Time tracking blog

TSheets interviews Jeff Lurcook, Operations Manager for Office Value and treasured TSheets Customer about what separates Office Value from the competition. Justin Foster also speaks to him about the one big lesson that Jeff as learned over the years, take care of your customers.

“TSheets has taken a lot of paper work out of the loop and has made time tracking a lot more efficient and easier to manage as a company.”

Jeff Lurcook (Office Value)

The story of how a small business owner became his own first customer.

Matt Rissell was frustrated. Or maybe a better way to say it … he was irritated! As the owner of a printer supply company and a background in business mobile devices, Rissell knew about technology. And he knew how to grow a business. While business growth was great, it meant adding employees. And adding employees meant more paperwork. And more errors. And more chances for employees to fudge on their time cards. Time and attendance tracking was becoming a bigger head-ache everyday. So Matt did what he always did. He set out to find some technology to solve this business problem. He knew that almost every business problem out there had a technology solution to solve it. Inventory control. Accounting. E-Mail. Order Processing. But where was the Time and attendance package? In his world of automation, the idea that someone had not created a computerized method for tracking employee Time and attendance was ludicrous. So Matt fixed it.

Brandon Zehm was quickly becoming a rock star in the programming world with a client list that included a government laboratory, Albertsons, HP, and Merrill Lynch. Then he received a call from an old friend, Matt Rissell. Matt explained his problem and asked Brandon if this is something he could do. Somewhat insulted by the simplicity of the problem, Brandon said “sure”! After just one month of programming and testing, Brandon had a time and attendance package ready for Matt to use in his business. Problem solved. Clock-in and clock-out was automated. Reports were generated for payroll. Matt was happy. The bookkeeper was happy. End of story … until the bookkeeper suggested to Matt and Brandon that they could start selling the software (still unnamed at this point).

Both Matt and Brandon had entrepreneurism in their DNA, so it was no surprise that they started to look beyond just solving the time keeping needs of Matt’s business. Not long after, TSheets was born. Using the same thinking as when they created the software, Matt and Brandon set out to create a different kind of software company. They established several principles to guide the company and the evolution of the software:

• Time tracking should be simple.
• Time tracking should be necessary.
• Time tracking should be inexpensive.

The first principle was a reminder to never lose the simplicity of TSheets; to remember that the actual problem that was being solved was automating clocking-in and clocking-out. The second principle was a reminder of Matt’s initial frustration; that despite all of the advancements for small business automation, business owners were left to use paper time sheets or antiquated punch card systems. Finally, the third principle was a reminder that the audience for TSheets was small businesses so the monthly fee had to be affordable. Further, it had to have an immediate return-on-investment.

Although a simple solution to a complex problem, Matt and Brandon did want some depth to the product. However, instead of loading it up with a bunch of features based on their own whims, they did something unique. They asked their initial customers what features they wanted! This mission to be customer-driven, rather than feature-driven kept the simplicity of the software, but created depth and breadth to the product. From the feedback that was received, they added job codes, QuickBooks integration, mobile device access, and dozens of other customer-requested features. This practice of asking customers for feedback still continues today.

Another goal for TSheets was to use the company as a vehicle for greater good, not just a revenue stream. Matt and Brandon determined that their “cause” for TSheets was to empower business owners to become business leaders. One of the first steps was to start featuring their customers on the TSheets site. Not just testimonials of their use of TSheets, but giving their customers a platform to talk about their businesses. This was a mission beyond just time keeping to helping small business owners become successful. In addition, Matt and Brandon wanted TSheets to be a place to develop talent internally, so they created a culture of transparency and personal development for their employees.

Today, TSheets’ clients have thousands of employees using TSheets. There are plans in the works for some major alliances with national organizations. Programmers are being hired. A marketing company has been retained to help manage and grow the TSheets brand. All of this from one small business owner’s frustration … err, irritation.

For a video profile of Matt and Brandon, click here.

For more information or to interview Matt Rissell or Brandon Zehm, please contact Justin Foster at 208-342-2583 or justin@thetricycle.com

TSheets customer and owner of Cartridge World in Boise, Idaho, Bryan Warnock speaks with Justin Foster. Bryan shares with us about his business and some lessons learned from years of living the life of a small business owner. He also tells the world about TSheets.com and how it’s impacted his business.

“There’s that accountability aspect that really helps me run my business so rather than working in the business I can work on the business.”

Bryan Warnock (Cartridge World)

New timesheet QuickBooks export feature allows simple importing of your TSheets data into QuickBooks for client invoicing, payroll and more!

You’ve asked for the ability to import your TSheets data into QuickBooks and with this new feature you can. The QuickBooks export feature is available on all TSheets accounts and is very simple to setup and use.

It’s easy to get started. If you are an administrator of your TSheets account, you have several options to go about setting up TSheets to export to QuickBooks. Via the My Account area and from the Timesheet Reports (a small link in the Report format section).

Once you’ve input your QuickBooks Company Create Time (above image, yellow highlighted section), you’re now able to export a QuickBooks IIF file from the Timesheet Reports area. Simple.

This IIF file can then be imported into QuickBooks, providing a simple means to getting your employees’ timesheet data from TSheets into QuickBooks.

For further detailed instructions, including how to determine your QuickBooks Company Create Time and detailed import instructions, visit our QuickBooks Integration Guide on our Wiki.

Personally, I use a Blackberry device. I first began using one of these about 5 years ago and it quickly became clear to me how they got the nickname “crackberry” i.e. one gets addicted to it as soon as they use it. Potentially negative comparison, but accurate nonetheless. The reason it is so useful for someone like me, is that it is the perfect balance between voice and data usage. Another way to say the same thing, is that it is just as practical for email and web usage as it is to use it strictly as a phone.

Data usage. First, all of my emails are pushed out to my mobile phone real time. I can be anywhere that Verizon Wireless has a signal and my emails automatically come to my phone. The processor in the Blackberry, makes it receive emails quickly and I can maneuver between programs quickly vs. a Microsoft based device such as the “Q” phone is ridiculously slow. The other very practical feature is the easy access to the internet. I can view websites just like I was at my computer. An example and a perfect business tool, is being able to have my employees clock in and out from their mobile device through TSheets.com. (Sorry, had to make the plug.)

Phone usage. I use about 3000+ cell minutes per month so I have a pretty healthy understanding of what makes a cell phone practical to use. The blackberry is a small device that isn’t cumbersome to hold and/or dial numbers. It even has about 15 speed dial numbers that makes it even quicker to dial the frequent numbers. Literally, it is the best of both worlds.

Thursday February 14, 2008 @ 9:00am Mountain Time

TSheets.com will be holding it’s first webinar! If you have any kind of TSheets questions, or you just want to learn more about the TSheets time and attendance system then please, join us.

I will be hosting this event and covering some of the newest features released over the last few weeks. (If you haven’t noticed, there have been quite a few.) I will also be taking and hopefully answering any questions you might have.

If you have any ideas or topics you’d like me to cover, go ahead and leave a comment and I’ll make sure it gets into the show and you get your due recognition. This is going to be a weekly event and to keep it from growing stagnant I’m looking for YOUR ideas! I’ll also be looking for your feedback post-webinar too.

So here’s all the non-interesting but necessary information:

Meeting Description:

Great opportunity for both current TSheets customers and Potential Tsheets customers to learn to maximize TSheets.com features. There will also be opportunity for our partners to participate!

Date: 14-February-2008
Time: 09:00 am Mountain Time (US & Canada (GMT-07:00)
Duration: 1 Hour

At the meeting’s start time,
1)Click the following link to join
https://www.yugma.com/viewer/viewersignup.php?SessionID=203827386

2)Call teleconference bridge: +1-605-475-4261.
Enter Session ID: 203-827-386

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Get your own Yugma account at www.yugma.com.
(Perfect for Windows, Mac and Linux users.)

Brian Nunes, owner of International Minute Press and customer of TSheets.com, discusses with Justin Foster about his experiences in the the world of business. Brian also shares with us the importance of taking care of your customers and delivers a shameless plug for TSheets’ ease of use and affordability.

“TSheets is so easy to use with so little cost that it allows us to spend less time on our payroll and more time with our customers.”

Brian Nunes (International Minute Press)

AJ, welcome to the TSheets team! You bring to the table a very unique gift in that you are talented at two very different still sets – sales and marketing! Although often lumped into the same sentence and sometimes even the same division within an organization, those two tasks require much different skill sets. With your talents, deep-rooted character and work ethic, I have great anticipation for the extraordinary dynamic that you will create as we drive toward the global growth of TSheets.com.

Get to know AJ: When AJ isn’t at the office building the empire, he loves to spend time with his family snowboarding and helping with the college group at his church. Oh, and I forgot to mention… He’s America’s most eligible bachelor!

New: Important! Employees who forget to clock-out can create administrative headaches, and after lots of feedback we’ve got a solution that we think will help. We’ve enabled this new feature on for all TSheets accounts, so please review the following information carefully and disable this feature if it’s something you don’t want.

As it stands today, when employees forget to clock-out they have little recourse except to talk with a manager and let them know of their mistake. Then the manager has to manually adjust the employee’s timesheet. To streamline this process we’ve built a simple tool that allows employees to specify their actual clock-out time if they “missed a punch.” When this happens the tool can optionally email the account administrator so the modified timesheet can be reviewed for accuracy.

The above image is a screen-shot of what an employee will see when they attempt to clock-out and it looks like they’ve forgotten to clock-out. The employee can simply click “Save” to accept the current time as their clock-out time, or they can modify the clock-out date and time. If they make any modifications to the date or time the account administrator will receive an email notification that looks like this:

This feature can be enabled, disabled, and configured by clicking “My Account” from the menu, and then selecting the “Advanced” menu item. Here’s a sample of the configuration options available to you:

TSheets is focussed on two main things, simplicity and affodability. We know that as a small to medium sized business owner you don’t have much spare change laying around to spend on an expensive time clock. That’s why TSheets starts at just $9.95/mo. for up to 5 employees. If you have more than 5 employees then you move up to the next level which covers up to 30 employees and is only $19.95/mo.

Then if you’re really into saving money and getting the best price, you can pay in advance. I usually recommend this to our Customers because you seem to always end up getting at least 1 month free.

You can check out even more details on our Pricing Page.