Time tracking is not just a necessary evil. It can transform the way teams work. It is key to understand how they spend their time and improve productivity and profitability.
Are people focusing too much time on unprofitable tasks, and consequently missing deadlines? Are projects profitable considering the time and effort put into them or should you increase client fees? Time tracking can actually help you solve these and other questions.
So why is time tracking important for your business? Let’s go through a few benefits:
1. Get paid if you’re charging hourly
Guessing how long it took your team complete a project will not do the trick. If you underestimate then you’ll be short charged. If you overcharge you can put the relationship with your clients at risk. Time tracking is crucial for you to bill more accurately, as every second that went into the project is recorded. It allows you to show your clients exactly how much time and effort your team has put into their project. They’ll know exactly what they are paying you for.
As the project moves forward, you may encounter unforeseen issues, and the project might take longer than expected. Consequently, project costs may rise beyond your initial estimates. With a time tracking solution, you’ll be able to present accurate reports to the client and let them know exactly which issues led to the increased costs.
2. Balance your team workload
As a manager, you can use time tracking insights to get an accurate overview of your team performance and overall well-being and productivity. It can help you manage resources and distribute tasks evenly.
Time tracking lets you have an idea of how much your team is working and balance workloads. You can see who needs more work and who is regularly going over their capacity, and take some work off their plate before they burn out.
If your team sees time tracking data is being used to promote a healthier work-life balance, they’re more likely to see it as something positive. A happy and motivated team will certainly have its benefits, not only on productivity but overall work environment.
3. Improve your productivity
How many hours a day do people really spend on meetings? How many hours do they spend looking through their inbox or trying to find that document in a pile of folders?
Once you know how much time everyone spends on their tasks, no matter if they are minor activities, meetings or important tasks, you can start improving the way your team works. If meetings are consuming a lot of time, cut down on the number of meetings or the number of people attending each one. If internal processes are eating away at billable hours, figure out how you can streamline them.
Time tracking helps to plan time in advance, in such a way that people can save their most productive hours of the day for more important tasks. It can also contribute to help them avoid working on several tasks at the same time. Since they have to record the start and the end time of each task, they have to work on each task separately, for more precise results.
4. Make more accurate estimates
By time tracking your projects you’ll get a better idea of the exact amount of time it takes to complete certain tasks and processes. When you know roughly how long a project is going to take, every time you get a new one, you won’t be over-promising to your client and potentially miss your deadline. Instead you’ll be able to establish realistic expectations upfront and start off the relationship with your clients in a better way.
5. Check if you’re on track to meet deadlines
You’ve determined that to complete a project you need to get a certain number of tasks done in a given planned duration. If everyone working on the project time tracks their assigned tasks and checks them when completed, it will be easier to know if things are on track and if the estimated deadline will be met.
6. Know when to hire
Time tracking can let you understand the exact capacity your organisation has to complete current projects and take on new ones. That will help you to decide whether or not you should hire a full-time employee or a freelancer to help with the work.
To sum things up, and to answer our initial question, time tracking lets you see how efficient (or inefficient) your team workflows are and how long it takes (on average) to complete specific deliverables. You can then use that information to improve both your business and processes.
Time track with Outplanr
Outplanr has a build-in time tracking widget so, besides allowing to you add tasks, events and see all your projects and resources together, it lets you keep track of the time spent on every task and download time reports for easier management.
Task play and pause: Hit play when you start working on a task, pause it when you’re doing a break or want to work on a different one, and press the check button once you complete it. Now you might be wondering, what if I forget to pause a task before going to lunch? No need to worry. Each action “started”, “paused” or “continued” can have its time stamp edited.
Export automatic project timesheets: Choose the information you want to include in the timesheet and easily export it in CSV format. You can select which tasks and events you want to include, all team members involved in the project or only a single person, and the timeframe.
Get an instant project report: This report will show the performance of your resources in each project during the date interval you choose to see. You’ll be able to check how many hours were planned, how many hours are completed and how many hours were spent against your estimates. You’ll also see information about all your teammates that work on the project, including how many hours they completed, how many hours they exceeded from the estimates, how many hours they have planned and the total of hours spend on the project.
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