Time-tracking guarantees real-time visibility into projects and reveals critical operational metrics, which otherwise would remain hidden. Time tracking is vital for budgeting, estimating, benchmarking, and compliance. It makes organizations more productive, teams more effective, and businesses more profitable. So, with all these perks, what are some of the industries that can benefit from the use of time tracking software are:
Consultancies
Whether you work as part of a firm or independently, successful consultancy depends on accurate time reporting. An online expense tracker lets you create and send custom reports that itemize your time for specific tasks or projects. It’s a reliable way to prove your value and professionalism by leading from a position of accountability and transparency. No matter the number of projects or clients you are consulting for, a time tracking tool will capture all the time automatically while you work.
Agencies – advertising, marketing, digital
Agency time tracking is generally a necessary evil. For some, it’s unnatural, wildly, and boring, but let’s agree; without it, nobody can get paid. As much as we detest time tracking, it is not going anywhere. That’s why agencies are advised to invest an online time and expense tracking software, a convenient tool that can automatically track and log all hours for their team, while they work.
It tracks all the time your employees spend on different clients and projects without disrupting them. It records all active desktop and web activity – as well as GPS location – and uses AI technology to translate all this information into an accurate timesheet. In short, with time tracking, agencies can manage, control, and bill time from a central place without compromising their team’s productivity.
Legal sector
For any law firm, time is money. They need to track every minute and expense spent on their clients, which generally, can be a costly admin too. As an attorney, when you are committed to your clients, you want to show them how you spent your time on their case.
For instance, sometimes, attorneys do not record the time spent conversing with a client via email or phone. No matter how brief the conversation was, remember, small bits of minutes every day can add up to significant billable hours at the end of the week or month.
Online expense tracker’s timesheets make it effortless to capture detailed, accurate data that clients appreciate. More so, as an attorney, if you do not ensure accurate time tracking, it leads to reduced billable hours that ultimately affect your business profitability and bottom-line.
Construction industry
Time tracking in the construction industry is usually a hassle. With workers at different construction sites and often on-the-move, it is tricky to track time or have every person clock in at one location.
Construction companies can solve all these predicaments and simplify attendance management and time tracking via an easy-to-use cloud-based expense and time tracking software. All time data is immediately saved in a central location without having to wait for days or hours for updates. Project managers can quickly see data by project, employee, or any other filter they create. Most notably, they can create personalized labor cost reports with a few clicks.
Non-profits
No one ever said, running an NGO is easy. There are many regulations and rules, and near-constant battles for funding and considerable pressure to reduce overhead costs. Sound stressful? It can be!
Time tracking makes it easy to record and report on volunteer and employee activity. This allows you to assess the overall costs of initiatives or programs quickly and share this data with your board, donors, and government organizations.
With a comprehensive budget and cost data available, it is much easier to link expenditures to outcomes and make a good case for extra funding.
More so, having an up-to-date and accurate record of employees or volunteer activities makes it easier to ensure compliance and pass an audit. Especially for 501(c) (4) and 501(c) (3) organizations that are required to disclose on their expenses by function, as specified by FASB 117.
Obviously, auditors and donors are far happier to see a timesheet in place than rough estimate conducted months after the fact.
Hospitality industry
If you are in the hospitality sector, your main goal is customer satisfaction. In the pursuit to achieve high levels of client satisfaction, it comes as no shock that labor costs are one of the highest operating expenses you can incur. Thus, a big challenge for those in the hospitality sector is to control labor expenses without compromising on guest services.
Time tracking software allows you to tie your labor supply with demand. With this software in place, you can come up with accurate rosters and get rid of over scheduling. Accessing real-time data instantly also means you can respond to unexpected changes and fine-tune rosters on the fly, making sure that operating costs are always in balance.
Lastly, with the help of a time tracking solution, you can view real-time reports on productivity, absences, and over time, and use this information to make strategic decisions. Remember, information or data can be grouped by department, team, employee, or location.
Field services
Whether you are an independent technician, gardener, or you are running a plumbing company, time is money. Clearly, if you are not keeping track of time, you might be losing it. Time and expense tracking solution will help you and your team to bill clients accurately.
Most of the top solutions are available on Android, iOS, and web. So, wherever you are, you and your team can always check into projects and track those important hours! Use the monthly, weekly, or daily timesheets to bill your clients. Apparently, an audit trail that free from errors will help your clients understand the effort you put in.
It is prudent for every sector to track time and expenses
As you have seen, most businesses will track time for the following reasons:
.• Some do it since they need to be sure of how much to bill clients (transparency reasons).
• Some to tack profitability and productivity, especially those with remote teams
• Some do it because of regulatory and compliance purposes (for instance, the non-profits needs accurate timesheets to justify their spending).
Technically, almost every sector or industry can benefit from a time tracking software.