As the practice of documenting personal and working hours, time tracking allows individuals and businesses to understand their productivity patterns, optimize time management and improve control over other resources. This practice has a very long history, and like many other things that persisted through time, it evolved dramatically over the centuries.
Among the main things that changed in time tracking is its form. In the past, people had to utilize stone tablets, paper and other physical writing materials to keep a record of hours. Nowadays, we can run the process entirely in the digital space.
More than that, time tracking can be largely automated with the help of modern software apps. And in this piece, we will talk about the main advantages of automating time tracking with actiTIME — a smart timesheet tool that offers a plentiful of useful features to improve personal and team performance.
Let’s dig in!
1. Facilitated Data Collection and Analysis
When you track time manually in paper-based systems or simple electronic spreadsheets, you have to make an immense mental investment in the process. First of all, you need to take note of when you start and end different tasks to log your working hours accurately. And when managing a team, you need to check if your employees complete their timesheets correctly and in due course by looking through their records one by one. This alone can eat up a massive part of your workday. Not to mention that using paper timesheets and plain digital spreadsheets, you have to calculate and summarize all the numbers manually in order to accrue wages, generate invoices and analyze productivity trends.
Overall, manual time tracking with paper timesheets requires a lot of effort and is time-consuming, but with actiTIME, you can make the process much easier and more efficient.
If you still prefer to record your working hours manually, just use actiTIME’s online timesheet feature. When timesheets are filled, you’ll be able to review all the submitted data, either for yourself and your team members, by running a report or generating a chart in merely a few clicks.
they want to see in their timesheets
If you want to streamline time tracking even more, you can apply the actiTIME Timer — a Chrome extension that automatically keeps a record of every minute you spend on work. With this automatic timer, you just need to develop a habit of turning it on and off while switching between tasks — the necessity to memorize when you start and end a piece of work gets eliminated.
2. High Time Tracking Accuracy
It’s obvious that by utilizing the automatic timer, you can increase data accuracy considerably. But even with manual timesheet completion in actiTIME, you may decrease the risk of error during both the collection and analysis of data. For example, the tool has the timesheet approval feature that lets managers review and either accept or reject the submitted timesheets. This way, you have a chance to swiftly verify timesheet information and liquidate mistakes before moving the data further in the reporting cycle.
Accurate time tracking produces MANY ADVANTAGES:
- It fosters error-free billing and invoicing, which is key to business profitability.
- It ensures your team members are paid accurately as well. Thus, it reduces the risks of employee dissatisfaction and promotes compliance with labor regulations.
- Accurate time tracking data allows for a more in-depth understanding of personal and team productivity. This way, it lets you easily identify what holds you back or moves you forward and then undertake the right measures accordingly.
- It supports effective project management by supplying you with essential information on work planning, task estimation and performance control.
- All in all, it helps you make smarter resource management decisions, be more efficient in whatever you do and attain superior work outcomes.
3. No Risk of Micromanagement
actiTIME doesn’t aim to monitor each and every user activity. It neither takes random screenshots of employee workstations nor includes the geofencing or GPS tracking features. Compared to fully automated time trackers, it’s not invasive in nature. Hence, actiTIME is suitable for companies where managers aim to promote employee autonomy and want to establish a culture of trust.
If you’re thinking of closely monitoring everything that your workers do, remember that micromanagement is one of the top reasons why employees resign. It has such intense harmful effects as burnout, low team morale and reduced productivity that prevent individual thriving at the workplace and inhibit business growth.
By choosing a non-invasive time tracking system like actiTIME, you’ll avoid these risks and, instead, will cultivate respect for employee privacy. It will also help you to handle a possible reluctance to adopt a time tracking tool. Since actiTIME doesn’t threaten employees’ autonomy and doesn’t make them feel as if they are constantly watched, your team will likely be at ease with using the tool daily.
4. Multiple App Integrations for a Smooth Workflow
Nowadays, organizations and individuals regularly apply multiple apps for work management. This way, it’s possible to streamline a diversity of processes and facilitate performance in different business areas. However, continually switching between the apps is not so convenient. And paradoxically, it causes workflow interruptions that the software tools themselves try to rid you of in the first place.
App integration is an excellent way to avoid problems like these, and actiTIME can be integrated with a plethora of useful platforms you already utilize or are planning to adopt. Among them, there are:
- Jira,
- GitLab,
- QuickBooks,
- Google Calendar,
- Evernote,
- actiPLANS,
- Zoom,
- Trello,
- Outlook, etc.
All these integrations will enable you to process project data with less effort by freely transferring it across the platforms. actiTIME integrations will also increase your management flexibility while streamlining the workflows, minimizing time wasters and boosting the overall work efficiency.
5. Affordable Price
Another important benefit of automating time tracking with actiTIME is the tool’s affordability. Compared to many other time tracking products available in the market, actiTIME is reasonably priced and is characterized by an incredible cost effectiveness (especially for larger teams that can save a lot of money by purchasing product subscription for many users at once).
Besides, actiTIME offers a forever-free version for single users and smaller teams of up to three members. It means you can capture all the advantages of automatic time tracking with no financial investment at all!
To give it a go, sign up for a 30-day trial and start tracking hours with actiTIME today. Higher work productivity is merely a few clicks away!
