Timesheets take care of time tracking for millions of workers across the world. While the concept of modern versions of timesheets is ingrained in our minds as sophisticated software that keeps track of many variables, it wasn’t always like this. Timesheets have been around for thousands of years since the age of Hammurabi’s code. Different trades earned different wages per day and it was easy to keep track of daily labor.
As technology and progress made it possible to improve timekeeping practices, the hourly wage was now a possibility and it was implemented easily. The introduction of the mechanical clock in the late 1880s helped workers use time cards that helped them keep track of their hourly labor. Tasks were then simplified to hours workers took to finish them, which helped create an idea about the time it takes to do specific tasks.
Also Read: How Firms can be benefited from Time Tracking Software
Automation introduced by modern technology helped all industries evolve to using software like cloud-based timesheets. It was easy for employers and employees to keep a very accurate track of time at all times. The more automated timekeeping is, the more convenience it provides to the worker. Traditional timesheets on paper have proved to be old-fashioned compared to the new, complex and highly functional timesheet solutions. We’ll be presenting you with a few points that could help you understand how exactly timesheets can simplify hour-tracking tasks.
Productivity Measurement
Timesheets can help identify obstacles that could cause a significant increase in time wastage. They can enable an employer to focus on what exactly their employees are doing and how they’re managing time reserved for executing tasks. This can give an employer valuable insight that can help them make informed decisions, which would increase work productivity instead of falling into the same time-sucking pit every time. The more an employer is informed about the amount of work and effort being exerted, the more empathetic they will be. This will make employees feel like their work is significant as it’s constantly monitored.
Time Management
When you have a clear image of the time-tracking process, you can accurately estimate tasks. Using timesheets can get confusing if you don’t stick to a familiar format and generalize it across different fields. While Excel is one of the greatest ways to create a timesheet, creating one from scratch isn’t an easy process. Offering a library of hundreds of spreadsheets, ExcelTemplate.net advises the use of ready-made templates to bring the element of consistency to timesheets. Templates come in different forms and shapes, from daily timesheet templates to monthly or even yearly ones. Since time is money, a template is going to save you a lot of both, which would otherwise cause stagnation issues. Any time saved can be invested in a more business-oriented direction to increase the productivity of employees.
Project Expenses
Every hour spent by your employees executing tasks and activities comes with a cost, similar to the cost of wages and overhead. A project can have external costs like direct purchases of materials and supplies. While external expenses can be easily tracked, introducing internal costs like training and other activities can cause confusion. Internal projects where your employees could be performing administrative tasks require a valid timesheet system to be able to precisely know the direction of the money flow of such projects.
Identification of Unproductive Activities
Not all activities in business increase its value; some time is spent on non-productive activities like training, holidays, and other internal tasks. It’s impossible to completely get rid of non-productive time, but it’s possible to extrapolate timesheet data to help you find which activities are creating roadblocks. If a big portion of the time is spent on non-productive activities, a business should become aware that this could potentially make them come to an unnecessary halt. Introducing more productive activities into the mix will help a business decrease non-productive time and tackle issues directly. Some internal processes can cause big disruptions to the time management system of the business. So, it becomes necessary to use a timesheet to define whether there are solutions or not to such activities.
Potential Improvement
Using a timesheet to track the hours and effort of your employees can help you gain insights into how they’re executing their tasks. If the employer can clearly see the shortcomings of their employees, they can give them advice and guide them to improve. Each task can be evaluated using timesheets to see how different employees handle specific tasks, which will help the employer compare different outcomes to avoid obstacles. You can simplify the team effort using timesheets to see how skilled an employee is, and what kind of addition to the team would make it perform better in hourly tasks.
Equality
Advanced time-tracking software will help keep conflicts at bay between employees and their employers when it comes to billable hours. The highly accurate data provided by timesheets make it very hard to falsify billable hours. Hardworking employees won’t be in the same boat as idle or less-productive employees. The boost in morale will help all workers become more productive and efficient, which, in turn, will help your company’s overall productivity. Even the resources used can be easily predicted by employers thanks to timesheet forecasts and estimations.
More Tax Credits
Most companies in different industries like manufacturing and media earn tax credits, depending on the program. There are different tax credit schemes made for employees to incentivize business owners into employing them. A timesheet can easily help you accurately calculate the time spent by employees in tax credit programs down to the minute. This should help employers collect the most precise information, which can then be provided to the government. The administrative side of tax credit programs can sometimes be exhausting and filled with paperwork; timesheets could significantly slash the time spent on such tedious processes.
The creation of timesheets was inevitable as the number of workers has grown along with the evolution of civilization. You’d be hard-pressed nowadays to find a business that doesn’t use timesheets to accurately monitor employees’ productive activities. The use of timesheet templates is considered a new way to effectively circumvent the complexities of creating a good timesheet.
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