Without an intuitive and well-functioning system in place, time tracking can be a bit of a mess. Maybe some folks pencil-whip their timesheets, others lose track of their hours throughout the day, or the process just feels inefficient and prone to errors. But at the end of the day, you need realistic data on how your people are spending their hours so you can know if projects are on track, make informed decisions, and get a clear picture of your operations.
That’s where our automated time tracker, actiTIME, comes in – it helps you and your employees cut through the chaos and clutter, providing you with clean, reliable time tracking info and allowing you to run your business effectively.
However, actiTIME is more than just a simple time tracking tool. Let’s see what it’s capable of and how you can use it to your business’s greatest advantage.
- How to Track Employee Time Most Accurately
- How to Manage Multiple Projects at Once and Do It Effectively
- How to Use actiTIME in Different Project Management Methodologies
- How to Manage Resources in a Project
- How to Manage Employee Performance Without a Hitch
- How to Improve Decision-Making Using actiTIME Reports
- How to Bill a Client in a Trouble-Free Way
- How to Configure actiTIME in Line with Your Needs
- How to Integrate Software with Other Tools
- How to Improve Business Management with Time Tracking
How to Track Employee Time Most Accurately
As an automated time tracker, actiTIME takes all the hassle out of tracking employee time and enables you to get super-accurate attendance records. It improves efficiency, reduces errors inherent in manual data entry, and ensures a precise representation of employee work hours for payroll and billing purposes.
1. Set up your time tracking process in a few simple steps
Hour tracking with actiTIME is super easy, and it takes merely five basic steps to begin:
- Configure your Time-Track Hierarchy
- Create projects and tasks to track time for
- Invite your team members to actiTIME
- Switch off any features you don’t plan to use
- Download our mobile app and the browser extension to simplify the process even further
Click here to find out more 👈
2. Enjoy the benefits of automated time tracking
As an automated time tracker, actiTIME measures hours spent on tasks in real time, ensuring that every second is accounted for and recorded accurately. Then, you can easily access insightful data that reflects the work done, providing you with a comprehensive overview of your business operations and helping you to take them under better control.
Explore all the benefits of automated time tracking with actiTIME here 👈
3. Keep track of every second spent online
Whether you’re working remotely, studying virtually, or simply using social media to stay connected with loved ones, it’s important to be mindful of how much time you’re spending online each day. And with our fully automated browser extension, Time Management Assistant, you can track every second spent online, no matter the task at hand.
You can pick which websites and activities you want to track and choose whether to integrate your Time Management Assistant with actiTIME or use it as a personal productivity-boosting tool. You can also view detailed reports and analytics to identify patterns and make positive changes to your online habits.
Check out this post to explore Time Management Assistant in greater depth 👈
4. Switch between the Timesheet View and the Calendar View
Along with traditional weekly timesheets where you can track the overall time spent on work, actiTIME features the Calendar View where employees can log the exact time they started and finished working on tasks. It offers a more visual way of tracking daily work activities and helps to identify major distractions, inefficient time management behaviors, or unauthorized overtime hours the easier way.
Find out more about Calendar View in this post 👈
5. Track hours wherever you are
With actiTIME Mobile, you can easily log your hours no matter where you are, whether you’re in the office, on a business trip, working in the field, or remotely. Its built-in one-click timers provide maximum data accuracy, while the offline time tracking feature ensures that you won’t miss a beat even when you don’t have internet access.
Click here to explore other features actiTIME Mobile has to offer 👈
How to Manage Multiple Projects at Once and Do It Effectively
actiTIME isn’t just a time tracker but a highly effective project management tool that will help elevate your project management skills to new heights. It helps to keep track of deadlines, monitor work on tasks in real time, and analyze your progress in considerable detail.
With actiTIME, you’ll have no trouble juggling multiple projects at once and achieving the set performance goals as efficiently as possible.
1. Plan out the scope of work
actTIME lets you plan out the entire scope of work so you don’t get bogged down by keeping too many details in your head or across different platforms. It allows you to set precise estimates, deadlines, and priorities, and easily allocate work to employees to ensure that everyone is on the same page regarding project completion.
Find out more about work scope management with actiTIME here 👈
2. Monitor project progress with ease
From visual estimate trackers and time-track comments to real-time data widgets and comprehensive performance reports, actiTIME has everything you need to monitor how your team works and rest assured that you’ll never fall behind the set schedule or budget.
Learn all about its progress tracking features in this post 👈
3. Measure ongoing success
Measuring project progress involves comparing your initial plans and goals to actual performance results, and actiTIME has a couple of features that make the entire process much more straightforward and convenient.
For instance, you can set time and cost estimates for tasks and then analyze your success in meeting them via reports. Or you can activate email notifications to receive automatic alerts whenever you’re facing the risk of budget overrun or project delay, and promptly find a way to get back on the right track as soon as possible.
Explore other ways of measuring project progress with actiTIME here 👈
4. Manage your key performance indicators (KPIs)
Project KPIs are quantitative and qualitative metrics that are used to measure the progress and success of a project. They typically reflect the most important aspects or objectives of the project and are meant to help you monitor project performance, identify areas of improvement, and make informed decisions based on real-time data.
With actiTIME, you can easily manage your time- and cost-related KPIs measuring how long it takes to complete tasks, as well as the budget and expenses associated with the project. Besides, you can track scope-related KPIs that let you track the extent to which project objectives have been met, including the overall project goals and any specific outcomes or deliverables.
Click here to check out other examples of KPIs that actiTIME helps to manage 👈
5. Streamline the entire project management process
Overall, actiTIME offers an impressive range of features to streamline the project management process from the very start till the end. Use it to get accurate time estimates, balance team workloads, monitor ongoing employee progress, track costs, and smarten up your management decisions thanks to accurate and insightful data.
And that’s not all!
Find out everything about project management with actiTIME here 👈
How to Use actiTIME in Different Project Management Methodologies
actiTIME is versatile and flexible time tracking software that can be used effectively in a variety of project management methodologies. Whether you’re using Agile, Waterfall, or any other methodology, it can help you streamline your work processes and make them truly efficient.
1. Manage work in progress on the Kanban board
The Kanban board is a powerful visual tool designed to help manage work in progress, identify process bottlenecks, and improve efficiency. It provides real-time visibility into project status and workloads, enabling everyone on your team to collaborate more effectively and make informed decisions about project priorities.
With features like drag-and-drop task management, customizable progress statuses / columns, and color-coded tags, the Kanban board in actiTIME enables you to improve productivity and streamline your workflow.
Learn more about actiTIME’s Kanban functionality here 👈
2. Step up your Scrum game
Scrum is an agile approach that emphasizes flexibility and adaptation. It focuses on delivering a potentially shippable product increment at the end of each sprint, which is a time-boxed iteration of the project. This is achieved through collaboration among the project team members, frequent feedback sessions, and continuous improvement.
The team works toward achieving the sprint goal, which is a concrete objective that is defined in the sprint planning meeting. And actiTIME is here to help you plan those sprints and carry them out without a hitch.
Find out how to fine-tune actiTIME with your Scrum process here 👈
3. Ride the flow with the Waterfall method
The waterfall method, also known as the linear approach, is a sequential and heavily structured project management approach where teams follow a series of pre-defined phases to complete a project. Each phase is dependent on the completion of the previous one, and there is little to no room for changes or alterations once they have been completed.
The phases of the waterfall method may include conception, initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closure. And you can easily create and track them all with the help of actiTIME’s flexible workflow settings.
Learn more about it here 👈
How to Manage Resources in a Project
Time tracking is indispensable for effective resource management since it can help you identify where resources are being wasted and plan to utilize them more efficiently.
For example, if a team member is spending a significant amount of time on a task that is not essential to the project, this can be flagged and addressed. Similarly, if a particular task is taking longer than anticipated, the time tracker can help to identify the root cause and allow the team to make adjustments.
Let’s see how actiTIME can help you manage your time and money in a much better way.
1. Estimate tasks more accurately
By tracking hours spent on work using actiTIME, you will build up a comprehensive historical database of task completion times. Then, you can analyze this data to estimate the time required to complete similar tasks in the future with far greater accuracy.
Learn more about how it all works here 👈
2. Keep overtime hours under control
Overtime work is much more costly for a business compared to regular employee hours. Hence, it makes sense to limit and prevent overtime whenever possible.
With actiTIME doing so is a breeze – our automated time tracker lets users log overtime hours manually but also can do all the calculations for you – just choose what works best for you and rest assured that not a single overtime minute stays unnoticed.
Explore how actiTIME helps to manage overtime here 👈
3. Never lose track of employee absences
Timely and accurate absence tracking enables businesses to reduce the cost of lost productivity, identify absence patterns, and address underlying issues. It also ensures that employees are treated fairly, their rights are respected, and no labor laws are disobeyed.
actiTIME provides a centralized platform where your employees can submit their absences and sick leave requests. It also allows you to customize absence types and time off accrual rules as per your organization’s policies. As a result, you won’t have to worry about managing the tracking and documentation of every employee’s absence manually.
Click here to explore the basics of absence management with actiTIME and check out this post to learn more about its flexible PTO management settings 👈
4. Manage project costs like a pro
Effective project cost management requires a proactive mindset. Project managers must constantly monitor and analyze cost data throughout all phases of project development, identifying potential sources of overspending and taking prompt action to rectify any issues that arise.
That’s where actiTIME comes in handy – it allows you to streamline the cost management process in just three simple steps:
- Assign different hourly pay rates to each employee.
- Track the time they spend on each task, project, or client.
- Run detailed reports to see how much money has been spent on each piece of work.
Read our comprehensive guide on project cost management with actiTIME or get practical tips on how to track expenses with its help here 👈
5. Master the art of budgeting
Your budgeting skills can be the difference between the financial success and the failure of your business. With a well-planned budget, you can control your spending, save for the future, and achieve your long-term financial goals.
The key to budgeting mastery lies in understanding your finances and creating a plan that works for you, and actiTIME is ready to assist you with that.
Click here to learn how 👈
How to Manage Employee Performance Without a Hitch
actiTIME provides you with intuitive tools to monitor employee productivity and make strategic adjustments for better team collaboration and performance management. It can help your team members achieve their goals and contribute to the growth of the organization.
Here’s how:
1. Take team management to the next level
The most important thing you need to effectively manage your team is a task management system that allows you to delegate tasks and monitor progress in real time.
Besides, to keep everyone on the same page, you need file-sharing functionality, commenting features, shared calendars and timelines, project dashboards, and employee self-scheduling tools – all these come as part of actiTIME to ensure that your employees work together efficiently to achieve the set goals.
Learn everything there is to know about team management with actiTIME here 👈
2. Enhance team collaboration
Team collaboration is the act of working with others by combining individual skills and knowledge to create a cohesive, effective team that moves towards a shared objective. When teams collaborate effectively, they can produce amazing results, achieve more in less time, and innovate more efficiently. actiTIME offers a couple of features that help to gain these benefits with ease.
Find out more about them here 👈
3. Adjust employees’ user accounts in line with your needs
Different types of employees require you to come up with a slightly different approach to managing them. Luckily, actiTIME has flexible settings allowing you to fine-tune each team member’s schedule, pay rates, time off accrual rules, and permissions to their individual needs so that you don’t have to keep track of anything manually and be confident that employees have access to necessary features and data.
Check out this post to learn how to manage part-time employees with actiTIME and read about how to manage contractors here 👈
4. Ensure productive work in your remote team
With remote work arrangements, managers have no opportunity to physically check on employees’ work progress and productivity. However, our automated time tracker offers a reliable way to ensure that work is being done as expected. By monitoring the time spent on tasks, you can spot patterns and identify areas where employees may be struggling – and this is the first step towards better performance in remote teams.
Learn how to level up remote team management with actiTIME here 👈
How to Improve Decision-Making Using actiTIME Reports
actiTIME reports can help you make better decisions by providing valuable insights and data on various aspects of your business operations. Here are some ways in which they can help:
1. Attain better project results with timesheet reports
To achieve even better project results, it is important to focus on the details and facts. actiTIME timesheet reports record every task, hour worked, and individual involved in the project. They provide a clear picture of the entire project timeline, including where and when improvements can be made to achieve the desired outcomes.
Take a look at actiTIME’s timesheet reports here 👈
2. Control your finances with money reports
Money reports offer a wealth of information about your finances, including your monthly expenses, income sources, and budget goals. With their help, you can identify areas where you can cut back on spending, as well as areas where you can increase your investment. In addition, you can track your progress against the set budget goals and make adjustments as needed.
Check out actiTIME’s money reports here 👈
3. Visualize data to simplify performance analysis
Visual data representation tools like graphs and charts make trends and patterns more evident. They display the data in a clear, concise, and accessible way, allowing you to extract insights and make data-driven decisions more effortlessly.
See which data visualization options actiTIME has to offer here 👈
How to Bill a Client in a Trouble-Free Way
actiTIME lets you categorize your working time by project, client, or task, which makes it easier to separate billed hours from unbillable ones and identify which projects are taking up the most of your time. You can also set up billing rates per project or client and invoice them automatically once the work is completed.
1. Assign billing rates to tasks
By allocating specific billing rates to each task, you can easily distinguish between billable and non-billable hours, which ensures accurate invoicing and financial reporting.
The billing rates you set in actiTIME can be customized and updated at any time, giving you the flexibility to adjust your pricing as needed. Plus, you can assign different pay rates to team members in order to track billable time along with staff-related project expenses and compare them via reports.
Learn how to manage billing and cost of work rates in your actiTIME account here 👈
2. Streamline client billing from start to finish
With actiTIME, you can set up client-specific billing rates and automate the generation of invoices. It provides a variety of methods to input and manage billable hours in a truly easy way, while its reporting tools provide you with in-depth insights into your billing data.
Learn how to perfect your client billing process here or check out this post to see how to automate invoicing with actiTIME 👈
3. Make client communication as smooth as possible
By providing a clear breakdown of time spent on each individual task, actiTIME reports make it easy to explain the real cost of your work to clients with confidence and ease.
Find out how to improve client communication with their help here 👈
How to Configure actiTIME in Line with Your Needs
What makes actiTIME stand out among other solutions on the market is its incredible flexibility and ample opportunities for customization. It is designed to adapt to your specific business requirements, and match your processes and workflows, so you can maximize its potential to reach your goals.
Check out this detailed list of all the ways you can customize your actiTIME account 👈
1. Create a custom work structure
A work structure refers to the organization and arrangement of tasks, responsibilities, and processes within a company. It is essentially the framework that guides employees in their day-to-day operations and helps them achieve their goals in an efficient and effective manner.
The work structure in actiTIME also defines the way you track time and organize the collected performance data, and you can customize it just the way you want.
Learn how to do that here 👈
2. Control access to data with user permissions
User permissions ensure that users are granted only the level of access required to perform their tasks within the software while preventing them from accessing sensitive data or making unauthorized changes to the system. In actiTIME, such user permissions fall into three categories: system admins, managers, and regular employees.
Find out more about them here 👈
3. Organize your tasks with custom fields
Custom fields for tasks let you add extra information to a task beyond the standard fields offered by actiTIME. These fields are meant to provide a deeper level of detail tailored to the specific needs of a particular project. They can be used to track such unique data points as project codes, priority levels, due dates, team members responsible for the task, or any other relevant information that helps define and manage your project’s workflow.
Read more about actiTIME’s custom fields for tasks here 👈
How to Integrate Software with Other Tools
By integrating different software systems, you can eliminate the need for manual data entry and reduce the potential for errors. This, in turn, leads to faster and more accurate decision-making, improved work management experiences, and greater overall efficiency.
actiTIME offers multiple integration options that help you gain all these benefits. Explore the most popular of them here 👈
1. Connect actiTIME to any tools via Zapier
Zapier is a handy automation tool that allows you to connect different apps and services together, without requiring any coding knowledge. With Zapier, you can create custom workflows that automate repetitive tasks and save you time.
Check out how to connect your actiTIME to Jira, Gmail, Zoom, and other platforms here 👈
2. Power up your digital ecosystem with actiTIME API
API, which stands for Application Programming Interface, is a set of protocols and tools that allow different software applications to communicate with each other. It serves as a bridge between different programs, allowing them to exchange information and perform certain operations – like process synchronization – without extra hassle.
Click here to learn how to boost process efficiency with actiTIME API 👈
3. Track time spent on Google Calendar events automatically
With Google Calendar, you can easily create events and schedule appointments. The good news is that you don’t have to lift a finger in order to track the time you spend on those events in actiTIME. With the help of actiTIME and Zapier, this process can be automated, saving you precious time and ensuring accurate tracking of your activities.
Learn how to integrate your Google Calendar with actiTIME here 👈
How to Improve Business Management with Time Tracking
Business management is the practice of overseeing all aspects of your company’s operations with the goal of achieving optimal efficiency, profitability, and growth. It involves a wide range of responsibilities like setting goals, developing strategies, allocating resources, managing employees, evaluating performance, making financial decisions, and ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.
No matter the task at hand, actiTIME offers plenty of features to help you improve the way your business operates. We’ve covered the most vital of them in this guide – be sure to check it out! 👈
Stay on top of essential business metrics
Business metrics are numerical indicators that help to evaluate the performance of a company. You can use them to determine the success or failure of a particular business strategy, as well as to make informed decisions about future investments and growth opportunities.
Explore some of the common business metrics that actiTIME can help you track here 👈
Conclusion
In conclusion, utilizing an automated time tracker is crucial in today’s fast-paced and competitive business world. It not only helps increase productivity and efficiency, but it also gives managers a better understanding of their team’s performance.
With features like task management, invoicing, and detailed reports, actiTIME is the perfect solution to cover all your business needs. So, sign up for a free actiTIME trial now and watch your business soar!
