Time Tracking Benefits and Best Practices

The importance of time keeping is self-evident, especially when we narrow the question to the importance of time tracking in project management.

It's crucial to keep track of time personally and professionally to understand how we spend it. Maintaining a schedule is essential for all types of workers, from executives to managers to team members.

Every individual within a professional community needs this:

• to function efficiently
• to gain useful insights
• to maintain a healthy workflow.

Bottom Line:  Good time keeping at work helps keep track of time spent on projects and brings the solution to control over daily time records, thus easily preventing time loss and drop in productivity.

What Is Time Tracking?

Time tracking (aka timekeeping) is the process of recording work time that allows one to log in and track employee freelancer and contractor time spent on tasks.

It is introduced as:

• keeping a daily time record
• calculation of the overall project time
• recording of billable time
• activity tracking
• time consumed on the performance of specific tasks.    

Impacted metrics: Employee productivity, business efficiency, profitability.

8 Benefits of time tracking

If you still stick to the manual tracking of employees' clock in and out times, it would be beneficial to discuss the top advantages of automatic time cards that empower businesses with the best tech solutions and allow them to ditch the old-fashioned timesheets for good.

Monitoring project budgets with a click

Aside from diverse reporting on time used for project performance, advanced time trackers offer project budget monitoring. It not only tracks the budget spending but can also be set to send email notifications in case of reaching the budget limits.

Billing efficiency without fail

Success in billing is probably one of the cornerstones of business operational efficiency. Time tracking differentiates billable and non-billable hours, and, hence, provides gainful insights into billing (generating of invoices, retained bills, turnaround billing time, etc.) and allows identification of areas for improvement.  

Prevention of work time loss effortlessly

The implementation of automatic time tracking brings transparency into work processes. So if you wonder how to improve business productivity, then why not give time tracking a try. It could prevent time loss and contribute to more focused work on all the organizational tiers.

Clarifying work-related objectives on the spot

With time metrics, setting priorities for project and business objectives gets clarity. Time consumption directly relates to understanding not only what tasks take too much time to perform but also why it might create bottlenecks in project management.

Increase of employee productivity with a guarantee

Time tracking brings solutions to monitoring employee productivity unobtrusively by showing how you work in terms of the scope of tasks per project and time utilization on each task.  

Improvement of communication stress-free

For the success of the project and meeting deadlines in time, employees should be able to communicate progress or needs to co-workers and managers. Since advanced time trackers provide integration in communication tools, they deliver solutions for effective communication within the unbroken workflow.  

Time and resources allocation with better estimates

At the early project stage, it can be difficult to estimate the size of the likely expenses and time utilization throughout all the coming stages of project performance.  

In this case, a key measure of resources needed for forwarding movement can be provided through time metrics that serve as determiners of accuracy in project estimates.  

Insights for building effective business strategies with relevant data

Lack of analysis and high costs of mistakes with estimates are stifling businesses, stopping projects from launching successfully, and holding back both employees and employers. Time tracking provides valuable insights into the work of various business departments.

For instance, in the work of the HR Department, time tracking data highlights who brings the most value to the team and should be promoted. It can help you start outlining business plans for growth and well-planned upscaling.

What is time tracking software?

To provide good time keeping at work, employers choose time tracking software applied to automate the recording of worked hours for:

• keeping track of time spent on projects
• billing
• payroll
• other operational purposes.  

Aside from the benefits of time tracking for businesses that we just listed above, companies and solopreneurs get a suite of solutions for bettering their business productivity, and what exactly this suite will include depends on what type of time tracking software they choose.  

Types of Time Tracking Software

There are three major types of time tracking software:

• Personal time tracking apps

These apps build around time calculations for the purpose of better time management. They can be introduced as daily graphs, timesheets, timelines, or time blocks. They can be featured with the functionality of time management system software.

Overall, it is a perfect fit for keeping tabs on what activities users engage in and what goals they set.  

• Project time tracking software

Project time management software may include Gantt charts, Kanban boards that enable managers to automate task assignments, project and resource utilization reports within shared workflows. They also have an option for time tracking allocated for one workspace.

• Timesheet apps

Time tracking applications of this kind provide time metrics on recorded work time and paid time off. Time tracking data can be instantly used by HR and other departments for business-related operations including payroll, attendance management, etc.

Bottom Line: With all the variety of tools like time tracking software, project tracking apps, employee timesheet software, or timesheet templates at your fingertips, you can manage time more effectively.

Features of Time Tracking Software

The feature sets of time tracking solutions can vary a great deal depending on what categories of end-users they aim at but, mostly, the core functionality of the time tracking software builds around work time calculations and options facilitating the complex workflows.

For instance, TMetric features:

Timekeeping

Time-keeping automation guarantees accuracy and transparency in work time calculations.

Project Management

It delivers various solutions to project management time tracking regardless of the complexity of the project.

Team Management

It works equally well for onsite, remote, and hybrid teams, which prevents unequal distribution of workload and contributes to more effective collaboration.  

Integrations with Apps and Services

It has more than 50 integrations in apps and services widely used in work including business system tools like JIRA, ClickUp, Asana, Salesforce, Trello, etc.

Report and Summary

The diverse reports on activity, task summary, and app usage can be helpful in the evaluation of participation in teamwork, attendance management, and building proper promotion policies.  

How to choose time tracking software?

When choosing time tracking software, there is a guaranteed algorithm for landing with the best solution tailored to your business needs.

✅ Check on the following three points:

• It must be easy for employees to use it  
• The app must deliver all the features you need
• The app must have integrations with the solutions you actively use.

How to introduce best practices of time tracking to your employees?

Time tracking fundamentally changes how business is conducted. Rather than having a stressful time, between meeting deadlines, launching new projects, and task management anxiety, invest time in developing the best practices of time tracking according to your business needs.

However, the advantages associated with the implementation of time trackers are determined by what policies the business builds regarding time tracking.

To be a success, start with focusing on introducing the best practices of time tracking to the workers. Below, there are steps employers need to take:  

• Explain why tracking employee time is a beneficial decision for both employers and employees. Highlight how time tracking contributed to work life balance, helps set boundaries on work, and excludes the chance of overtime.  
• Show how to use the software. Use a demo accompanied by clear instructions, supply employees with access to documentation that can cover the frequently asked questions.
• Make sure that corporate time tracking is applied across all the categories of employees and managers.
• Encourage employees to send their feedback about time tracking
• Authorize the person who will be able to onboard new employees to make time tracking easier.

Bottom Line: By deploying the best practices of time tracking and digging deeper into time data, business owners can get a deeper understanding of work processes and take a new perspective in project management.

Take a step to implement advanced time tracking now

Due to its multilayered functionality that includes options far exceeding basic timekeeping, time tracking can be a step change for your business in terms of bringing solutions for:

• employee monitoring
• employee wellbeing
• team management
• project management
• remote workforce management  
• business profitability.  

TMetric will help you organize and improve the time tracking process across all the layers in multiple industries.  
You can try it for free and join thousands of satisfied customers.