Time tracking, or the practice of monitoring your team’s work hours and progress on projects, can be fairly labor-intensive without the use of a digital platform. Without technology, you could waste hours manually tracking employee time and trying new methods to see if they fit your operations. But with the right software in place, it’s easy to track hours worked — and how those hours are being allocated. 

Collecting data on how your team members spend their time and utilize resources is one of the easiest ways to increase efficiency while simultaneously saving money. 

The simplest way to accomplish these goals is by utilizing advanced time tracking tools to help you stay up-to-date and eliminate the need for punch cards or manual time tracking methods.

How time tracking increases efficiency

Time tracking tools like Harvest help you understand how long your employees take to complete specific projects or tasks. These platforms can also identify where you’re short on resources and other potential gaps in your operations.

With these insights, you’ll be able to make informed business decisions using powerful features like real-time data analysis, dashboard reporting, and online expense submissions, making it easier to increase productivity and meet deadlines. 

Business advantages of time tracking software include:

  • Reporting & accounting accuracy
  • Resource allocation 
  • Length of time spent on projects & tasks 
  • Custom invoice creation 
  • Ability to get paid quickly and accurately 

Increased accuracy

One of the primary benefits of time tracking software is that it eliminates human error and provides you with much more accurate data. Having accurate data can save you a ton of stress and money when you’re trying to calculate payroll or resources spent on specific tasks. 

Using time tracking software will provide various advanced tools that give you improved insights. With these insights, you can highlight peak performance times, monitor overall progress, and create timely performance benchmarks that will help you regularly evaluate an employee’s progress.

Understanding how employees spend their time and the number of resources they may need per project will let you refine your estimates and quotes for clients and future projects. 

Additionally, with increased accuracy in your calculations, you can communicate the right information to everyone involved in a project, making it easier for you to update your clients regularly and improve customer satisfaction as a result.

By improving your communications, you will establish a greater reputation for your business by providing customers with tangible and concrete results. Furthermore, it will help you cultivate professional relationships with your customers and employees, creating a positive environment for all involved. 

Cost savings

Harvest provides extra visibility into key aspects of your projects, like budget and costs. You can compare time vs. budget with clear, visual reports, and pinpoint which tasks are impacting costs the most so you can make more informed decisions on how to allocate your resources and ensure you’re not wasting money as your project progresses. 

Additionally, instead of requiring your employees to manually enter each project and task into a clunky spreadsheet, a streamlined software solution will cut the time spent tracking time in half. This will reduce costs and keep your employees focused on the project or task at hand. 

Improved productivity

Having a clear picture of how employee time and resource management impacts your timelines will help you plan and boost productivity for future projects. In addition, as you and your team utilize time tracking features, you can monitor employees’ time spent more closely. This will help team members identify areas of improvement and make necessary changes quickly.

Using time tracking software also lets you produce detailed reports highlighting team members’ strengths and levels of output, further improving your employee’s motivation to be more productive. 

Additionally, time tracking software records data for every employee's task, creating greater visibility within your organization. This level of transparency creates an improved environment for understanding what tasks have been accomplished and which need more work, helping reduce procrastination. Plus, it encourages employees to focus on completing one task before moving on to the other, improving overall productivity.

Improved efficiency 

Time tracking tools make you more effective at completing tasks that otherwise would take up much of your time and energy. In addition, these platforms allow you to increase your output by eliminating tasks that would otherwise be wasting effort through manual processes or outdated time tracking systems. 

Time tracking also simplifies operations by requiring fewer steps between start and finish, boosting efficiency from using outdated time tracking methods like Excel timesheets. 

With the ability to produce more accurate project timing using time tracking software, you can empower your teams to stay within deadlines and improve collaboration among employees. 

By tracking time and analyzing the efficiency of projects, clients, departments, and employees, you can see areas where processes can be improved. This will let you make real-time decisions about necessary adjustments. 

Using time tracking software lets you monitor how long it takes for tasks to be completed. This data can then be analyzed to determine which processes are taking too long or are inefficient, letting you streamline procedures or introduce new technologies that will help speed up the process. 

How time tracking software benefits your team members

With more detailed reporting and accurate time management, your team members can complete assigned tasks more effectively. 

Time tracking software for team members also creates more professional growth and development opportunities. By providing your team with detailed reports highlighting their peak performances and areas for improvement, you can identify any areas where they need additional help or training opportunities that could enhance their performances going forward. An improved, trained, and educated team can adjust their workflows and utilize the tools as needed to improve team collaboration and efficiency, leading to improved performance. 

Benefits of time tracking for your management teams 

There are numerous benefits for your management teams when they use time tracking software. The tools provided by time tracking software help project managers gather data regarding employees' work routines and reallocate or shift resources to meet unforeseen needs or deadlines accordingly. This will also let them identify gaps in task delivery to adjust as needed. 

Increased workplace productivity

With time tracking software, your management team will improve their ability to optimize employee workflows by automatically assigning tasks to individual team members and tracking their progress. As a result, they can allocate resources quickly and efficiently. Time tracking will also help track the duration of each task to easily budget time and resources in the future.

Easy invoicing, accounting, and payroll

Utilizing the tools that time tracking software provides, your team can ensure that you are invoicing clients on time (and for the correct amount) as time spent on a task is automatically recorded. In addition, keeping better track of time and resources spent on each task will help you analyze the production costs needed for future projects. 

Another primary benefit is that your management team will have an easier time recording, analyzing, and adjusting payroll, helping to schedule and allocate resources as needed.

Performance monitoring

With time tracking software, your team managers can monitor your teams and projects more accurately, letting them identify areas where improvements may be needed or whether to implement additional training programs. 

Gathering this data makes it easier to assess when your team members are most productive and adjust schedules accordingly, helping optimize your team’s performance.

As you have more data on how your teams are performing and if they need more assistance, you will be able to price out your services better and keep your projects on budget.  

Additionally, time tracking allows you to reward team members who consistently perform well. These insights will aid your team in becoming more motivated and productive, leading to increased efficiency and profitability for the business. 

Enhanced transparency

Automated time tracking helps create a structure within your organization that increases transparency among all of your team members. 

Your employees can view exactly how much of their work life goes into each project or task, which will assist them in becoming more engaged in their job roles with established, clearly outlined goals and objectives. 

Time tracking software from Harvest empowers your teams with detailed insights into their time spent on a project. If you’re ready to improve productivity, increase efficiency, and save money, sign up for a free trial at Harvest today.