One of Due.com’s online invoicing platform’s best features is its time-tracking functionality that offers a freelancer or small business owner with a real-time way to track how much time is spent on every projects. This guide offers the rationale for why tracking time on every project is a smart business action to take.
The Benefits of Tracking Time for Invoicing and Performance Assessment
Why Track Time?
Most small business owners have become masters of multitasking, taking care of emails, phone calls, and projects simultaneously. In the daily routine of working on multiple tasks at a time, including sneaking in some time-wasting activities like social media, how the day (and evening) is really spent can be difficult to assess.
With some projects set on hourly rates, it becomes especially important to know just how much time is spent on each project even with distractions so that the client is billed accurately and the business owner does not miss out on the money they have actually earned.
Another benefit to time tracking is that a business owner can get a better sense of how long projects take so that upcoming estimates or proposals can be more accurately presented to existing clients and prospects. Many business owners often end up underestimating projects and missing out on money that they could have earned on current and future assignments. Also, it helps clients to get a correct assessment of how long projects take so that they can correctly budget for the work.
Using Due’s Time Tracking Feature
As part of its overall online invoicing system that includes a dashboard with integrated tools like a client and staff database, project board and invoicing system, the time tracking feature is easy to use for even the least computer savvy business owner.
At the top of the screen is a clock that indicates the time tracking feature. Double clicking on it reveals a timer. It shows hours, minutes, and seconds at the top along with start, pause, and stop buttons that can be controlled by placing a cursor over each one and clicking. There is also a text box to record the task that accompanies the time spent.
The Due.com team has worked on enhancing functionality, completely revamping how its time tracker feature works. It now comes with a user intuitive view that is easy to understand. The timer no longer has to be the center of attention but instead can work quietly in the background, recording time until it is stopped so the business owner can continue on doing other tasks. The timer can now pop out when necessary in the form of a widget.
New mobile functionality is in process that will provide additional benefits to time tracking by recording the time spent on the go and away from the computer or laptop on other remote tasks.
How Does Time Tracking Help Improve Business Performance and Profitability?
The saying goes that time is money, so it makes sense to track time on a minute-by-minute basis to ensure maximum productivity and profitability from every member of the team, including the business owner. Any time not spent on a project that can be billed needs to be assessed.
While there are some daily tasks that cannot be billed out to a client, such as accounting, marketing, and other activities, there is more likely other time that is being wasted that could be better spent on billable projects. Additionally, it is still good to record time spent on these non-billable activities to assess if there are ways that another solution could help minimize the time spent on each of these tasks.
By working to improve the records kept on time spent on various projects and client accounts, those records can then be measured against revenue to gauge real productivity and performance for the company. The information from Due.com’s time tracker can be viewed in relation to each project as well as if there are multiple staff members working on that project.
This also helps to assess the productivity of any team members that may be part of the company, providing insights into their efforts measured against what they are paid. In this way, these insights might indicate other places for improvement in terms of realizing that a particular employee is struggling with a task and may need help or additional training. It could also make others on the team more accountable to focus on getting their work done.
Since not many small business owners take the time to really assess any potential waste in their organization, time tracking software can assist in bringing these issues to light without much effort exerted on the part of the business owner. It may come as a surprise to see just how much time was spent on worthless tasks that could have meant projects finished up earlier. That extra time could be used for new projects or clients, incrementally increasing the revenue for the company. Now, everything from meetings and conference calls to answering emails and checking social media accounts can be assessed for their value on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
Additionally, productivity on non-billable tasks like payroll can be further optimized as the time tracking capability can integrate with how team members are paid for their work as well as how invoices are produced for clients. Accuracy in terms of fewer human errors is another benefit of relying on time tracker software.
An Optimized Business
With the ability to assess performance and productivity, including measuring expenses and non-billable tasks against overall revenue, a small business owner can more effectively understand how well their company is doing that, in turn, can be used for better planning and more informed business decisions. A business owner can assess their capacity and just how much they can produce in terms of project work by themselves and with their team to determine if other solutions might be available to streamline business tasks and project work.
The result of time tracking can then be a more successful business that can grow appropriately and scale up with a much better idea of what is possible or how much support staff to add over time. Even larger companies and startups should consider a solution like time tracking software as part of their overall technology platform to leverage all of these incredible benefits.
