There’s a lot more to time tracking than logging your hours into a timesheet. Time tracking allows you gather data that could do wonders for your employee productivity, efficiency, and motivation without having to use a whole lot of resources.
A lot of businesses prefer to not track time, citing reasons such as not wanting to micromanage or being slowed down. Oftentimes, it’s viewed as a bothersome administrative task, and one that may inhibit the creativity and focus of your team.
However, time tracking can do wonders for your business. It doesn’t have to culminate in you micromanaging your team or inhibiting their creativity. Just choose a great time-tracking system, and avoid those inconvenient ones, which may result in your team not bothering to use it at all. We recommend a cloud-based time-tracking system. This makes it possible for your employees to track their time anywhere, any time, using any device.
If you’re still wondering what advantages time-tracking can offer, we’ve got your back. Read on to learn some of the reasons why you should start tracking time.
1 – Maximize your team’s productivity
Is your team frequently unsure of what tasks they need to be completing, or having no sense of urgency even when faced with a major project deadline?
This doesn’t necessarily mean that they are neglecting their work duties. They may just not see how pressing the time frame is, or are unaware of the amount of work that lays beyond today’s to-do list.
With time-tracking, your employees will have a better idea of how they are performing. They may even take it as a challenge, trying to shorten their time for every project. Having them be in charge of their productivity helps them to take ownership of the tasks they have to complete. They’ll have a better view of what they have to do next too, so there won’t be long gaps between tasks while they figure out what they have to do next.
2 – Make your quotes and bills more accurate
Your clients will appreciate how precise your quotes are. If you know exactly how long it takes you to complete a particular job, your quotes will be more spot-on every time. With tracking software, you can produce reports and bring up the time it takes to complete particular tasks. That way, you can combine the times of each task to produce accurate quotes.
It’s the same for billing. If you know exactly how long you took to complete a job, you know exactly how much to bill your customers. A rough estimate is just that. Even an additional fifteen minutes counts. Every little bit adds up. If you don’t account for your time, you may be missing out on a great deal of revenue that could have been yours if you had just tracked your time to bill for it.
3 – Know what’s going on with your freelancers
Freelancers or contractors may not be working full-time, but you are still paying for their time contributing to your projects. Therefore, have them fill out timesheets and track the time that they work. That way, you’ll be paying exactly for the work they’ve done. Additionally, you can see their performance on different tasks, which helps you distribute work to the appropriate people.
4 – See how a job is doing in an instant
Have you ever had a client call to check in on the status of a job and have to rush around to 3-4 different people, trying to find out? There are often a lot of people working on a project, and several in the works at one time, so it can be challenging to know exactly where each project is in real-time.
With time-tracking software, it can be easy. You don’t need to call the contractor – all you have to do is click into your software and check the status of a project. If there are many projects in progress, you can filter the list easily by department or job type to find the one you’re looking for. Cloud-based software will make it even easier – you don’t even have to be at work to track how each job is doing.
5 – Prepare realistic project schedules
Sometimes you may set a project completion goal, only to exceed it by several weeks, or even a couple months. If this is a regular occurrence at your company, you may find that it is negatively impacting the perception customers have of you.
Though inefficient work could be one of the factors, often it is just not having a realistic estimate of how long a job should take. You may find that your estimate was unrealistic in the first place.
Time-tracking software makes it possible for you to know exactly how long your team has taken to finish similar tasks in the past. With that knowledge, you can develop much more realistic project schedules, saving your team from feeling demotivated and your client from being frustrated.
Timeero is an employee time tracking application with added GPS features, if you’re looking to streamline your business, then Timeero is for you. Sign up today!
Federal government contracts can be a profitable and stable source of income for your business. Due to competitive bidding rules, most domestic businesses have a chance at winning a contract as long as they make the best bid and prove they can follow through on it. The following are tips to get your company ready for DCAA compliance.
At the establishment of your professional service firm, you may find it easy to dedicate your resources and workers to optimize your team while satisfying your client’s needs. However, as the number of your clients and team grows, your time management needs also to change. Whether you manage or own an architectural firm, a law firm, an accounting firm, or an IT consulting firm, you will reach a point in the evolution of your business where you will need to strengthen your resources by tracking your workers time appropriately. Not forgetting the need to create client bills and track receivables.
For people who work in a manufacturing industry, you probably have divisions in different locations. This means adhering to different wage rules, complying with the federal, state and local laws of each region while tracking overtime hours and absenteeism in real time. Distance can make workforce scheduling more challenging and tedious. This makes time management software a necessity, rather than a choice.
Staffing is the process of employing, positioning and overseeing workers in a company. Businesses are seeking expansion and new jobs and tasks are being made part of the revolution of operational processes. Many organizations are looking for specific workers to compensate for the growing need for skilled and technical workers in limited and special-time roles.
FLSA is a federal law that defines not only the 40-hour workweek but also establishes the overtime wage requirements, minimum wage, and child labor standards. Hour and wage laws are complex and compliance is often an issue. Although a company may have policies and systems in place, a supervisor or a manager can put the organization at risk for unpaid wages, if they are not familiar with the requirements of the FLSA. There can be vagueness as to what time is compensable. For instance, does an employee need to be paid for traveling to work? When does a workday start and end? Determining when a worker is “off the clock”; is not as easy-peasy as many employers may think. The use of common sense and doing what “seems right” most times leads to the hour and wage violations. Here are some of the ways which you can avoid FLSA lawsuit.
Convenience-craving consumers are always searching for a way to do things better, cheaper and faster. Often, this means turning to service companies who know how to get the job done right. On the other hand, running a service business is hard work. Not only do you need to provide the services your clients want, but you also have to keep your business in order. Tracking time, sending schedules, billing clients, and running payroll can take a lot of energy and time. With all that work, how do you get the time to focus on keeping your service business healthy and growing? Time tracking software brings you the ultimate solution. Thousands of service businesses are automating their time, attendance and scheduling processes to reduce the hustle that comes with manual processing.
For home health and caregiver experts, saving lives is the norm in their daily lives. Keeping shifts covered, workers in the loop, or accountability in check can mean the difference between chaos and seamless collaboration. In health and hospice industry, the ability to see all hands on deck is critical. To make it happen, home health and medical centers needs a time tracking solution that won’t slow them down. Home health time tracking is important, and builds accountability into the healthcare sector. Now you can see your workforce in real time, at a glance.
For companies serving in the agricultural industry, unique challenges exist. It’s primary for every organization to get the most out of their workforce. However, it’s difficult for agricultural companies due to seasonal and remote employees. Businesses have to stay in compliance with the wage and hours law. This can be tricky because managing time sheets can be overwhelming and time-consuming, but record keeping is an essential part of time and labor compliance. Agriculture businesses are responsible for tracking employee’s hours and overtime. Agricultural companies need the satisfaction that their remote workforce is accountable and productivity is high. In agriculture, most tasks are executed manually because it’s impossible to automate everything in a farm. This leads to labor being the most substantial operating expense, so proper time tracking in agriculture is essential.
