Whether the owner of a company overseeing business operations, a manager in charge of a small group of employees, or a freelancer just tracking time for himself, tracking time online has so many advantages.

With an online time tracking service, you aren’t just getting a place to record your time (you could do that with paper or spreadsheets), but a service that can do so much more. Web-based time tracking also gives you:

• Reliability (our uptime is over 99.9%)
• Accurate time reporting (a pre-programmed app that calculates time automatically is better than a calculator!)
• Accurate overtime calculations (most people don’t even know the Federal, much less, state overtime laws)
• Friendly support
• Backed up data and easy storage access for your needs
• Integration
• Accountability (proof of time on the clock and presence in the workplace)
• Access (records are available all day/night, and from anywhere)

Online Time Tracking Benefits

Benefits to The Owner

If you’re the owner of a company, saving money is important to you and the future of your business. You want to ensure you are paying bills and invoicing accurately, and that your employees are accurately reporting their hours. Tracking time for payroll saves thousands in time padding, in calculation errors, and in manager’s time collecting and adding up timecards. Implementing an online time tracking system increases productivity, improves accountability, and eliminates errors.

Benefits to The Project Manager

Clients will often demand to know the breakdown of time spent on projects, making accurate reporting essential for billing. But keeping track of the varying pay rates and bill rates can get tricky, especially if you are working on many projects simultaneously. You need a system that handles multiple pay rates for employees who earn different rates for the work they do on the same project (seniority, experience). And you also need a system that can assign different bill rates for projects assigned to different customers.

Benefits to The Freelancer

As a freelancer, you set your own hours and may switch from project to project at any time. Keeping track of the time spent working on these projects is important. Although sending an email here and there might seem small, these minutes add up! Minutes eventually turn to hours, and you’ll want to make sure you’re getting paid properly. If you’re guessing how much time you spent here or there, you’re bound to lose due pay.

You probably know what you think your time is worth in terms of hours, but you might not know how this translates to your projects. The best way to get a clear idea of what a project is worth is to keep track of the hours you and your employees spend working on it. For example, if you think your time is worth $25/hr, then charging a client $500 for a project that takes 3 days, or 24 work hours is going to end up shortchanging you $100. $500 is a nice round number but it isn’t the best price for this job.

Knowing exactly how many hours you work is like insurance for getting the most value out of your time.

The good news is, Timesheets.com is free for freelancers (as long as you are tracking time only for yourself).

Benefits to Your Clients

Many clients require a breakdown of the hours reported. However, even if they don’t require a detailed report, providing these records or at least keeping them on hand could prove beneficial. Accurate time reporting can prevent disputes, expedite payments, and foster trust between client and service provider.

Important for the Business, the Client, and the Individual:

• Eliminate guesstimating – Punching in and out on a daily or weekly basis keeps employees from having to guess the number of hours they worked. A web designer, for example, can guesstimate that it took 7 hours to design a website, but it may have only taken him 5 or 6 hours. By requiring that employees clock in when they are working, they will add up (and bill) real working hours.
• Eliminate estimating hours based on the desired paycheck – When employees guess their hours, they may report a number of hours based on what they want their paycheck to look like, not the amount of time they actually put into the project.
• Provide work-time visibility – Recording work notes with every clock punch provides the employer with the actual breakdown of duties during that shift or segment of working time.
• Form better habits – Being organized is good for the employee. Most people don’t want to lie and don’t want to rip people off, but they may not have the tools to bill accurately.
• Save time and prevent inaccuracies – Tracking time on paper or on spreadsheets leaves a lot of room for error and is a lot more time consuming than it is worth. A system designed for this purpose makes it easy to assign time to projects and calculate bill and pay rates.

Timesheets.com is an online time and expense tracking service for employees, contractors, and freelancers. It’s affordable, intuitive, and accurate. Get started for free today to see how it works for you!