Regardless of how big your company is, time tracking software can make a positive impact on various elements of your business. It could also save you money as well as increasing productivity. Making sure you research into disaster recovery services is also an important investment, as losing data can cause your business downfall. So, make sure whatever software you choose is backed up! From reducing payroll times to analyzing project data, here are 8 ways that time tracking software can improve the functionality of your business.

Billable clients

You might be surprised how much money you may be losing from inaccurately billing clients. Time tracking software allows your staff to precisely report the time they take working on individual projects. This then allows your clients to be invoiced far quicker and more accurately. Analyzing historical data will also enable you to produce more accurate estimates to prospective clients and reduce the time taken to work them out.

Project management

You may have heard or researched many project management solutions. Profit’s blog deals with performance management issues and OKRs which may help in this regard. But did you know that simple time tracking software can help just as much as some of the tips discussed in the linked blog?

Time tracking allows you to view and analyze historical data which can make future projects far easier to manage. You will have a decent overview of how long various elements of each project took in terms of man-hours. This will allow for a more realistic program to be put together when dealing with comparable projects. It works particularly well in industries such as construction, where there are many different elements needed, and deadlines need to be met. It can make build programs far easier to put together and can improve accuracy from the outset.

Workflow

A time tracker will make it far easier for you to see what employees spend most of their day working on and how many hours they are spending on various functions. This will give you a good indication of whether procedures need to be looked at or tightened up. If someone is taking two hours on a job that should take one, is the issue the member of staff, or is the task perhaps more arduous than it needs to be? Time tracking will provide you with the information you need to figure that out.

Payroll

If you have staff who work on an hourly basis or a day rate, payroll time can be substantially reduced using time tracking software. The employee can use their mobile phone to log their working hours and, once approved, payroll can arrange payment. It really can drastically reduce the amount of time spent on payroll administration.

Many apps also include a function whereby timesheets can be produced based on the data entered which, again, will reduce time and increase functionality. Human errors can occur where, for example, someone may be paid the wrong amount or payment is late. Using software such as this will drastically reduce the chances of anomalies.

Expenses

This software can also provide a function to allow employees to claim expenses. Salient information such as the date and description of the expense would be entered, as well as any internal project codes to assist with payment allocation. Management then receives a notification that expense approvals are pending. They can view the information whenever they want and from wherever they are. At the touch of a button, approval can be made, allowing payroll to proceed with payment.

Logistics

This software can be accessed from pretty much anywhere, so there is no reason that it can’t be used to its full capacity if employees are out and about. If one of your law firm partners is, for example, visiting a client at home, they can access the same services as they would if they were in the office.

Accurate forecasting

Due to the level of information that you can obtain from historic data, it will be far easier for you when putting together an annual forecast. You can, at a glance, see statistics relating to the number of employees you had, time taken on a job, how many hours each element took, and so on. Whilst forecasts may change throughout the year, if it is as accurate as possible from the outset, the level of deviation needed later on will reduce.

Holidays and sick days

Many time tracking systems will track staff holidays taken and calculate holidays outstanding. This is not only great for your staff as they will have an at a glance record, but will also save lots of time. It will also reduce any anomalies with holiday allocations being incorrectly calculated.

Sick days can also be tracked, which will allow you to can keep an eye on whether there are ongoing attendance issues with any of your staff. If patterns are forming, it will become apparent fairly quickly.