How to Choose the Right Time Tracking Software for Your Business
In this day and age where time is money, businessmen need to ask themselves if they can afford to waste any of it.
Any sane person would answer in the negative. We all know that time and tide wait for none. A lot of us wish for a 25th hour in the day just so that we could somehow squeeze in a few more pending tasks and take them to completion.
With so many of our activities dependent on time, wouldn’t it be great to have a technological aid that could help us track and manage it better?
Small businesses would especially benefit from such a system. With stiff competition making it essential to use one’s resources optimally, time tracking software comes as a boon. Meeting deadlines, billing clients, as well as fulfilling their expectations just got easier.
Choosing the right time tracking software can be confusing, especially for someone who hasn’t used it before and does not comprehend its various facets. It is, therefore, important to be smart about it and study its various features before purchasing a program that can fulfil your business needs and goals.
In this post we look at a few important considerations that you need to bear in mind when buying time tracking software.
Is It Web-based?
With continuous innovations in Web-based technology, it has become commonplace for vendors to offer software that operates from a cloud environment. This is preferable because not only does it spare you the stress of having to constantly update the software, you don’t even need to undergo the tedious process of replacing the old technology with the new.
Apart from that, working with Web-based software is much safer because it runs on multiple servers, which means that you need not worry about loss of data or other technical issues in case of a power outage or emergencies.
Can It Be Applied Company-wide?
An ideal program will only make it simpler for you to run your business. It is always better to opt for software that can be useful to you as well as the employees throughout your company, irrespective of their departments. It should be easy to update information via this software.
For example, if a supervisor modifies a schedule, all employees should immediately be able to see the changes and the updates. This prevents miscommunication and misinformation among employees, and facilitates ease of interdepartmental communication and effective collaboration.
Can It Be Customized?
Different businesses have different needs. Make sure you pick a program that’s tailor-made for yours, and can be customized further if the need arises. Figure out the specific requirements of your organization as well as the features necessary to enable smooth and swift business processes. These can vary from determining paid leaves for employees for tracking their time off, to a comprehensive billing system for generating error-free invoices for clients.
Do ensure that all the features are included in one package and price. You don’t want any nasty surprises later on in the form of hidden costs and fees for “extra” features.
Can It Incorporate Notations?
Timely and proper communication within an organization is a crucial aspect of its success. Without that, it is easy for misunderstandings and complications to arise. It is, therefore, important to take this factor into consideration before choosing the right software.
Make sure it offers a documentation platform that is convenient to use. Managers and their team members should be able to add notations for the changes they make. Additionally, if an employee takes unapproved time-off due to an emergency, his manager should be able to leave a note on his time-off request to explain the situation.
Such features will prevent unnecessary confusion and keep everyone in the know.
Does It Allow Remote Access?
Remote access through your laptop, tablet, or smartphone will allow you to track your time when you’re away from your workstation. In modern times, it is becoming increasingly common for companies to have branches in several locations of the world. Employees, too, travel often to meet work exigencies. Many employees work from home.
It is, therefore, necessary that you choose software that can be accessed from anywhere through the Internet via remote access from outside the headquarters. This will be especially beneficial for companies that outsource staff.
Can It Generate Quick and Accurate Reports?
The software you choose should be capable of reading, storing and analyzing large amounts of data, and creating detailed reports as and when required. The report can be a combination of text, graphs and charts which can be interpreted easily by everyone.
These reports should be easy to understand as they will help you identify and predict upcoming trends in your area of operation, thereby increasing productivity. Apart from that, these reports will also help you decipher which business aspects need your attention and which are running smoothly.
Does It Allow You to Share Information?
Many a time, it becomes important to share information related to the company’s activities with the employees. Sharing this information with each employee on an individual basis can get very time-consuming. It would be great to have software than can disseminate information to all employees at once.
People who work in teams can benefit greatly from such software as it would allow them to share their schedules and proceedings and nip unwanted communication issues that hinder a smooth flow of operations.
Can It Keep Tabs on Employees?
It is often necessary to track employee activity to maximize output. This can work very well as this software allows you keep tabs on what they’re working on, and for how long they’ve been working on it.
It can also help you determine as to where manpower needs to be increases or decreased. In this way, managers can deploy their staff optimally in all departments, thereby eliminating the practice of wasting time and lessening dependency on outside resources.
Does It Allow Employees to Make Holiday Requests?
Your time tracking software makes life simpler for your employees too. Through this software, they can apply for leaves, half-days, vacation, and so on, over the company’s network (intranet). To track whether the application has been approved or not, they can log in through their own individual ID and password.
If the leave request is approved by the manager, the software deducts those many numbers of days from the employee’s total number of leaves, computes his new leave balance, and stores it for his perusal. It also alerts the manager about the employee’s absence so that no work is assigned to him until he returns.
Can It Record Overtime and Leave Time?
It makes sense to install a time tracking system that enables you to incorporate every employee’s leaving time as well as overtime. This should be done across each project and plant as it will allow you to trace their time of entry and exit.
Having such software in place will save you the hassle of calculating the number of working hours for each employee as well as correcting any inapt absences from work.
Conclusion
Knowing how your software works and how to take advantage of its features should help you turn around your business’s fortunes. Speedy and error-free processes will result in enhanced productivity. Whether it is tracking time, tasks, or inefficiencies in the system, this software can help you improvise on all fronts, thereby making your venture a profitable one.
