Here's some information about the types of time recording software on offer. The solutions described here can be used to track time on projects for small or large businesses.
Time tracking is an important business process in a lot of business sectors, particularly those that charge by the hour such as in law or medicine. The legal profession is an important user of time recording software since clients are billed for their lawyers' time according to how long the work took to undertake. Accountancy is another key industry where clients are billed on an hourly basis. Although time tracking can be done manually, this is prone to errors such as forgetting to start and stop a clock. It's also impractical when several employees are working for the same client. It can get even more complicated when employees are billed at different rates.
The best time keeping software tool is a product that is easy to use and unobtrusive to the end users.
Time Tracking Software
Time tracking software is generally available as a desktop package or as a web based Software as a Service (SaaS) basis. SaaS time recording solutions are increasingly popular because they can be used by employees working in the office or at home, as well as on the road through mobile Internet devices or at a client site thanks to wireless Internet connectivity. SaaS solutions are also popular with finance managers because they are normally paid for on a monthly or annual basis so they can be budgeted for as a fixed cost.
For small to medium size businesses that need to track the time spent on projects solutions such as TimeSheet Professional from Deepak Sareen Associates might be a suitable solution. TimeSheet Professional offers comprehensive time recording facilities for medium to large businesses. The software offers sophisticated time recording so that high quality, accurate documentation can be produced detailing how much a specific project cost in terms of manpower.
From the same supplier as TimeSheet Professional, Carpe Diem is another time tracking option. It is specifically designed to track the time spent with a company's projects, clients and jobs. It is particularly well suited to professional services type industries where an employee can potentially work on several projects for different clients in a single day. Carpe Diem can be integrated with accountancy and billing packages.
Finally their TimeSlips billing software is able to integrate time tracking with custom billing of clients for the time used on their projects. TimeSlips is particularly popular in sectors such as accountancy, lawyers, public relations (PR) and consultancies.
For larger businesses with more complex time tracking requirements another solution is to invest in a project management/resource management application. Solutions such as AMS Realtime offer the usual time tracking features as well as integration with Microsoft Project for sophisticated project management capabilities.