Timesheets have got a bad reputation – which is why everybody loves to hate them. Project managers don’t want to incorporate an online timesheet software and team members hate using it.
Every project, campaign, and task revolves around two main things – time and budget. While you can easily take care of the costing but managing time and meeting deadlines have always been a challenge for people working in any industry.
No matter what you do, time is the most precious commodity in any line of work. Fortunately, with the advent of various timesheet software and other time-tracking apps, managing time is easier than ever. Sadly, many companies are still using the age-old paper-based or Excel method of time-tracking. Here’s why you should move on to the modern method of filling timesheets and tracking time.
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Why You No Longer Need Paper-based Time Tracking?
You might be still using manual time tracking methods to record time spent on each task, bill clients, and to make payrolls. But it is costing your company in ways you couldn’t even imagine now but will definitely regret later.
It could leave you with complicated calculations, inaccuracies and compliance issues. On the top of it, your HR staff is left with a huge administrative burden.
Down here are some common problems you might be facing with paper-based tracking and scheduling.
- Vague, inflexible, and difficult-to-update
Work schedules could undergo a lot of changes for different reasons such as people taking leaves or calling in sick. Whenever a schedule is made on a paper and things go unplanned, you have to start things all over. Thus, making it difficult-to-update and inflexible to use.
- Prone to errors and mistakes
There are chances of discrepancies and errors while doing things manually. A mistake could happen either by you or someone on the other side such as your payroll manager. Maybe your four might look like a nine while entering timesheets and it could lead to serious errors that could have large repercussions.
- Time-consuming
The main thing with manual processing of timesheets is that it consumes way too much of time. Because of which employees tend to let it go or need a push to complete and then hand over their timesheets to be punched into the payroll. It is further double-checked by the payroll staff that further costs them a lot of time yet again. It isn’t just complex and difficult but it also slows down your business.
- Needs more care, maintenance, and tracking
As per a recent study, nearly half of all hourly workers admit to exaggerating the amount of time they work in each shift. This practice is known as time theft where employees accept pay for the time they have not actually worked. These ten and fifteen minutes here and there could cost companies as much as $400 billion annually along with lost productivity. Using a paper-based system isn’t going to help you much in monitoring or tracking such behavior.
You might be thinking that businesses were being run long before the advent of time tracking and timesheet software. They used to but it would cost them a lot of time and effort. Whereas these software come with a myriad of benefits but we don’t want you to take our word for it. Instead, read the following set of advantages and make your own judgment.
Advantages of an Online Timesheet Software
Here is a list of advantages that come along with incorporating an online timesheet software into your workflow. Let’s check them out:
- Better time management
If you think that your team is lacking the sense of urgency while working on deadlines, implementing a timesheet or time-tracking software will suffice. When team members know every minute of their time is being monitored and tracked, it helps them to take ownership and manage time in the most productive way. They get to know how much time is being spent on each task and see for themselves how they are performing. If certain tasks are taking more time than they require, you get enough time to make changes and adjust the schedule accordingly.
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- Bill clients accurately
The best thing about time-tracking software is that you get a complete and accurate log at one centralized place. It’s hard for team members to remember every specific minute and provide details, which is why you might get a rough estimate but not the exact details of every billable minute. However, these tools help you record time spent on a job so that you can bill the client accurately.
- See how tasks are progressing
These days projects are getting bigger and complicated. A number of people are working on the different parts of projects and at times, multiple projects at once. With so much hullabaloo around, it could be cumbersome to know the status of each task when needed. This is where a time tracking software comes to your rescue. You can see the status of every single task or use filters to track the time of a certain department to see how they are progressing as a whole project.
- Compare projects over time
It’s essential to compare different projects over time to improve the impact of your business. If you’d like to obtain the ratio of different types of projects or see how fast or slow certain type of tasks are being completed, an online time-tracking software could give some answers of them.
- Maintain compliance
It is critical to maintain compliance in any field of work. Failing to do so could leave your company open to various complaints, penalties and lawsuits. These days may industries need timesheets for reporting and compliance reasons. This could be a pain in the neck if you’re not using a cloud-based time-tracking software.
How to Choose the Right Timesheet Software
Every software isn’t designed equally. Some can do this, not that while others can do that but not this. While choosing a time-tracking tool for your business, choose the one that adapts as per the needs and requirements of your business, not the other way around.
Along with this, your timesheet software should have the following things:
- Advanced time-tracking capabilities
- Real-time monitoring
- Easy submission of timesheets
- Quick reporting
- Email notifications
Why Proofhub Is the Right Software for Your Enterprise
ProofHub is made for teams who like to make the most of their time. Our online time tracking tool allows teams to set time estimates, track time spent on tasks and maintain a record of every minute they spend working on tasks. It also lets you:
- Set time estimates for better time management
- Track time spent on tasks using a timer to measure team productivity
- Use timesheets to record time data and performance evaluation
- Mark timesheets as private to keep your data confidential
- Export timesheets for easy and hassle-free invoicing
- Get by-minute details of your resources using time reports
Want to know more about ProofHub features, check them out here.
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Successful time tracking is all about recording data in your business. Use that data wisely and put it to the right use. We hope that we’ve given you a few ideas to think about. If you think that we’ve missed out on something important, let us know in the comments section.
