Time tracking blog

The old adage “The devil is in the details,” couldn’t be more true when referencing TSheets.  Why is this?  While others use a simple stopwatch approach (keeping track of duration only), TSheets uses a detailed timestamp for all clock-ins/outs and job code switches, something that appears simple on the surface, but that is actually quite complex under the hood.

Why Timestamp?

Aside from making development much more complex (think timezones and daylight savings), timestamps allow TSheets to track not only time, but to log a time line of when events actually transpired.  For instance a typical day may involve working for a total duration of 8 hours, but what events took place during that time?

With TSheets, that may look something like this: Clock-in at 7:59a, switch job code at 10:12a, clock-out at 12:10p, clock-in at 1:30p…. you get the idea.

Why is this Good?

Timestamps create a virtual paper trail of when events took place, allowing for detailed reporting and auditing.

Without timestamps, your recorded time is like a sandwich with no meat.
 

Green is the way to be in today’s day and age. With gas prices on the rise and the continuous pressure from the Tree Huggers of the universe, more and more offices are going green.  Recycling in the work place is just one way that we can all be a help to the environment.  Here’s how TSheets helps mother earth:

• Online timesheets – Obviously the very nature of TSheets is a green concept.  By removing all of the paper timesheets that have been flying around the office, you can save reams of paper.
• Employees can work from home – Allow your employees to work from home and keep track of who’s on the clock and what they’re working on from anywhere in the world.  In Mike’s Doc Blog he mentions how allowing your employees to work from home is better for employee moral and ultimately the environment.  Yes, there are some valid concerns that some businesses have with this concept, but it’s a great green idea that if harnessed correctly can give your company a boost!
• Wiki’s instead of user manuals – Instead of producing fancy user manuals made of paper products and ink, TSheets uses a wiki and cool videos for educating you about how to use different features.
• Emails, blogs and eNewsletters instead of mail pieces –  All of the messages and updates that you receive from TSheets are entirely eco friendly and don’t use any paper products.
• Internal emails, document systems, etc. – All of our internal documentation is printed and stored online either in Google docs or some other database service.  Also, we use Gmail to manage all of the emails, notes and assignments that we face.

Paper is a scarce resource in our office; we usually have to borrow it from our neighbors.

What is the coolest eco-friendly idea that you’ve seen and what kind of green activities do you encourage around the office?

Are you in sales? This one is for you!

Finally, an effective way to forecast and measure the effectiveness of your sales efforts!

We all know that managing results is NOT what helps build successful sales people but rather, managing the actions that lead to results. An unexpected benefit of a time tracking tool has been discovered.

Building on the notion that an effective sales manager manages activities vs. results, normally managers accomplish this by consistently reviewing each sales persons pipeline. At least this is the way they USED to do it! Now there is a much more effective way to manage their activities – tracking their time!

We have done case studies of sales managers that have more effectively managed their sales team’s performance through tracking their time.

Here’s how:

1. You need a time tracking device that can be used from the field (hhhmmm… let’s see, where could I get one of those? TSheets, maybe? Although a shameless plug, this can truly make the difference between big commissions and the unemployment line.)

2. Set up job codes such as “Pay Time”, “No-Pay Time”, “Cold Calls”, “Drive Time”, “Meetings”, “Emails”, etc…

3. Then as you or your sales people go throughout your day, track time by changing job codes.

At the end of the month you have a very clear picture of why you are successful and/or effective in one area of your life but not the other. For instance, an unsuccessful sales person might get in trouble for having a small pipeline and thus missing quota for a month. However, that same sales person could have been spending 60% of their time cold calling and just need training on how to cold call more effectively.

Bottom line – if you want a clear picture of the effectiveness of your sales team – track their time!

Here’s a nice note from one of our customers who is using TSheets‘ timesheet software for his telemarketing company.  Thanks Nick!!

To Whom It May Concern:

Results Telemarketing provides business-to-business telemarketing services for companies across the country. We have employees in our Phoenix corporate office and in various cities.

Managing hours worked and calculating totals for payroll started to become too time consuming to do manually and we were also thinking that there were errors in estimates that were costing us unnecessary dollars.

We began a trial of TSheets a few months ago and were pleased with the results. After the first week, we clearly spotted and corrected time and attendance issues. The software has been very easy to use for both management and employees and the reports help us to identify potential problems.

“After the first week, we clearly spotted and corrected time and attendance issues.”

Nick McCallion (Results Telemarketing)

The TSheets support staff is readily available and has always helped us promptly and with professionalism whenever we have questions.

I can confidently say that the savings from only paying actual hours worked and from the reduction in administrative time has paid for TSheets many times over.

We will continue to expand our use of TSheets and highly recommend it to any business that wants to automate this task and reduce payroll costs.

Nick McCallion
Sales Director
Results Telemarketing
602.264.2540
www.resultstelemarketing.com

Do you have a story about improving the effectiveness/productivity of your company that other business owners should know about?  You can either share it below or let us know and we’ll post it on our blog.

Do you have a time clock like this in your office?

As the owner of a business, when it comes down to time keeping and accountability, you’re pretty much on your own.  You are the only one who really feels the pain of timesheet and time clock inaccuracies.  In fact, in a lot of organizations, employees are paid extra for adding 10-15 minutes to their time card.

When they come in the office at 8:09 they’re thinking, “I got here at 8am.” And when the clock strikes 4:45pm, it’s time to pack things up (yes, even the honest ones do this.) However, you, as the business owner, know that you pay for every 10-15 minutes your employee “fudges”.  In one shift this could be 20-30 minutes, and across the period of a month this could be 7-10 HOURS of extra payroll that you pay out PER employee.

So don’t be surprised when your employees have objections when you decide to incorporate a technology like TSheets or another honest and accurate time keeping system.  You’d have objections too if you were getting a pay cut of $1,560 a year, PLUS you had to consistently remember to clock in AND out.  (Boy, what a hassle. ;-) )

But with the $77,460.60 that you’ll save every year by bringing accuracy to your 50 employees’ time cards, surely you’ll be able to make it up to them.

The Math:

“20-30 minutes”
10 min. x 2(for clock in and out) = 20 min.
15 min. x 2(for clock in and out) = 30 min.

“7-10 HOURS”
20 min. x 5 (5 days in a working week) = 100 minutes
100 min. x 4 (4 weeks in a month) = 400 minutes
400 min. / 60 (60 minutes in an hour) = 6.667 hours

30 min. x 5 (5 days in a working week) = 150
150 min. x 4 (4 weeks in a month) = 600 minutes
600 min. / 60 (60 minutes in an hour) = 10 hours

 ”$1,560 a year”
10 hrs. x 13 (Wage Rate of $13/hr.) = 130 x 12 (12 months in a year) = $1560

“$77,460.60“
$1560 x 50 (50 employees) = $78,000
$44.95 (50 employee TSheets license) x 12 (12 months in a year) = $539.40
$78,000 – $539.40 = $77,460.60

*Photo courtesy of http://www.insightoutsight.co.uk

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.

As part of TSheets‘ mantra, we’re all about helping you get control of your time and attendance in a simple and affordable manner. This means bringing down to the minute accuracy to your time tracking, eliminating the amount of time it takes to gather information and run reports and allowing you to get a real time view of what is going on within your company.

How do we do this? We help you eliminate paper timesheets and all of the time and money that you loose using them. No more employees fudging hours based upon estimated times. No more hours spent on collecting, correcting, compiling or calculating times to run a single report. Overall, with an online timesheet we’re helping you streamline your time and attendance system, while bringing you more accuracy at SIGNIFICANTLY lower costs.

The culture of TSheets is really centered around two things, ease of use and affordability. We know that your employee’s time is money, so we’ve made it super easy for them to clock in and out of their online timesheets quickly and accurately. At the beginning of their shift they simply login and clock in (or out) and then they’re done. Easy as Pie.

Getting started with TSheets can be as quick and efficient as you’d like it to be. With our automated set-up process you can get your account completely set up and your employees entered and using their online timesheets in no time at all. OR if you just want to jump in and try it out on your own you can skip the set-up and get right to it.

TSheets is all about helping small to medium sized companies gain control of their labor time and attendance. That’s why we take a deep concern in the security of your employees clocking in and clocking out.

One of the biggest problems that business owners face is what we all know of as buddy punching, Friends/Co-workers clocking each other in before they even arrive to work. To get rid of this money pit, all of our Customers use the ability to assign passwords for their individual employees to use to log in to their online timesheet.

By assigning each of their employees their own unique password based upon their social security number, they eliminate the temptation to share passwords. No more shared passwords equals means more security and no more buddy punches.