Messy, missing, and inaccurate time records cause you to spend a lot of unnecessary time and money, running payroll. If you haven’t yet automated your time tracking, you are missing out on the numerous benefits of time tracking for your business. Time tracking software will keep you competitive and profitable, and make growing your business even easier.
Why Is Time Tracking Important?
When you have remote employees, field workers, or multiple job sites, you can’t effectively monitor each job or employee because you can’t be everywhere, all the time. You must rely on the words and memories of your workers for each job, which reduces the quality of visibility you have of your overall organization.
Employee time tracking improves this visibility so you can clearly see what’s happening, where, when, and with whom throughout each workday, so you can make smarter decisions to grow your business.
What are the Benefits of Time Tracking?
Ultimately, tracking your crew’ times will save you money, but there are far more benefits of employee time tracking than that. As companies across the globe start automating processes, it becomes increasingly necessary to start adopting automation tools, to reap the benefits of time-tracking software.
1. Accurate Billing
Relying on paper timesheets or outdated time tracking practices increases your risk of inaccurate billing and, thus, late payments. Time-tracking software gives you real-time visibility into how long each worker spent on each job and each individual task. With the ability to attach documentation and photographs of completed work, your customers can feel confident in the bills they receive from your company.
2. Increases Accountability
Very few construction projects are finished on time and on budget, particularly for larger ones. With little to no oversight, it’s difficult to manage field service personnel in a way that makes their jobs easier and improves customer experience.
With time-tracking software, your workers are more inclined to do their best work. In cases where employees may be struggling with a particular task or job, you’ll be able to identify weak spots so you can either put a different employee on that job/task, or provide the right training to empower your workers.
3. Better Project Management
Project Management is notoriously difficult without the right tools in place. You have a lot of moving parts - from suppliers and subs to your crews and customers. Time-tracking software helps you pre-plan in a more efficient way and monitor jobs as they progress.
If you have multiple projects happening at once, time tracking gives you the ability to know which workers are at which locations and doing which jobs, so you can better schedule them.
4. Improves Profitability
If you’re not tracking your employees’ times accurately, you’re likely not paying accurately, either. When you can review cost and profit reports with accurate time records, you will have a better understanding of where the hours are going. Timesheet rounding and guessing work hours can also cost your company each pay period. Accurate timesheets ensure they’re getting paid the right amount for every minute they work, plus you can stay on top of overtime to cut down on unintentional, unwanted labor costs.
5. Create Better Workflows
When employees know what’s scheduled and expected of them, and how long it’s supposed to take, they’re able to better manage each step of the project, and you’re better able to determine which workflows are better for each employee and each job. For example, if you have one worker who is in charge of one step of the project, and another who’s responsible for the next one, time tracking helps you schedule the right times and tasks for each one.
6. Better Job Costing
Inaccurate time information leads to inaccurate job costing and inaccurate job costing costs you money. When you’re able to review time reports from time tracking, you’ll have a better and far more accurate picture of how long it takes your workers to complete a job or task.
7. Faster, More Accurate Payroll
Another benefit of automated time tracking is being able to quickly import employees’ timesheet details and run payroll - with accurate time records - into your accounting system to run payroll in minutes.
Who Is Time-Tracking Software For?
Time tracking is crucial for all companies in all industries, but it’s particularly useful for companies that have field crews or multiple locations. If you have employees that travel, time tracking increases the accuracy of your travel costs.
Contractors and service professionals need accurate time records for business functions unique to their organizations such as job costing, certified payroll, and project management.
Construction Trades
Construction companies, contractors, and subcontractors in the trades depend on accurate time tracking to pay their employees correctly and to track job costs. Construction projects frequently have different types of workers doing different jobs. One of the benefits of employee task and time tracking software is being able to see who did what job, when, and how long it took them.
Learn more about time tracking for construction trades
Cleaning Companies
Janitorial and cleaning companies have employees in the field going from job to job. Time tracking software helps you keep track of where your crews are and how long the job took them to do. They can also share photos of completed work so you have a record of the job being done.
Learn more about time tracking for cleaning companies
Healthcare
Healthcare professionals must take quality care of each of their patients. Time tracking for healthcare workers helps you stay on top of how long your employees spent with their patients and what kind of care was provided. Since all data from ClockShark is encrypted, it aligns with HIPPA rules and regulations, as well.
Learn more about time tracking for healthcare providers
Franchises
A simple solution for franchisees who have multiple locations is mobile time-tracking software. It allows you to see what’s happening in real-time throughout your business locations, no matter where you are.
Learn more about time tracking for franchises
Nonprofits
Nonprofits rely on accuracy and accountability. Time tracking technology increases both of these, and makes running reports and keeping accurate records, even easier.
Learn more about time tracking for nonprofits