For project oriented companies, using time tracking software to run your business is a given and is something you hear talked about a lot. Not so well known, but just as important, is having the time tracking software integrate with billing and financial software. The integration of time tracking software to billing and financial software reduces errors, increases organizational efficiencies, and gives greater visibility into the operations of the whole business.

Automating the capture of time with time tracking software can ease the burden of tracking time on team members as well as help ensure you are capturing all your time. The easier it is for employees to track their time, the more likely they are to accurately record their time. With more accurate time tracking comes more accurate customer billing and greater accuracy as to what is actually happening on projects. However, if your time tracking software stops there, you are missing an opportunity to maximize your business. Without an integration of time tracking software to billing and financials, you have an incomplete solution since you need to invoice and collect for the time you worked, understand outstanding balances by project, and perhaps charge purchases to projects. Integration to billing and financial software addresses each of these.

Standalone time tracking software requires you to manually enter time into an invoice for billing. In these cases, the scenario typically seen is employees enter their time into automated time tracking software to reflect the time that needs to be billed to a customer. Then, someone such as an accounting clerk accumulates the time and manually enters the information into an accounting package or a Word or Excel document. Depending on the time tracking software, the accumulation of time by project may be very time consuming and include manual calculations. Any time there are manual calculations, the risk of errors increases. It is very easy to record a wrong number. These errors may go unnoticed until the customer actually goes to pay or worse, after the customer pays and they realize they have been charged too much. Not only do you need to refund the overage, you need to explain the error and are at risk of losing the customer. If your error is in the other direction, you didn’t charge enough, good luck requesting an additional payment, especially after the customer thought they had paid for all the work. The more manual calculations and input there are, the greater the opportunity for error. With errors comes rework and wasted time. There are checks and balances that are used in a manual situation, however, these also take time to perform. By having time tracking software that automatically flows to invoicing, you take away a large amount of potential errors.

Having your time tracking software integrated with your billing and financial software also increases your efficiency. As was just noted, manual entry takes time – time to gather and compile the information, time to input it, and time to check it. With integration, the information automatically flows from one module to the other, eliminating the manual tasks. The time you save can now be put to tasks that add value to the business versus just being overhead.

Finally, the integration of time tracking software to financials gives you the ability to see a bigger picture of your business. Time tracking software by itself can give you the reporting you need to understand projects. Once you link the project information to billing and financial information, you can see the whole business. The integration allows you to see things like how much you billed by customer, accounts receivable outstanding by project or customer, payment trends by customer or project, accounts payable by customer, and ultimately an income statement and balance sheet.

If you have time tracking software that is not integrated to billing and financial software, you probably are not running as efficiently as you could be. Integrating your software can reduce errors, increase efficiencies, and provide greater insight. Now is a good time to look into software that is integrated and take your business to the next level.

Author Bio: Joe Young is President of Beyond Software, publisher of time tracking software for small companies. Beyond Software brings project functionality, such as time tracking, to companies in an easy-to-use way that allows you to run your business more efficiently. For more information go to beyondsoftware.com.

Category: Business Management
Keywords: time tracking software