Oh, I forgot again! Putting your time into a timesheet is a pesky thing but if you want to get a paycheck it has to be done. It’s so nice to have a personal robot to remind you and Standard Time® offers one.
Quick Questions: Timesheet Management
Question: does your project timesheet allow user entry into the future or into the past?
Actually, the past is kind of a no-brainer. Aren’t all entries for the past? But this question is more applicable to the distant past, like the month before last. Who would ever want to do that?
Sometimes entries into the past are simple mistakes. The user doesn’t realize they entered into last month instead of this month. But sometimes users think they can affect client bills if they go back and “fix up” previous client date ranges. This is rarely the case, because those kinds of entries usually go unnoticed.
Consider either locking previous date ranges, or turning off the ability to enter time into the past or future.
Animated: Why Project Managers Like Standard Time
Project managers, check out this pretty young chick in the video below! haha We’ll use anything to sell software. 🙂
But seriously, there is a lot to like in ST. This is more than just an employee timesheet. Project managers get tools to set up, organize, and manage projects.
Just building a task list and assigning employee is a big deal. How do you know if employees are busy when you’ve assigned them to tasks? Working on other projects… working on other tasks… or for other teams. That’s why there’s a nice resource allocation bar chart. You see at a glance who is over-allocated or under-allocated.
How about predicting project revenue. Got a chart for that? Yep? And project triangles, and project analytics.
Animated: Why Engineers Don’t Hate Standard Time
Those apps that are put on your phone/computer are soooo annoying! But not Standard Time®, engineers love it!
Quick Questions: PTO Accrual Policies
HR offices manage PTO and vacation tracking. And that is huge! Think about it… for every employee, there are banks for hours for every kind of time off they can take. Vacation, sick, person, training, bereavement, maternity. Gosh, the list goes on and on.
And for each kind of time off (for each employee) you have to manage the rules that govern the hours they earn, and if those hours are different for year 1 and year 5, and if those hours are reset to zero each year, or if employees can carry over hours into the new year, and if they can overdraft on a certain type of time off. Again… the list of choices goes on and on.
So why not automate it? (watch the video below to see how)
There are tools that automate the entire PTO vacation tracking thing. You set the policies that govern each kind of time off for each employee. And you set the hours available to each employee for each reason.
Then let the whole thing run by itself. Sweetness and love. 🙂
Quick Questions: Project Triangles
A project has three demands, no four; time, cost, scope and quality. The Standard Time® triangle can help you keep all those demands on track.
Quick Questions: Timesheet on a Tablet
A $200 Walmart tablet is all you need to track projects. This video demonstrates. Just pop off the keyboard and start entering project hours.
scroll down for the video
The video shows both a Windows app and a cloud time tracking app in use. Both look and feel fantastic. Tap and scroll with your finger, and enter time and expenses with a pop-up virtual keyboard.
The most common use for a system like this is freelancers, consultants, field workers, and support techs. But sales and other road warriors can also benefit. Imagine tracking your clients and time on the same tablet. You could record customer visits plus the time you spent with them. Or the time you spend on the road. Or the mileage and vehicles. Or all of the above.
You’ll see a list of all your clients and client-projects. For each project, you can have a complete list of tasks to track time to. Tap a button to start a timer. Tap again to stop. The complete time is recorded in your weekly timesheet. You’ll see daily totals, weekly totals, and a graphical block view of every time entry. Invoice clients and run reports, right on the tablet.
That’s a lot of awesomeness for $200. 🙂
Animated: Why Consultants use Standard Time
Consultants can use Standard Time® for their business. It is a great tool for client invoicing, task lists, project management, graphical timesheets. Use Android or iOS for the road and many other features. Check it out!
Consulting is a precise business. Customers must be happy, or they won’t come back for more. Rates must be reasonable and appropriate. And projects must be managed so status is always available for customers.
That is why consultants love Standard Time.
It does all these things without complaint.
Whiteboard: Customer Login and App
Is the client asking again? What’s the project status? What tasks are you working on? Is that big task complete? How about the other one? Do you think you can finish by July? No? How about August. September?
Every day, since January!
Why not let the client check project status without asking. The following video shows how.
There are two ways: 1. Let the client log into your project portal. They will see every project you’re doing for them, and the current status. They will see every time log and expense logged to a selected project. And 2. Let the client download ProjectBot from the Google Play Store. They can see all the same status down on their phones.
Consulting Software
If you’re a freelancer or consultant, you’re in the right place. The video below is for you. It demo’s some great software for time tracking and project management that we all use in the consulting biz.
Scroll down to view it.
Consulting can be a fun business, especially if you’re solving difficult problems and producing something of lasting value. Consulting is good honest work, and you should be proud to one.
But what software are you using? Because that can change the whole universe for you.
Consulting requires software the following disciplines. So, what are you using? Is it working?
- Time tracking
- PTO tracking
- Client invoicing
- Project management
- Client management
- Relationship management
- Employee management
See how the software below can do those things for you, and make consulting fun again. 🙂