"Many businesses see time tracking as more than a tool. To them, it’s a diverse business asset with far-reaching impacts on their brand. That’s one of the reasons why time tracking software have become so popular in recent years. They use it to see what their employees are spending their time on. From there, they create strategies to help them streamline their projects, process payroll, identify hiring needs, and much more.

Without time tracking, it’s hard to get this same level of insight with the same effort and in the same amount of time.

What is Time Tracking?

Time tracking is when you monitor and record time spent working on billable and nonbillable tasks and projects. While there are numerous implications in terms of time tracking and how it relates to success, there’s one key fact that makes time tracking absolutely crucial -- you cannot manage time you do not track.

If you don’t track your time, it’s impossible to manage your time. This hurts your business in so many areas, and it’s another reason why tracking time, when done right, can lead to outstanding results.

While there are many methods used to track time, not all are efficient -- think spreadsheets or even pen and paper.

The most effective method is time tracking software because they’re generally the most accurate and cost-efficient solutions for businesses. So, in this post, we’ll discuss why software for time tracking solutions are important for your business and its success.

Why Time Tracking?

Boost Accountability

One reason Why Time Tracking is so important for your team is that it helps keep your employees accountable. On an average day, employees might spend an hour or more of their workday distracted. During this time they’re talking to coworkers, making phone calls, or browsing the internet. This time they spend not working is costing your business dearly.

New York Times Bestselling author and entrepreneur James Clear summed it up in a recent blog post:

""In our age of constant distraction, it's stupidly easy to split our attention between what we should be doing and what society bombards us with. Usually we're balancing the needs of messages, emails, and to-do lists at the same time that we are trying to get something accomplished. It's rare that we are fully engaged in the task at hand.""

Most people get distracted easily. It’s not uncommon. What matters is how quickly they’re able to eliminate those distractions and get back to work, which is Why Time Tracking is so important. With the right software, you can monitor idle time, URLs, and apps monitoring, you can keep your employees accountable and adjust workforce management accordingly.

This actually acts as a deterrent to idle time, as most employees would rather not be confronted with proof of their inactivity. They’ll want their tasks completed to match their hours worked. So, if they do chat with their coworkers, it might not be a 20-minute random conversation. Or if they do quickly search something on the internet, they’re less likely to get caught up in it.

Performance Insights

Without insight into how your employees are performing, you might not be able to successfully manage your teams. After all, it’s important to recognize employees that go above-and-beyond for the company. Without employee monitoring, however, it’s difficult to get a true reading on the office all-starts, and this is a great example of why software for time tracking is beneficial to team morale.

The top time tracking apps can provide you with valuable insight into how your employees are performing. Then you can see who’s working efficiently. And since you’ll know who your top performers are, you can boost their morale by letting them know that they’re doing an excellent job.

Aside from employees who are performing exceptionally, you can also use time trackers to identify strengths and weaknesses. With enough data, you can identify patterns in their work habits. At what part of the project does their performance dip? Additionally, on average, how long should it take to complete their tasks? Are they falling below or rising above that baseline?

This enables you to take the necessary steps to help anyone who’s been struggling to complete their tasks more efficiently.

Manage Workloads

Time tracking can serve as nonverbal communication between employer and employee. Some employees might not feel comfortable telling you that they have too much on their plates. Time tracking enables you to spot these instances and gives you the insight you need to relieve some of that pressure.

You can quickly see who’s overworked and even identify employees that could help take the extra workload. And, if you’ve already determined their strengths and weaknesses, you’ll know who to delegate tasks to.

On the other hand, if everyone’s working efficiently, and their workloads are pretty much maxed out, this could indicate the need for additional help. With more help, you can start meeting more deadlines. So, generally speaking, time tracking can help give you visibility into workloads, which, in turn, benefit everyone.

Boost Efficiency

Traditional time tracking methods like spreadsheets and manual time tracking is time-consuming for both employers and employees. It takes business owners or HR hours to gather, organize, and record timesheets for payroll purposes. Additionally, this causes employees to be less productive when they have to manually record what they were doing and how long they’re doing it.

However, with accurate time tracking tools that automate much of the process, everyone can increase their efficiency -- from employees to managers to business owners. After manually recording timesheets for payroll, employers don’t have much bandwidth left to analyze them and streamline processes.

But an accurate, automatic time tracking tool can give everyone their time back, so they can focus on what matters: productivity and integrity at work!

Track Project Progress

How efficiently your projects are progressing determines your reputation and profitability. If you’re constantly missing deadlines because you underestimated how much time it would take to complete a project, it leads to confusion and conflict. Without efficient project management, clients lose faith in your brand, and end up telling other business owners about your brand’s shortcomings. Word of mouth goes both ways, after all.

By underestimating the time, you’re also underestimating how much a project should cost. And if your employees are spending too much time on projects that you underpriced, you’re not making a profit.

Time tracking tools help you monitor your project and how much time and money is going into them. And with enough data collected from your time tracker, you can accurately estimate how much resources a project will need based on similar projects.

Confidently Process Payroll

As previously mentioned, traditional time tracking methods are inefficient and inaccurate. How confident are you that your employees’ timesheets are 100% accurate? As humans, making mistakes is a part of life.

That’s Why Time Tracking automation is so important. It provides consistent accuracy over long periods of time that humans just aren’t capable of.

Modern time tracking tools use automated time trackers to populate your employees’ timesheets. So, you’re only paying for the time they actually worked, and you’re not relying on manual entries that could be way off.

Conclusion

Attempting to manage your employees, their time, and your projects without a time tracking tool is a tough task to tackle. It’s certainly doable, but times are changing! In this modern era, you need accuracy and consistency.

The insight you can gain from receiving accurate data can help you stay profitable and your employees stay efficient. That’s Why Time Tracking is such an important topic, and that’s why software for time tracking has become so popular.

Are you thinking about integrating time tracking into your business? Then, you should give, time tracking software, Clockly a shot!