set up your own KPIs using Power BI.
Can I add data from other sources to reports?
Yes, it is possible to import data from other systems, such as a financial software package. If you have specific questions about this, please contact our support department.
Purchase Fortes Milestones
How can I purchase Fortes Milestones?
You can easily request Fortes Milestones through our contact form or by contacting Sjoerd, our sales manager, directly.
T: 06 1111 10 50
How much does Fortes Milestones cost?
For a complete overview of our pricing model, visit our pricing page.
Can I try Fortes Milestones for free?
Yes, that’s possible. We have a demo account available that you can explore. We do, however, recommend that you let us provide you with a customized demonstration. During this demonstration, we’ll show you how our software addresses the specific challenges your organization faces. You can request a trial account or a demo here.
How many organizations are already using Fortes Milestones?
More than 250 organizations, large and small, use Milestones. Curious about their experience with Fortes Milestones? Read all the customer stories and testimonials here.
Are there different types of subscriptions?
Yes. There are several licensing models available, depending on the size and needs of your organization. Visit the pricing page for a complete overview.
Is there a help desk?
Yes, this feature is available within our software. Our help desk is staffed by our support representatives every business day. We can provide support in Dutch and English.
How is the implementation of Fortes Milestones proceeding?
Our consultants will guide you through the implementation. Together, we’ll configure the software based on your processes and needs.
How long does it take to implement Fortes Milestones?
That depends on the size of your organization. Small organizations are often up and running within a few weeks, while larger organizations need a little more time.
Are employees trained in how to use Fortes Milestones?
Yes. We offer training sessions and manuals to help employees quickly become familiar with the software.
Can Fortes Milestones be integrated with existing systems during implementation?
Yes. During implementation, integrations are established with accounting and HR systems to ensure that all processes work together seamlessly.
Updates in Fortes Milestones
How often are updates released for Fortes Milestones?
Every month, we release an updated version of Fortes Milestones.
When can I expect the release notes?
The release notes are posted monthly.
View the latest release here: Release Notes – Fortes Group Service Center
Are the updates free?
Yes, all updates are free and included in our service.
Will I get a notification when a new update is available?
Yes, all users of the software receive a notification when an update is installed.
What happens to my existing data after an update?
All your data remains securely stored. Updates do not affect the data you have already entered into Fortes Milestones. We always ensure that new features and improvements integrate seamlessly with your existing environment.
Do my employees or I need to install the update ourselves?
No, the software is automatically updated in the middle of the night, so everyone can start using the latest version right away the next day.
How does Fortes Milestones decide which features to develop?
Fortes Milestones decides which features to develop by combining its knowledge, experience, expertise, and unique vision with a focus on listening to users, ensuring that the software perfectly meets your needs.
Can I submit feedback or feature requests on my own?
That’s possible. In our software, you can use the service center to submit a question, suggestion, or report a problem. We use this feedback to continuously improve the software. We then determine the priority and assess the feasibility so that we can respond effectively to your reports.
