Time tracking blog

There are a lot of great things about working at TSheets.com.  Everything from the free bagel Fridays to the unlimited weekend of use of the corporate jet (ok, that might be a slight exaggeration).  TSheets is a great place to work.  One of the benefits of my job is that I get to talk to people.  I talk to A LOT of people.  Today I spoke with a gentleman who was just kind of frustrated. He was having a problem with his current time tracking system.  As I’ve heard all too many times before, he had originally started out by using regular old spreadsheets for his employees to fill out.

At the end of a given period he would compile the spreadsheets into one large document and run all of his reports. However, as his business grew he continued to run into a “creative” type of employee who would make his own spreadsheet.

While Michaelangelo’s “creative work” would usually look cute, it failed to meet the formatting of the larger master document. Forced to pull the reigns in on this young team member, he couldn’t help but step on toes and hurt feelings. This combined with the tedious process of compiling spreadsheets lead this business owner to realize that his process was ready for some much needed improvement.

Following the advice of his accountants he decided to try out the Peach Tree software that they recommended for him.  After experiencing several difficulties with this system, he became aware that the very accountants that recommended him use this software, weren’t using it. This left him shocked and even more frustrated.   He thought to himself, “If the product isn’t good enough for them, why are they telling me to use it?”

Needless to say he quickly discovered that Peaches should remain in the cobbler and started a new hunt for the “perfect” solution to his time tracking nightmare.  He’s looking for a way to track the employees of his small consulting firm while they work from several locations for several different companies.

A difficult conundrum that anyone interested in improving their business has no doubt at one point or another faced.

Here’s how TSheets could help someone in this situation:

1. First and foremost, JOB CODES brother!  Set up Job Codes to represent each company that your firm was working for.
2. Track those lil’ doggies!  Add your employees, give them access to work for their designated clients (ie. assign them to the appropriate Job Codes.)
3. You are now Authorized.  Once your employees have been added set up your authorization so that your employees can clock in from anywhere (you as the master administrator would set your security settings to Open.)

Three painless steps to sorting out months of nightmares?  Not only does it seem like the sensible thing to do, but also the fiscally responsible one as well.

To learn more about cases just like this one and how TSheets can save not only your sanity but your bottom line as well, sign up for a free test drive.  Take your best shot at TSheets and see if it’s the product for you.  If so, awesome, if not. . . no hard feelings, we’ll send you a postcard from our annual vacation to Jamaica.

All because some employee was “clocking on when he wasn’t there.”  (At least that’s Boeing’s version of the story)

You’ll see a stark difference between the perspectives of this article that I Dugg and the Union Solidarity site.   One side of the story says that the strike is because “time-keeping irregularities” (that can be avoided using TSheets, sorry for the shameless plug, I couldn’t resist ;-) )and the other side says that it’s because of a failure to follow procedures.  Whatever the reason, Boeing is out 700 employees trying to patch the holes with Scabs while picketers brace themselves to handle line breakers coming tomorrow.  - What a mess.

Avoid finding yourself in this position by setting up standards for your employees to hit the time clock whenever they’re coming and going and any other standards your organization may need.  Then don’t be afraid to enforce it across your organization.  If you find yourself in Boeing’s situation you’ll know how to proceed.  Just make sure you obey the rules just like everyone else.  :-)

Talking to Customers every day, I hear a lot of requests for things that we simply are not.

It’s amazing to hear some of the things that people are looking for when they sign up for a Trial Account with TSheets’ online timesheet. When they realize what TSheets is, they usually feel quite sheepish and even kind of frustrated that they’ve wasted their time.

So to avoid all of that and to help us all be more time efficient, I thought I’d make up a list of some of the questions people ask me about what TSheets is.

What is TSheets FAQs:

Q. Is TSheets a Paper Timesheet Supplier?

A. TSheets is not a paper timesheet supplier. Paper timesheets leave a huge opportunity for miss entries and employee fudging. To run a report, timesheets must be collected, compiled and calculated (a process that usually takes at least a couple of hours to complete.) With TSheets employees clock in/out in real time with a secure password. Reports can be run in seconds at the click of a mouse for any employee, group or job code based upon any date range. Here is someone who is . . . Microsoft Office Online

Q. Is TSheets a Project Management Software?

A. TSheets is not a project management software. TSheets’ focus is based upon keeping you in control of your time and labor expenses. We do this by allowing you to easily and affordably track your employees’ time. You can track their time based upon determined projects, job codes or groups across any date range. Notes can also be added to each project or job code that you work on to bring another level of accuracy in your reporting. However, TSheets is not a project management software. Here is someone who is . . . Basecamp

Q. Is TSheets a Payroll Software?

A. TSheets is not a payroll software. With TSheets you can track employees or groups of employees and the amount of time that they spend on individual projects. You can track the amount of Paid Time Off that they work and monitor how much Overtime each employee collects over a given pay period. Once your data is collected all of this information is completely integrable with Quickbooks and can also be downloaded into a CSV Spreadsheet which most payroll softwares will integrate with. Here is someone who is . . . Quickbooks

Q. Is TSheets a Manual Time Clock?

A. TSheets is not a manual time clock. TSheets’ automation cures many of the problems that are inherent in a manual time clock system. Problem areas such as buddy punching, time consuming timesheet calculations and high machine and card stock costs. TSheets cures these items by allowing secure and password protected user accounts, automated reports and extremely low costs. Here is someone who is . . . Machine Runner

Q. Is TSheets a Swipe Card System?

A. TSheets is not a swipe card system. Turning any PC or mobile device into a time clock and allowing organizations to grant their employees access to TSheets from multiple locations are major differences in the two systems. Most swipe cards lend themselves easily to buddy punching and the sharing of badges. Most are very expensive as well since you have to pay for the physical system, the software, badges, replacement badges and multiple systems for multiple locations.

Q. Is TSheets a Biometric System?

A. TSheets is not a biometric system. Much like swipe card systems, biometrics require that very expensive pieces of hardware and software are purchased. They offer a higher range of security however, they have been known to malfunction and wear out easily as thumb print screens get dirty, smudge or scratch. Where TSheets really differs from the biometric system is in it’s ability to integrate across multiple locations quickly, easily and at no extra charge. As always TSheets extremely low cost is always a factor when it comes to these very high priced alternatives.

Q. So what is TSheets?

A. TSheets is a Timeclock2.0 application, meaning we are an online time and attendance system that turns any PC or mobile device into a time clock. With TSheets you have the ability to set permission levels, groups, job codes and paid time off codes for your employees. You have the ability to run reports against multiple criteria on the fly and download or integrate it into your payroll software. And of Course TSheets IS Affordable.

We like to think of TSheets as a simple and easy to use online timesheet.  However, we’re not so naive to think that all of our Customers are going to completely understanding all of the terminology that is used. Here is a top ten list of online timesheet definitions that you will see in TSheets.

1. Administrator - A user with complete access to your entire TSheets account.
2. Affiliate Program - A program that offers you a reward for recommending TSheets to other business owners and colleagues. Learn more.
3. Authorization - Turning a computer or mobile device into a time clock, allowing your employees to log in/out of TSheets from designated PCs or mobile devices. Learn more.
4. Employee - Any user that uses a username and password to log into TSheets will be found on your employee list, even Administrators are on this list even though they are not treated the same for authorization purposes. Learn more.
5. Group - A collection of employees that you wish to sort, organize and track the time for. (Such as Marketing Department, Accounting, Boise Store, etc.) Learn more.
6. Job Code - A name given to a task that allows you to track the amount of time employees spend on that task. Learn more.
7. Manage - Adding, Editing and Deleting. (for example Managing Timesheets allows you to add, edit or delete timesheets)
8. Permissions - Responsibilities that an Administrator can assign employees to give them access to specific TSheets functions. (for example an Administrator can assign a bookkeeper permission to view reports without giving them access to the entire TSheets account) Learn more.
9. Time Card - The window that holds all of the tools necessary for your employees to clock in/out, select or switch job codes and add notes to a timesheet. Learn more.
10. Timesheet - A representation of a period of time that is recorded between one clock in and clock out sequence. (for example one 8-5 shift with an hour lunch would record two timesheets, one from 8am-12pm and then another from 1pm-5pm)

To see more definitions or to add you own online timesheet definitions visit our TSheets Dictionary.

One of the great things about TSheets, that I love, is our dedication to the Customer. We aren’t in business for ourselves, we’re in business to help organizations all over the world become more organized, profitable, and to help them regain control of their labor expenses and free them of time consuming reports and fraudulent employees.

That being said I want to unveil to you our Feature Requests Page. This is a very transparent “todo list” of many of the features that have been requested of us. Almost every feature on this page was suggested by our existing customers!  I hope that you also will feel free to add recommendations, and watch this list so you know what kind of things we are working on bringing to you.

The Feature Requests Page is part of our wiki, so if a feature that you need or look forward to is already listed, add your name to it so that we know which ideas are the most popular.

Customers and Trial Users have been asking us for this powerful feature for quite some time now. After countless late nights that stretched into early mornings, I’m pleased to announce that the much anticipated Paid Time Off Feature is now available to all TSheets users. You can now track all of your paid time off no matter if it’s vacation, sick days, holidays or even well days.

This feature mirrors the popular Job Code feature that allows you to assign individual tasks or jobs to employees and track the time that they spend on each item. Similarly, PTO Codes can be assigned to individual employees, and PTO hours can be scheduled for a future date with the new PTO editor. This gives you the capability to schedule holidays and vacations in advance. Another new capability that comes with PTO is the ability for employees to add their own hours for Paid Time Off, freeing you from having to manually create each employees PTO timesheets.

There is much more to learn about this feature and if you would like to do so visit our wiki page called Paid Time Off (PTO). This page also contains instructions of how to activate it for your account, but if you just want to get going on your own here’s the process you need to follow:

1. Enable PTO for your account
2. Allow Employees to Submit their hours
3. Setup PTO Codes
4. Record PTO Hours
5. Run Reports

Today I spoke with Vernita about her time tracking needs. This wonderful lady works for a tax company that is going to be monitoring and tracking time for their clients. These clients range from truck drivers to day cares, and as you can image they vary quite immensely in their employee time tracking needs. (shamless self plug: and this is where TSheets steps in)

Thanks to TSheets, tracking the broad range of needs demonstrated by these different companies is no sweat. Here’s what we would do.

1. First we would set up Groups to represent each company that had employees needing to be tracked.
2. Next we would give the truck drivers Permission to clock in/out from their mobile devices.
3. Lastly we would set up their Security Authorization so that employees could clock in at each location by network (IP) address.

Now, just like that, this company is in business. They can not only track the times of all of their client’s employees but they can also run individual company reports. This is just one of the many ways TSheets integrates into a real businesses to solve real needs.

Inevitably we all come to a point with a product that we just can’t figure something out. And although TSheets is designed to be super simple and easy to use we aren’t naive enough to think that you will never need some help. That’s why we created our very own Wiki.

On our wiki you will be able to access the TSheets User Guide and Search through multiple pages of TSheets How To’s, Definitions, Videos, Screenshots, Screencasts and even the latest Active Features List. If you ever get stuck, the odds are that you will be able to find the answer on the wiki. And, if you find yourself knowing more about TSheets than our wiki does you can always add, edit and remove any information you’d like.

What is a Wiki? Here’s what Wikipedia says:

A wiki is software that allows users to easily create, edit, and link pages together. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. These wiki websites are often also referred to as wikis; for example, Wikipedia is one of the best known wikis.^[1] Wikis are used in many businesses to provide affordable and effective Intranets and for Knowledge Management. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as “the simplest online database that could possibly work”.^[2]

Wiki Wiki (/wiːkiː wiːkiː/) is a reduplication of wiki, a Hawaiian word for “fast”. Some have suggested that wiki means, “What I Know Is.” However, this is a backronym.

The anonymous arm is back, explaining how your employees will interact with TSheets, and how our software changes any personal computer or web enabled mobile device into a time clock. More details about making our time and attendance software work for you.

Setting up TSheets is as easy as 1-2-3. Watch an anonymous arm explain how to get the TSheets time and attendance system working for you.