5 Benefits of Using Modern Timesheet Software at The Workplace

Does your organization still rely on Excel sheets and other outdated tools for employee time tracking?

If yes, do you still feel like there is operational inefficiency and low productivity, even though employees have logged full hours? Then, it is necessary to consider using modern timesheet software instead of excel and paper timesheet.

Employee time tracking is critical in every organization because it facilitates accurate forecasting, performance tracking, and invoicing. Businesses use modern timesheet software to have a complete overview of their employees’ working hours and track their billability.

Capturing employees’ time helps organizations maintain optimal work distribution and enhance operational efficiency. In addition, it streamlines the payroll and invoicing process and fosters organizational time compliance.

This blog post discusses the benefits of using modern timesheet software for better resource management in the workplace.

Let’s begin.

1. Traditional vs. Modern Timesheets

Historically, employees’ working hours were recorded on paper, hence the name timesheet. However, as the business environment has changed drastically over the decades, paper timesheets have evolved into encompassing web-based time tracking software that provides various functionalities.

There are three major types of timesheets, and here is how they differ from one another:

• Paper timesheets

Paper timesheets were the industry standard for employee time tracking. Although they were easy to use, they were riddled with limitations. Time tracking on paper sheets is a manual and time-consuming process. Moreover, falsifying or changing the data stored in these timesheets is extremely easy. Therefore, they quickly became outdated and were replaced by more advanced tools.

• Excel Sheets

Many businesses transitioned from paper timesheets to Excel sheets to track their employees’ time. While it was an affordable and accessible tool for smaller companies, it did not provide a comprehensive solution for enterprise-level organizations. In addition, since the data had to be entered manually, Excel sheets were time-consuming and susceptible to human error.

• Timesheet Software

Timesheet software is a sophisticated tool that automates time tracking, reporting, and billing processes. These tools have time tracking solutions that precisely record the hours an employee has spent on a specific task or activity. Moreover, it can convert the logged hours into reports that can be utilized to calculate employee productivity and utilization.

Now that we understand the difference between paper timesheets, Excel sheets, and timesheet software, let’s explore the benefits of using a modern timesheet solution.

2. Benefits of Using A Modern Timesheet Solution

Modern timesheet software offers multi-faceted benefits like tracking employees’ productivity, calculating profitability, and making accurate projections.

Below are the five benefits of using timesheet software:

2.1 Captures Log in/ Log Out Time With Real-Time Insights

Modern timesheets have real-time tracking capabilities that can accurately record employees’ log-in/log-out times and overall working hours across the organization. Moreover, it enables managers to examine how much time the staff devotes to each project and task they are assigned.

Timesheets also provide accurate insights into the individual performance of the employees. Additionally, it can be integrated with other tools to create various reports, such as resource utilization, forecast vs. actual reports, etc. These reports enable managers to identify bottlenecks that hamper workflow and estimate future projects.

2.2 Automates The Payroll and Invoicing Process

Timesheets not only track project hours but also simplifies the process of determining billable hours. The software maintains a daily record of every employee’s total billable hours, enabling HR to remunerate salaries and wages accurately. Therefore, it helps in automating the payroll process.

In addition, the tool streamlines the invoicing process by providing data on employee attendance, accruals, leaves, overtime worked, and work performance. Moreover, it also minimizes the probability of errors and biases in payroll and invoicing, thereby creating more transparency.

2.3 Reduces Administrative Overhead Costs and Manual Errors

Traditional timesheets used to take a lot of time from employees to complete admin activities like payroll regulation, generating invoices, approving timesheets, etc. However modern timesheet software streamlines the time tracking process by automating the time reporting, approval, and reconciliation processes.

In addition, the tool precisely documents the employees’ work time, scheduled and unscheduled leaves, and tasks and projects, thus eliminating manual errors and preventing time theft. Therefore, it allows organizations to relieve employees from administrative tasks and mobilize them to be strategic or billable tasks. This helps improve the employees’ productive utilization and contributes to overall profitability.

2.4 Helps in Reconciling Forecast vs. Actual Data

Managers can use forecast vs. actual data to understand the project’s progress. It helps them analyze the variance between predicted and actual values and take corrective measures ahead of time to enhance the project lifecycle and avoid cost and schedule overruns.

Similarly, managers can use the forecast vs. actual data to evaluate individual performance. For example, they can determine if employees are taking longer on their project tasks and understand why. Additionally, these reports can help managers identify employee over/underutilization. Therefore, employers can implement corrective measures to mitigate bottlenecks and address under/over utilization.

2.5 Ensures Organizational Time Compliance

Timesheet software makes it easier to ensure organizational time compliance for every department. The software is fed with a uniform time policy and regulations, and managers can easily verify if employees are complying with the same.

A timesheet tool enables organizations to track employees’ entry and exit times, breaks, working hours, and leaves. This helps ensure fair payroll processing and eliminates bias. Furthermore, timesheets can help managers identify where they are wasting valuable billable hours. Accordingly, they can take appropriate measures to optimize the operational processes.

Now that we have learned the benefits of modern timesheets let’s look at how advanced resource management software can be used for employee time tracking.

3. How to Leverage A Timesheet Within Resource Management Software?

Accurately tracking and measuring employee time is necessary for businesses to create an efficient workflow. Savior’s robust resource management software has an in-built timesheet feature that allows organizations to analyze the time spent by their employees on specific tasks and activities.

The timesheet tool can be integrated with other invoicing and payroll systems to enhance its functionality. In addition, the information from the timesheet can be reconciled to develop in-depth insights into employees’ productivity and overall performance.

The software generates various reports such as resource utilization, forecast vs. actual, and utilization heatmaps that provide helpful insights into employee capacity, availability, and billable utilization. Therefore, it is an effective tool for tracking project progress and resource productivity.

4. Conclusion

Modern timesheet software offers numerous benefits to businesses that go beyond the capabilities of traditional timesheets. It helps organizations tackle the challenging task of precisely tracking employees‘ working hours which is critical to many business functions. With helpful insights, timesheets can enable organizations to improve work efficiency, automate billing and payroll, cut administrative costs, and ensure enterprise-wide time compliance.