How To Integrate A Time Tracker With Your Bookkeeping

Author: Ivan Petrov

One of the harder tasks for companies is tracking their team's work time. Knowing how your employees spend work time during a work day and what they work on is actually impossible without a good time tracker app. But if time tracking is used properly, it can be very beneficial to any business; however, if used improperly it may lead to irritated employees, bad company morale, subpar productivity and results.

Explain A Time Tracker’s Usefulness

If you decide to install a time tracker in your office, it is very important that the reasons and advantages are properly conveyed to your team prior to the implementation. Explain not only the management's motivation to track time but also how a time tracker will benefit the employees and help the company grow. Be mindful to avoid sounding like a "big brother" watching over their shoulders. Try to explain that time tracking is going to provide:

  • The way to spot areas to capitalize on capacity

  • Opportunities to improve the company's workflow

  • Recognition for top performers and promotion opportunities

  • Macro perspective for the company's overall performance and big data for future strategic decisions

Choose The Time Tracker That Is Good For Your Company

Modern time trackers have a large list of functions and integrations. If you have many remote employees, require job costing or class tracking, you should make sure that you’ll have a possibility to create custom codes, remote check-in/out, and updates from the field. You would also like to be convinced that the time tracker you are about to choose integrates with your accounting software.

Project Management With Profitability Analysis

Knowing how much work time is spent by your team on every single project or a customer may help you define certain projects, product types, or customers that are the most profitable or the most costly to your business. Encourage employees to update their work hours in real time so you can measure where staff are progressing on projects and where they might be getting hung up.

If your time tracker offers post-factum entry, workers can update the information about why a task could have taken more time than expected or if there was a problem, or extra tasks. You may recognize which projects and customers might be creating issues and adjust tactics faster than waiting until you analyze your books at the end of the month.

Workflow

A time tracker shows you exactly how your business is doing. An accurate picture of a work day can show you what tasks employees do on computers, during meetings and phone calls, as well as give you an overview of all your company’s activity. With this data, you can make decisions regarding adjustments to every project, while still maintaining what is expected and reaching goals.

Cost Saving

Any company may benefit from improving their bottom line or finding excess costs in their funds. Diligent bookkeeping can help with this, and so can keeping the track of time. After you understand the workflow of the business, noticing where there are problems becomes a lot simpler.

As you gather your time tracking information and become able to perform a more complete analysis, you’ll understand that you are able to regulate every single area of your business based on your results. But remember to encourage your team members to see time tracking as a way to improve the company's future but not to keep tabs on them.