The Main Benefits of Using a Work Time Tracker

A work time tracker allows you to collect vital information on business processes and keep all the necessary details about a company’s work. Usually, timesheet data is collected day by day, so it doesn’t take too much time and effort to obtain it. Regular data entry also ensures high accuracy, being an indispensable tool for an efficient management process.

Timekeeping data, collected and summarized for longer periods, also help teams and individual team members improve their work, be more productive, and achieve more. Let’s see how it’s done and what benefits it brings to all parties involved. 🙌

Work Time Tracker Benefits for Business Owners

1. Having a big picture of work & business processes 🖼️

   The data obtained from a work time tracker can be used to get a clear picture of virtually any part of the work and business processes. Teams’ and individuals’ productivity, efficiency at each specific work step, the profitability of projects and activities, costs of employees’ absences for any period, and much more can be overviewed and analyzed with the timesheet data.

2. Identifying possible issues and addressing them in the early stages ⚠️

   A missed deadline or an overrun budget easily turns a project into a nightmare, so preventing it in the early stages is vital. Here’s where time-track data can be useful. It allows business owners to review the current progress of work, assess the remaining work scope, and see how much the project budget is already spent. This helps identify possible problems as early as possible and address them right away.

3. Establishing efficient workflows and routines ⚙️

   Isn’t it common when an activity you’ve already spent hours and days on turns out to be a time waster? It’s not only disappointing – it also undermines work efficiency and timely delivery of projects. To prevent it, constant analysis of time track data is necessary: it helps understand where valuable work time goes and build routines and workflows that allow using time more mindfully.

4. Ensuring accuracy in the calculation of work, overtime, and absence hours 🕝

   Discrepancies in the calculation of payments, leave time balances, comp time, overtime payments, etc., are the common causes of workplace conflicts. Preventing them is essential for maintaining a healthy and productive work environment. Ensuring compliance of calculations with the company’s leave, overtime, and comp time policies is easier with accurate records of work and leave time. What’s more, this way, calculations can be automated, which saves time and streamlines management processes.

Work Time Tracker Benefits for Teams

1. Preventing excessive workloads and understaffing 🤯

   There are many jokes about unfair work distribution in teams… unless they are not jokes. Often, work is distributed unevenly in teams due to the lack of a big picture. That’s what time-track data provides: it shows who is overloaded and who lacks work assignments. It also helps identify overstaffing and understaffing problems and handle them efficiently.

2. Being able to see current progress and compare it with the roadmap 👀

   Proactively monitoring work progress and informing managers about possible delays is how teams can make their work more efficient. Reviewing time-track data summary for a team or a group helps understand where the team is on the way to the project goal and flag possible issues and delays to minimize the risk of missed deadlines.

3. Seeing possible flaws and bottlenecks and being able to eliminate them 🍾

   Often, team members and small groups of employees are those who notice the inefficiency of existing procedures first. Timesheet data helps reveal where work processes within the team are lagging and don’t bring expected results. Unusually large amounts of time spent on routine tasks exceeded estimates, and overtime hours on specific steps of work routines usually indicate this type of problem.

4. Collaborating on work tasks more efficiently 🤝

   Autonomy and active collaboration within the teams are two of the basic principles of the Agile methodology that is being increasingly adopted in modern work environments. Being aware of everyone’s work progress, spent and remaining time makes it clear when help is needed, how processes can be optimized, and what tasks need closer attention.

Work Time Tracker Benefits for Individual Employees

1. Seeing where worktime is going and being able to redirect efforts ⏳

   There’s no need to additionally emphasize the importance of having a worktime breakdown chart at hand. It not only helps understand which activities are productive and which are not, but also is an essential tool for beating procrastination and distractions. Being aware of how you’re spending the eight hours of your work time is the first step to developing a mindful approach to your productivity at work.

2. Becoming a wiser time manager in the long term 🧙

   Comparing current and previous productivity data is an essential part of building good time management habits. Having time-track data collected for longer periods is necessary for tracking productivity and performance dynamics, revealing factors that influence it, and making your work process more efficient.

3. Getting better at estimating and planning 🧠

   Estimation and planning cannot be 100% accurate, but you can and need to work on their accuracy. This is not difficult when having time-track data at hand: being aware of how much time regular tasks take allows employees to estimate possible workloads for future periods, provide managers with approximate work delivery dates, and – what’s important – say no to excessive workloads and justify it with previous data.

4. Having exact data on regular work time, overtime, and leave balances 📊

   The ability to see your own work time results and absence data is necessary for being aware of how much overtime you’ve accumulated and what is your current leave time balance. Knowing exactly what compensation you’re currently entitled to and being able to check historical records (for example, to trace leave balance changes or see the days when overtime was accumulated) ensures clarity and transparency of how workplace policies apply to you.

Best Work Time Trackers to Choose from

1. actiTIME

Key features:

• Weekly timesheets
• Automated timer
• Leave management
• Reports
• Mobile app
• Integrations
• Cost tracking
• Billing

actiTIME is a multifunctional piece of software for better time and resource management. It provides a centralized platform for tracking employee work hours, monitoring project progress, and generating insightful performance reports. 💡

actiTIME offers a number of features that can help businesses improve their work results, including task allocation, the Kanban board, leave management, cost tracking, etc. Besides, actiTIME integrates with many popular tools, such as Google Calendar and MS Outlook, making it even easier to keep everything in check and boost efficiency multifold.

With so many awesome features and integrations, it’s no wonder that actiTIME is quickly becoming the go-to solution for businesses of all sizes. And if you wanna check it out yourself, feel free to do so during a free 30-day trial. Sign up for it here.

2. TimeTac

Key features:

• Time tracking
• Project management
• Leave management
• Reports

TimeTac is a time and attendance tracking solution designed to help you establish a highly efficient team management process. The software offers a variety of valuable features, including the ability to create and manage employee vacation requests, track overtime hours, and generate reports on employee work activity.

All in all, TimeTac gives your business the tools for improving productivity and optimizing the use of resources. In addition, TimeTac offers a free trial period, so you can explore everything it offers firsthand before purchasing a monthly or annual subscription. 💶

3. TrackTime24

Key features:

• Time tracking
• Leave management
• Scheduling
• Team communication

TrackTime24 is a resource management solution that helps you stay on top of your team’s work schedule. It’s easy to use and helps to track employees’ work hours, break times, overtime, and even vacations. 🌴

You can also use the software to manage your team’s business trips and keep a record of travel expenses (thanks to the file repository feature). This makes TrackTime24 a perfect solution for staying organized and making sure your business is getting the most out of its resources.

4. Harvest

Key features:

• Automated time tracking
• Invoicing
• Online payments
• Integrations

Harvest offers a convenient way to see how much time you’re spending on each project and which of its parts are taking up the most time. The software can be accessed from the browser, the desktop, or a mobile device, and it has a number of valuable and simple-to-use features:

• Automated timers for more accurate time tracking results.
• Detailed reports for an in-depth insight into your work productivity
• Streamlined invoicing and online payment processing for getting paid faster.
• Handy integrations for even more efficient time tracking and project management.

Harvest has a free version that affords just one seat and two projects and the paid plan with unlimited seats and projects. The latter is a bit pricey, though: it will cost you $12 per user a month. So, in case you need a cheaper solution with similar functionality, be sure to check out this post. 👈

5. Monitask

Key features:

• Time clock
• Computer monitoring
• Screenshots
• Reports

Monitask is a work time tracker with robust functionality for employee monitoring. It provides detailed reports on everyone’s work time and daily activities, so managers can analyze employee productivity and identify areas of improvement. 📈

Monitask also offers some basic features for project management and team collaboration, which make it easy for employees to stay coordinated and work together more effectively. In other words, if you’re looking for ways to improve productivity and reduce unproductive hours to a minimum, Monitask is your go-to tool.

Ready to Introduce a Work Time Tracker?

Using a work time tracker brings essential benefits to all parties in the work process. Managers and business owners, team managers and teams in general, individual employees – any team member can use the timekeeping data collected by the work time tracking tool to make the work process more transparent, address issues and difficulties as soon as possible, and make necessary changes to achieve expected work results.