For employees working in a government contracting environment, recording 40 hours isn’t enough. Those hours also need to be associated with the correct work.
That’s where charge codes matter.
A CACI employee can have a timesheet whose total hours are perfectly accurate while the underlying allocation is wrong. If eight hours of contract work are recorded against an administrative code, fixing the weekly total from 40 to… 40 accomplishes absolutely nothing.
The problem is where the time was charged.
A Charge Code Answers “What Were These Hours For?”
Think of the timesheet as having two dimensions.
The first is time:
Monday — 8 hours
Tuesday — 8 hours
Wednesday — 8 hours
The second is the activity, project, or authorized category those hours belong to.
An employee could work eight hours on Monday but divide them between different authorized activities:
Project A — 5.0 hours
Project B — 2.0 hours
Required training — 1.0 hour
Total: 8.0 hours
The total is correct only because the underlying work also adds up correctly.
Entering all eight hours against Project A because it’s the first code available would produce an accurate daily total and an inaccurate labor record.
Don’t Pick a Code Because Its Name Looks Familiar
Charge codes aren’t labels employees should interpret creatively.
A project may have several codes associated with different authorized work, tasks, contracts, or internal activities. Similar-looking descriptions don’t necessarily mean the codes are interchangeable.
If you aren’t sure where a particular activity belongs, confirm the authorized code through the appropriate CACI project or management process.
Guessing is especially risky when an employee moves between assignments.
Yesterday’s correct code can be today’s wrong code.
Keep the effective dates in mind rather than assuming a code remains appropriate simply because it’s still visible in a system.
Direct and Indirect Time Shouldn’t Be Mixed Casually
Contract work and internal activities can require different treatment.
Imagine an eight-hour day consisting of:
6.5 hours — customer project work
1.0 hour — required company training
0.5 hour — internal administrative activity
Recording the entire eight hours against the customer project would misrepresent what actually happened.
The opposite is also a problem. Project work shouldn’t be moved into a general administrative category simply because the employee can’t immediately find the expected project code.
The correct category depends on the authorized CACI accounting structure and instructions applicable to the employee.
The employee’s job is to record the work accurately—not to decide which bucket would be more convenient.
Project Changes Can Split a Single Week
A transition doesn’t always happen neatly between two pay periods.
Suppose your assignment changes on Wednesday.
Monday and Tuesday belong to the previous project. Wednesday through Friday belong to the new assignment.
If you worked eight hours each day, the week could look like:
| Assignment | Hours |
|---|---|
| Previous project | 16 |
| New project | 24 |
| Total | 40 |
Entering all 40 hours under the new project because that’s where you work now can be wrong.
Entering all 40 under the old project because that was the code originally on your timesheet can also be wrong.
The effective transition date matters.
If you performed work for both assignments on Wednesday itself, the day may need to be divided further according to the applicable instructions.
Training Time Still Needs Somewhere to Go
Required training doesn’t disappear from the workday because it wasn’t performed for the customer.
Suppose you spend two hours completing required training and six hours doing project work.
You still worked eight hours.
The question is how those two training hours should be recorded under the applicable CACI instructions.
Don’t simply remove them from the timesheet. And don’t automatically assign them to the customer project to make the daily total work.
Use the authorized category provided for that activity.
The same principle applies to other legitimate non-project work.
Never “Balance” the Timesheet by Moving Hours Around
This is one of the worst ways to correct a discrepancy.
Your records show:
Project A — 7.5
Project B — 1.0
Total — 8.5
But you know you worked eight hours.
Changing Project B from 1.0 to 0.5 solely because the total then becomes eight isn’t a correction unless you actually spent only 30 minutes on Project B.
Find the incorrect entry.
Maybe Project A should have been seven hours. Maybe the start/end record is wrong. Maybe one activity was entered twice.
A timesheet isn’t a math puzzle where any combination producing the desired total is acceptable.
Missing Charge Code? Don’t Invent a Substitute
A particularly awkward situation occurs when you’ve already started authorized work but the expected code isn’t available to you.
Don’t choose another project because it “should be close enough.”
Record the details of the work and contact the appropriate manager, project representative, or timekeeping support channel for instructions.
Useful information includes:
Date worked
Actual hours
Project or assignment
Activity performed
Expected charge code, if known
That gives the person resolving the issue enough information to determine how the time should be recorded.
Review the Allocation Before Submission
Before submitting a CACI timesheet, don’t just check whether the bottom says 40.00.
Read across the week.
If you worked on two projects, do both appear correctly? If you completed required training, is that time accounted for appropriately? Did an assignment change take effect during the week? Are you still using a code associated with work you stopped performing?
And if you discover an error after submission, follow the applicable correction procedure rather than trying to compensate for it by changing a later day.
The exact timekeeping applications, charge structures, and approval workflows available through CACI Apps can depend on the employee and assignment.
But the underlying rule is straightforward:
Record the hours you actually worked against the authorized category for the work you actually performed.
A timesheet with 40 hours can still be completely wrong. The total tells you how much time was recorded. The charge codes explain where that time went.