Employees might think that time tracking can slow down their progress, and managers don’t want to appear micromanaging everybody on the team. However, most savvy business owners consider this feature as the lifeblood of their business.
Why? Because it has a lot of benefits, and this is indispensable when it comes to project management, accounting, and payroll. Everyone gets paid hourly on the time worked, and these trackers will let the owners know if they are spending their money more efficiently or just burning off some cash at a specific job.
Ways to Track
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1. Billing Every Client you Have
Jobs involving services to various homeowners or business owners are often billed by the hour. Knowing how many hours were spent on a specific project with the help of Harvest will not make the workers sell themselves short. There are no overcharging instances that can result in strained partnerships, and completion of the work is more likely.
Software and other tools will help you get the right invoice on time. They are automatic, and the numbers are generated depending on the terms of the contract.
2. Get the Most out of the Employees
From the manager’s perspective, you will always be sure that someone will meet the deadline because you see that they are working too hard. There’s no space for casual work when things needed to get done quickly. Others might be slacking off right now but giving them a sense of urgency and letting them know about deadlines will result in them moving too quickly.
Taking responsibility and ownership will result in faster completion of pending tasks. The software will also let you see all the undone work that’s still in the queue, and when they know the jobs that they need to finish within the day, they will be more empowered during their shifts.
3. Improve Quotations on Certain Jobs
Setting up the record straight and finding out how long each job will take will mean that you can give accurate quotes to customers and set everything on the right foot at the start. Run the reports through the right tools and check instantly the amount of time everyone is spending on them. Get a fair market price value, and never underestimate the tasks on hand. Doing a high-quality output is preferable, and clients are more willing to pay for them if things go well.
4. No Micromanagement
Contrary to popular belief, you’ll have more free time when you have a tracker, and you have something to show for it at the end of the day. Companies and small businesses are still starting, and they can’t afford to spend unnecessarily, so they rely on the numbers to make sure that they are hiring the right people. Knowing that their workers punched the tracker at a specific hour and ended their shifts at a particular time will reduce the need for them to scrutinize everyone.
Employee performance can be defended later on by having proof that they are not tardy. Overall, there will be more trust in the workplace when there are numbers that can contribute to the performance of an individual.
5. Discipline Becomes Common
Start-ups can evolve into small businesses, and they can do this quickly. It’s important to emphasize the changes before they begin operations so the company will flourish for more years to come. With this said, there should be new codes in place and enhanced discipline where everybody should be able to go to work and do something productive every day. See more about promoting discipline at this link: https://work.chron.com/maintain-discipline-workplace-3967.html.
Attentiveness may increase, especially in the workplace, and leaning toward this norm can cause further improvements down the line. Through features like milestones, calendars, and job scheduling, the necessary adjustments can be done, and high-priority tasks take precedence over the others.
Selecting the Right Software for Your Needs
1. Team Consultations are Important
As with any other part of business management, letting everyone know that there will be a tracker will help reduce confusion and result in better preparedness later on. Consider the strengths and challenges of each individual and see which feature will benefit them best.
Various departments may require privacy and more autonomy, so screen capturing may not work well for them. Other employees may feel uncomfortable when almost all of their activities are being monitored as well, so this might result in counterproductivity.
On the other hand, those who are working in the field may get more advantages with geo-tagging. Consult everyone to see which software is the appropriate choice as a whole.
2. Be Clear with your Goals
Management implements tracking tools because they might want to start putting boundaries on the things that matter the most. These include being able to manage the employees’ time better, lessen the instances of absenteeism, minimize distractions, and have optimal interactions within the workplace where people are only asking about the tasks at hand and not office gossip.
Additional goals will mean that people’s privacy shouldn’t be respected. It’s actually the opposite, where you will only know that they are doing something on a daily basis instead of breathing down on their neck at all times.
3. Know the Device where Software Will Work
Is MacOS popular in the workplace, or do most people have Windows computers? Regardless of whether it’s Mac or Android, you need to select the tool that will work in almost anything that’s essential to the job at hand.
Tasks that usually require the workers to be at a remote location will benefit from the apps that are working on both their smartphones and computers. Freelancers are often billed by the hour, with occasional screenshots and short descriptions of what they are doing. Being straightforward with the tracked hours will help with invoicing, payroll, and scheduling so make sure to select the right one for you.
4. Consider the Other Programs Everyone is Working On
A wealth of platforms is available today, like development applications such as GitHub or JIRA. Asana and Trello are for more efficient project management tasks, and cooperation and communication can be done on Skype or Slack.
Streamlining everything and integrating your clock into one of them will be more convenient instead of opening several tools simultaneously. When there are deadlines, you can also compare the actual time spent on a project and the estimates for better accuracy. See why deadlines are essential on this site.
5. Easy-to-Use Interface
Not all employees are experts in tech-related niches, so you will need to have software that’s user-friendly and has a clean interface. Knowing what to press and where they will have to key in what they are doing will save a lot of time and energy for many people. A quick rundown of the program and several tutorial videos on how to use the premium features should be more than enough to start everything.
It’s ideal to get the features to work with just a couple of mouse clicks. Also, ensure that these time-tracking devices are up-to-date with the latest trends and are constantly innovating so they’ll remain compatible with the other programs.
6. Price Point
Setting a budget will dictate the features and kind of software that you’re going to use. Fortunately, today, there’s no need to break the bank when you want a proper set-up. Other platforms can offer a yearly rate without any contracts, and the price is staggered according to the number of seats available. Talk to a representative for custom pricing to see what is available.