Time tracking blog

TSheets is growing fast and needs to fill 4 sales positions!  This is not for the unprofessional. This is reserved for the elite professionals that can communicate in such a way that influences decision makers within small business vertical markets across the United States.

The perfect candidates for this position will posses the following:

• Preferably based in Idaho
• Strong work ethic
• Likes to have fun
• Familiarity with computers and the internet
• Positive attitude
• Strong verbal communication skills
• Ability to influence
• Tenacity
• Ability to take an account from a prospect to a customer

Primary Responsibilities:

• Sell company services
• Maintain relationships
• Achieve and exceed monthly goals

Working Conditions:

• We work really hard so that we win
• As we win, we have fun!

Compensation:

• Base Salary + Commission
• Designed for a $60k + per year position at base goal attainment level
• No caps on commission

Apply by sending your resume to matt@tsheets.com.

Good Luck!

500 Clams. Smackers. Bones. Loot. Booty. Mullah. However you want to call it, Matt Rissell and Co. over at TSheets are men of their word, and I’ve got the cold hard cash in my pretty little hands.

While I’ve already mentally spent that reward, I think the MORE rewarding point of the entire ‘are you a rock star copywriter’ contest is the opportunity to work with a great group of folks, working on a great product. We had a conference call the other day via everyone’s favorite VoiP medium, Skype. Not only is Matt Rissell running a heckuva good show over in Boise, but I honestly believe him to be a general all round good guy that has a great product and clearly knows how to position it in the market.

Now having the inside scoop, all I can say is ‘Watch This Space!’. Matt informed me of a few juicy new goodies that the time scientists are brewing up in the TLabs, and all I can say is, whoa Nelly! Hang on to your hat, ‘cause things are about to get real interesting, REAL fast. Ok fair enough….let me throw you a bone. Let’s just say that the dev team has been having a blast with certain mobile devices that play music, make calls, and come from Cupertino….stay tuned!

In addition to the regular articles from the TSheets team, it looks like yours truly will be herding all the cows back home in what I like to call Uncle DT’s weekly roundup at the ‘Save Yourself a Whole Lotta Time and Money Corral’. In other words, if you happened to miss some key points from any other article during that week, no sweat, I’ve got you covered.

Finally, I’d just like to take this space to thank Matt, Brandon, and AJ for giving this slightly offbeat writer the opportunity to not only join the team, but to interact with all of you, and hopefully present what at some times can seem only like technical jargon in good ol’ fashion down-home terms.

Starting out the count down to #1, below is the entry that took 3rd place!

Voice your opinion by posting a comment or emailing the CEO, Matt Rissell <matt@tsheets.com>.

The freedom of running a business can be one of the most satisfying and rewarding ways to live your professional life, oftentimes offering personal and financial profits that far exceed working for others. Yet, with these rewards come the obligatory headaches that are inherent to operating any business—such as human resource management, billing issues, and sales stagnation to name a few. Getting caught up in these problems can drastically affect organizational efficiency that in turn cuts deeply into profitability.

However, nothing cuts into profitability more than the cost of labor—it is the greatest expense of every business, and the effective management of this resource can dramatically improve profit margins. It is with this all-too-common headache in mind that the Tsheets program was developed, for there clearly had to be a better way to control labor costs that didn’t require a great deal of expense and energy in and of itself.

Tsheets is an extremely cost-effective system that allows managers and business owners to control labor costs in a wide variety of ways. Whether you are trying to get a “big-picture” snapshot, keep tabs on a particular employee, or detect seasonal patterns, Tsheets offers you a simple and easy way to get a much tighter grip on your biggest expense.

In addition, Tsheets also offers the ability to greatly reduce payroll expense—automatically tracking, tabulating, and reporting individual hours worked to take most of the headaches out of processing your monthly payroll. Many of our customers have found that our product is more than worth the expense just for the benefit of this feature alone.

Finally, perhaps the greatest thing about Tsheets is that it can be accessed via computer or cell phone through any Internet connection, allowing mobile business owners the ability to track their operations from just about anywhere. This can prove to be an invaluable tool, for many of our customers find themselves getting real worth out of being able to study their labor costs and patterns at anytime as the navigate the hectic world of business.

So, whether you are running a small little shop or a multi-million dollar international corporation, Tsheets prides itself on offering customized solutions to your particular set of labor cost problems. Please take advantage of our free 30-day trial now and see what we can do for you.

A Blogger’s version of American Idol ~

TSheets is looking for a “Rock Star” Copywriter – instead of reading a ridiculous number of resumes, I’d prefer to give you the chance to show your stuff!  Simply write a blog post about TSheets and the best written post will receive $500 and an opportunity to be a copywriter on the TSheets team!

Skill-set required:

• Solid perspective on Web 2.0 Technology
• Excellent English writing skills
• Marketing edge or flair to your writing

Here’s how to apply:

• Review our website and blog to learn about our product/services
• Submit your entry to me via email, matt@tsheets.com, or include a link to your post in the comments below.
• Rules:
  • Less than 500 words
  • Deadline is May 1, 2008
  • Judged solely at the TSheets review committee’s discretion

The best written posts will be featured on our blog and the writers will have the opportunity for an interview.

Good Luck!

Matt Rissell, CEO

The Global Launch for TSheets is Tuesday (tomorrow). If you’re asking yourself, “Didn’t TSheets already launch their product?” The answer is yes, our online timesheet is launched and we have had rapid viral growth.  However, we have been waiting for the right time to officially announce to 50 – 100 million people that TSheets is the best time tracking tool and that our goal is to become the most used time tracking tool in the world. Literally.

With that said, we have been waiting for this date to come for almost two years! For those of you who are married . . . It almost feels like the same type of anticipation you get the night before your wedding. The thoughts that go through your mind are somewhat similar . . . “Will the market say – Yes, I will embrace TSheets?” “We’ve thought through every detail – Twice! Will all of the logistics come together?” “Will the market rain with other information and distract from the launch?” Or for those that thrive on competition . . . The feeling is similar to the few moments before the competition is ignited. A football game’s first huddle or the kick-off of a soccer game. As the first blow of the whistle draws near, the anticipation gets thicker by the second. Get the picture?

Now that the time for TSheets has arrived, as the CEO, I sent an email to the Team giving them my “Vince Lombardi speech” before the big game. Someone recommended that I post the email in my blog . . . So, you get an insider’s view of what it would be like to be on the TSheets Team:

Development Team / Marketing Team,

I think this is a good time to communicate my thoughts about the team and the potential that lies within our reach . . . In life, it isn’t often that one has the opportunity to be on a team that is building something great. Many people and many businesses try and pose themselves as great but few ever truly become great. It’s one thing to have a group of people with extraordinary talent, or a group of people that work together as a team, or a group of people with a deep commitment, or a group of people willing to sacrifice, or a group of people with deep rooted work ethics, or a group of people that believe in a mission of an organization . . .  It’s a COMPLETELY different and remarkable juncture when you get all of those characteristics wrapped up into one team. I present to you – The Dream Team.

Given the resources we have, and the knowledge that our greatest enemy is to be satisfied with attaining ‘Good’, our goal should never be short of achieving ‘Great’. Regardless of the outcome over the next few days, Make no mistake – We will become the most used time tracking tool in the world.

I am very thankful to be a part of something this exceptional.

With Great Expectation,

Matt

TSheets’ First Customer

Matt Rissell was frustrated. With 3 locations and about 20 employees, time and attendance tracking was becoming a bigger head-ache every day. His employees were using traditional paper timesheets. “It came to the point where my bookkeeper and I were dreading payroll prep”, says Rissell. “The whole process was distracting me from working on the business”. In addition to issues like consolidation, poor handwriting, and missing paperwork, Rissell knew there was a bigger problem. “I knew people were fudging on their timesheets” says Rissell. “And I knew it was costing me. Not just the dollars, but the productivity”. To Rissell, it just came to common sense and control. “I learned a long time ago, if you don’t control the little things, they can kill you. It can be compared to person being mortally wounded from a 1000 paper cuts ”, he says.

As the owner of a printer supply company and a background in business mobile devices, Rissell knew about business technology. He knew that almost every business issue had a technology solution: inventory control, bookkeeping, e-mail, order processing, etc. So Matt set out to find some technology to solve this particular business problem. In his search for a time and attendance solution, Rissell was disappointed to find a lot of expensive options with a lot of features he didn’t need. “I found a lot of software solutions, but they were just way too expensive”, Rissell says. “I also didn’t want to use the traditional punch-card system” he says. “It was too expensive and didn’t solve all of my issues”.

Matt then turned to an old friend, Brandon Zehm. Zehm was a rock star in the programming world, with a client list that included the Department of Energy and Merrill Lynch. Matt explained his problem and asked Brandon if this was something he could create a custom application for. With a “no problem” response, Zehm built a simple application that allowed Rissell and his employees to clock-in and out from any PC. “I realized that there were two major problems with existing time-tracking software”, said Zehm. “Most required you to download software”, which he saw leading to problems for support and consistency. “An ASP model means that everyone is always on the same version”, says Zehm. The second issue was the actual clock-in/out function. “This was the key”, he said. “It had to be super simple to use”. After several months of programming and testing, Brandon had a time and attendance package ready for Matt to use in his business.

“The results were almost immediate” said Rissell. The biggest impact was on accurately paying for time worked. By accurately capturing clock-ins and clock-outs it saved the company about ½ hour per day per employee. For a $10/hour employee, this added up to $5/day. “The math was obvious”, said Rissell. There were other benefits to accurately logging time. “My employees knew that their time was being tracked” so they began to be more punctual. This also increased productivity – a number that was hard to calculate but that was immediately felt. “-simply put, the team got more accomplished” said Rissell.

Not long afterward, Rissell sold his business. When looking at other business opportunities, he went back to the application that Zehm had created. “My bookkeeper suggested it first” said Rissell. Knowing the impact it had on his business, Rissell was intrigued. “It had everything I wanted in a business opportunity. It was web-based, simple, and truly helped small business owners”. For Rissell, starting a new company was a matter of principle. “I just felt like making small business owners more profitable was something I had to do.”

In April of 2007, Rissell and Zehm launched TSheets. “The original clock-in/out feature is pretty much the same as the custom app I created”, said Zehm. From that point, many additional features were added such as reporting, job codes, Quickbooks interface, and mobile access. “It was critical that we kept the original simplicity” says Rissell. “I didn’t want TSheets to turn into something that I wouldn’t have used”. As customers were added, so were features. “the new features we have added in the past year have been the direct result of customer requests”, say Zehm. This was in keeping with Zehm’s development philosophy of being customer-driven, not feature-driven. “A lot of products have features just because the developer can make them” says Zehm. “We felt that it was critical to keep TSheets very clean and usable”. Pricing was another critical area. “We used a simple formula – what would I have paid for it”, says Rissell. This lead to a scalable pricing model based on the number of employees a company has using TSheets. “This puts our starting price at $9.95/month with no set up fee or contracts”, say Rissell. “That makes TSheets accessible to pretty much anyone!”

Rissell and Zehm were pleased to discover that TSheets’ customers were having the same return-on-investment results as Rissell originally had. “We had one customer tell us that TSheets saved them about $2500 in a single week” said Rissell. This reflected the trend over the past fifteen years of small business becoming more efficient and profitable through technology. “That was a big reason for selecting the ASP model”, said Rissell. By using a subscriber revenue model, the costs of development were split over 1000s of customers,

The Future

In January of 2008, TSheets began an effort to go global. Armed with a strong management and investor team, TSheets began investing in marketing, staffing, and infrastructure. A big part of this effort was to partner with like-minded companies. “They had to empower small business owners, be web-based, and be affordable”, said Rissell. This lead to partnerships with companies like Yugma, a web conferencing application. In addition, dozens of features were fast-tracked for release. “It was just time to take this to the next level” said Rissell. “I was confident that we had a provable business model – and we knew our initial customers loved the product”.

In April of 2008, TSheets announced “Timeclock 2.0”, an initiative to create a standard for developing time keeping software for small business owners. At the same time, TSheets also released a free single user version, an upgrade to their time sheet editor called “Time Slider”, and improvements with Paid Time Off (PTO) tracking and reporting.

Slated for release later in ’08 is a mobile device widget, multiple languages version, an API for the developer community to add TSheets functionality to other applications. Rissell’s enthusiasm is obvious. “I have been telling everyone that this is big. Now the proof is in the pudding!”

For more information, visit TSheets’ media page here.

About TSheets

TSheets (www.tsheets.com) is an online time and attendance program that turns any PC or mobile device into a time clock. Currently, TSheets’ customers have over 3000 employees using TSheets. Founded in 2006, TSheets is based in Boise, ID and currently has a staff of nine. For more information, please contact Justin Foster at Tricycle Consulting –justin@thetricycle.com or 208-841-3497.

Here is the full-length introduction video of TSheets CEO, Matt Rissell.

Boise, Idaho – April 1, 2008 – Today, TSheets.com (www.tsheets.com) announced the launch of a new standard for web-based timekeeping called “Timeclock 2.0″. This standard was developed to create a benchmark for emulating the simple clock-in/out functionality of traditional time clocks, while still providing a web-based application. “We created this standard because most of the time keeping software is just too expensive and not practical for small business owners”, says Matt Rissell, CEO of TSheets. The standard focuses on the most critical point of time tracking, clocking in and clocking out. “If you can’t make it easy to clock in and out, business owners will just revert to paper timesheets”, says Rissell. Other elements of the standard include mobile clocking in/out, managing multiple locations, and payroll reporting.

Founded in 2006, TSheets is part of a growing web segment called “Software-as-a-Service” (SaaS) that uses a subscription-based business model to spread the costs of software over thousands of users, making it affordable for small business owners to use modern technology. Examples include Google’s Gmail, Salesforce.com, Yugma.com and dozens of other web-based business tools. Part of the popularity of SaaS applications is that they typically have a low monthly fee based on the number of users, with support and upgrades often included in the subscription fee. “Timeclock 2.0 is really made possible by the SaaS business model” says Rissell.

A typical small business owner still uses paper time sheets or analog punch clocks for managing employee time. Most PC based time keeping applications are bundled with expensive HR or payroll packages. Other web-based software is available, but cater primarily to single-users such as freelancers or contractors. TSheets’ customers are small business owners with 5 to 20 employees. “Our focus is the small business owner and his or her employees” says Rissell. Thus, the focus on emulating an environment that a small business owner is most used to. The key to making it easier to use for small business owners was simplicity. “We are constantly reminding ourselves who our core audience is” says Rissell.

Rissell has plenty of first-hand experience with the issues of time-keeping. As the owner of a chain of printing supply stores, Rissell experienced first-hand the frustrations of dealing with time sheets, payroll preparation, and consolidating multiple locations. “I just thought this was part of running a business”, says Rissell. What bothered him the most was the actual process of tracking time. “I knew that the numbers weren’t accurate, and it was driving me crazy” says Rissell. Most of this was not dishonest employees, but just the inherent nature of using paper time tracking methods. After not being able to find an application that would work for his business, Rissell contracted with a top developer named Brandon Zehm to build a web-based application. After using the application for a month, the results were obvious. “We figured we saved about $2000 in the first month” says Rissell. Not long after, Rissell sold his business and partnered with Zehm to start TSheets. “After my last company having the headache of over 30 employees and four locations, I was passionate about my next business being web based” said Rissell.

Since then, they have focused on keeping that original simplicity while still adding robustness and functionality. In addition to the announcement of the Timeclock 2.0 initiative, TSheets also announced the release of several new features of their web-based time tracking software, including the release of a free single-user version. One of the most unique new features is a time sheet editor that uses Rich Internet technology to allow managers to edit time sheets through a graphical interface called a “Time Slider”. Additional enhancements in this version include Paid Time Off (PTO) tracking, Quickbooks integration, and additional reporting functionality.

To learn more, visit TSheet’s media page at http://media.tsheets.com

About TSheets

TSheets (www.tsheets.com) is a web-based time and attendance program that allows you and your employees to clock in and out from a computer or cell phone. Currently, TSheets’ customers have several thousand employees using TSheets throughout the world and is multiplying daily. Founded in 2006, TSheets is based in Meridian, ID and currently has a staff of nine. For more information, please contact Justin Foster at Tricycle Consulting –justin@thetricycle.com or 208-841-3497.

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.

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.