Track Hours Without Errors: The Best Alternative to Manual Timesheets

What could your team do with 20 extra hours in their week? 

Experts believe that’s how much time can be saved on administrative tasks when employees don’t have to manage manual timesheets and track hours on their own. 

But how, exactly, does that time get saved? Let’s break down how automation works. 

7 Reasons to Track Hours Digitally

1. Clock in from anywhere

When you use cloud-based time tracking software, you’re actually making it easier for employees to clock in and out. They can track hours from their desk, home computer, tablet or smartphone, which means time gets logged whether they’re in a conference room or out in the field.

More importantly, time can be tracked accurately and automatically with GPS:

• Mobile GPS tracking uses your team’s device to map their GPS coordinates and record their work status.
• Desktop tracking detects your employees’ IP address and maps their locations, which means you can monitor work they do in the office, from home or at another location. 
• Fixed location tracking also uses a device’s IP address if your team needs to use a time clock.

2. Eliminate guesswork

In a Forbes online test about time tracking, 69% of employees admitted they don’t track their time accurately. Perhaps even more concerning: half estimated that a quarter of their time at work was wasted. 

That lack of specifics creates problems for employers and employees. If people don’t track hours accurately in manual timesheets, how do you know if you’re paying them fairly? And how do you estimate future cash flow if your records are flawed? Even if people have the best of intentions, at some point, estimates come into play — unless you make them obsolete.

With a solution like Time Tracker, employers know they’re paying their employees only for the hours worked, and employees know they’ll be paid properly for their time. That puts an end to estimates, reduces time theft and ensures everyone starts each workday on the same page. 

3. Track by project or job

If your employees work on multiple projects for multiple clients each day, it can be tedious and tricky to track hours correctly. You may lose a large amount of billable hours simply because it’s hard for employees to remember to update manual timesheets to reflect the work they’ve done. 

With Time Tracker, employees can easily track hours by project or job, and you can see in real-time where each task, budget and client stands.

4. Track every task

Do you find you’re more productive when you have the ability to multitask? It’s a skill many employees use to maximize their time and profitability, but it can make it hard to track hours effectively. 

Time Tracker eliminates those issues. Your employees can run multiple timers at once, which means they can start a timer for a last-minute client call while still logging time traveled if they’re riding to a meeting for a different client. Time Tracker will keep a tally of hours each day and automatically populate their weekly timesheets so they can submit everything at once.

5. Opt-out of paperwork

If you’re still stacking up manual timesheets or saving spreadsheets to your desktop, there’s a good chance your time tracking plan could be improved. 

With a solution like Time Tracker, you can:

• Easily access all records from any device, so you’re never at a loss for information when working from home or while traveling. 
• Schedule automatic time reports so you’ll always know what’s going on with your business. 
• Connect to other platforms like Zapier and schedule your reports to file into your G Drive automatically. 

6. Streamline approvals

Getting employees to track hours properly is only half the battle. If you’ve ever tried to view and report on time for an entire team, you know that the approval process can create a serious backlog. 

The solution: an online dashboard where you can view, edit and approve or reject payroll times all at once. Time Tracker lets you customize your dashboard to keep valuable reports front and center, which in turn helps you ensure your staff is using their time efficiently in real-time.

7. Improve projections

Whether or not you bill clients hourly, you need to know if a task or project is taking more or less time than you expected. Tracking projects gives you insight into your business and makes it easier to accurately quote future work.

Time Tracker can help you see the big picture or get granular so you can:

• See how much time different tasks take, and how long certain employees need to get these jobs done well.
• Estimate which employees will be most effective for a project.
• Know you’re charging your client a fair rate that reflects the time worked. 

Ready to learn more? 

Click here to see exactly how Time Tracker can help employees track hours, reduce administration time and increase profitability with a free 14-day trial, no credit card required.