At some extent when companies are so technology-driven, guide timesheet strategies sound like a factor of the previous. It brings to thoughts your first job at a grocery retailer 20 years in the past whenever you needed to punch out and in on certainly one of these unhealthy boys.
However imagine it or not, 38% of U.S. staff nonetheless use paper timesheets and punch playing cards. The consequence? Losses in productiveness, revenue, and your treasured time.
In the present day we’re overlaying a number of the downsides related to guide timesheet strategies. Whether or not you’re a one-person operation or a enterprise with dozens of staff, it’s time to think about your different choices.
The 411 on guide timesheet strategies
Guide timesheets require staff to trace the time they labored by hand. Conventional strategies embrace paper-based types similar to bodily punchcards or weekly timesheets. Some companies have transitioned to a digital strategy, utilizing Excel or Google Sheets to trace hours. Nevertheless, this nonetheless requires staff to enter this system and manually document their work all through the day.
Greater than two-thirds of US staff submit a timesheet on a every day or weekly foundation, however 22% submit one twice a month. That’s plenty of work to account for in a single fell swoop.
It’s 2025—why accomplish that many people nonetheless use guide timesheets?
Whereas we haven’t fairly reached a Jetsons-level reliance on expertise, you must admit that the world we stay in is a digital one. Our love for (or dependence on?) tech is clear in the necessity to always have the newest devices or in the way in which so many roles require using expertise.
So, with tech utilization solely turning into extra prevalent, why do greater than a 3rd of US companies nonetheless use guide time sheet strategies?
I’d argue it’s for a number of causes—
First, the price of these guide time monitoring strategies is subsequent to nothing. Paper and pencil timesheets run you a couple of cents. Google Sheets—particularly for companies who’re utilizing the Google Suite merchandise—is principally free. These low costs might hold companies from even contemplating another. Loads of time monitoring software program choices require a month-to-month subscription that corporations are unwilling to pay, particularly in the event that they’re supplying a complete staff with the software program.
It’s additionally an indisputable fact that some enterprise homeowners and executives merely don’t wish to attempt one thing new. The “If it ain’t broke, don’t repair it” mentality retains them on a well-recognized path, unwilling to swap out guide timesheets for a digital strategy.
Lastly, some enterprise homeowners merely might not see (or have) a necessity for something apart from guide time monitoring. This might simply be the case in industries the place staff hardly ever use expertise to finish their jobs. Individuals with a commerce—like hairstylists, plumbers, or woodworkers—won’t want a digital software to trace their work once they spend all day working with their fingers.
Not everybody wants to maneuver away from the standard guide timesheet strategies. Nevertheless, for companies that would profit from using a digital system, there are some unintended penalties from sustaining the established order.
The implications of guide timesheets on freelancers & entrepreneurs
When you’re working solo as a freelancer or entrepreneur, monitoring your time can appear just a little pointless. Certain, that you must log the time you’re employed in your hourly contracts, however what’s the purpose exterior of that? You began your personal enterprise to be your personal boss. You shouldn’t must reply to the person, even when that man is your self!
As a small enterprise proprietor, you might also be working with a small finances. Guide timesheet strategies are low-cost (learn– FREE) and a horny resolution whenever you’re juggling different software program for your enterprise.
The hesitation in utilizing a digital time monitoring software isn’t a brand new idea– we talked about it simply two weeks in the past. You will have determined to discover a center floor by manually recording your work all through the day. That’s completely a great place to start out—however it’s not essentially a great long-term resolution.
Right here’s why—
Inefficiency
Proudly owning a enterprise means juggling two varieties of labor: work in your shoppers and work in your personal enterprise. Each are precious, however just one straight generates revenue.
Guide time monitoring takes up time you possibly can be utilizing to ship proposals, full consumer work, or enhance your promoting efforts. Once you streamline tedious administrative work like logging your hours, you unencumber billable hours that may add to your backside line.
And talking of billable hours…
Lacking out on billable hours
Guide time-tracking strategies usually fail to seize all client-related work. It’s possible you’ll not at all times account for the ten minutes you spent replying to a Slack message earlier than mattress or the half-hour you spent researching your consumer’s rivals. This prices you the cash you rightfully earned however failed to say.
Inaccurate monitoring additionally opens the door for scope creep. When you’re contracted for 10 hours of labor every week, you wish to restrict your self to these 10 hours. Once you fail to precisely document all the time you spend on a consumer’s mission, you could not even discover as your workload grows exterior of your contractual settlement till it snowballs into one thing that’s impacting the remainder of your work and feels uncomfortable to handle.
Impacts in your skilled picture and consumer relationships
Imposter syndrome may be very actual, and it could deprive you of feeling like an expert despite the fact that you might be one.
I’m not saying that you simply’re not an actual enterprise proprietor for those who don’t make the most of 1,000,000 sorts of expertise, however utilizing a couple of key items of software program could make you are feeling extra like an expert and provide you with confidence in navigating your consumer relationships.
Time monitoring software program that integrates together with your invoicing system makes it simpler to ship skilled invoices. When you expertise any hourly billing disputes, you’d most likely choose to reference your time monitoring software program knowledge as an alternative of sending an image of a paper the place you wrote down your hours for the week.
Missed alternatives for data-driven choices
Guide time monitoring—if it’s correct—provides you a broad overview of the way you spend your time. You may see that at 9:00 you labored on Undertaking A and at 10:30 you switched to Undertaking B. You’ve got a basic thought of what number of hours you labored that week and the way a lot time you spent on numerous duties.
However time monitoring software program is wealthy with knowledge about your work habits.
Take this snapshot of my work patterns for the month of December—
My working hours sometimes span 9 am-3 pm. From this report, I can inform that my productiveness peaks about halfway by the day. This helps me know when to schedule my writing work and when to schedule administrative and communication-related duties as bookends to my day when my focus isn’t as robust.
A Google sheet itemizing what I did that day isn’t going to provide me the identical sorts of insights.
The implications of guide timesheets on a enterprise
I do know that the majority of you might be freelancers and entrepreneurs—small enterprise homeowners trying to optimize their processes and improve their income.
However many giant firms are nonetheless caught within the early 2000s, asking staff to manually account for his or her hours whereas spearheading million-dollar tasks. I used to show in one of many largest college districts in my state, with a working annual finances close to $30 million, and categorised employees submitted their timesheets on a chunk of paper that was popped into their worker mailbox every week.
In a current weblog publish, our CEO, Brian Ficoa, shared that RescueTime ceaselessly fields requests from corporations who’re in search of a approach to monitor their staff’ work. I wish to communicate to these readers as properly, outlining the pitfalls of guide time monitoring and suggesting a center floor to assist observe time labored with out performing like Huge Brother.
Guide timesheet strategies are financially inefficient over time
On the floor, guide timesheets sound reasonably priced. They don’t require corporations to put money into time monitoring software program or the related prices—further licenses, coaching, and so on.
Nevertheless, the time inefficiency of guide time monitoring additionally has a value, when it comes to each cash and productiveness. The time that staff spend monitoring and coming into their time every week is taken away from hours they might be finishing precise firm work. However the price doesn’t cease there. Managers or payroll staff then must take all of that data and switch it into the payroll software program. As an alternative of mentoring staff or overseeing tasks, managers are spending their time ensuring individuals are paid appropriately.
We’re liable to human error
Guide timesheets are extra liable to being improper than being proper. Analysis exhibits that US employers must appropriate errors on 80% of timesheets submitted by staff. Most frequently it’s as a result of staff can’t keep in mind their precise hours or they neglect to clock in or out.
Compliance points
Staff wish to be paid for each minute they work—and rightfully so!
Lawsuits associated to the Honest Labor Requirements Act have risen by 417% since 1997. Whereas nearly all of these lawsuits relate to eating places, inns, healthcare suppliers, and development corporations, they are often filed in opposition to any firm not following the laws outlined by the FLSA.
For instance, the FLSA requires that timesheets must be saved for two years. Nevertheless, solely 16% of enterprise homeowners are conscious of this regulation, and solely 36% know that they should hold payroll data for no less than 3 years. There are plenty of companies on the market that haven’t maintained the suitable data as a result of who desires to carry onto submitting cupboards filled with timesheets?
Worker dissatisfaction
A pal of mine was not too long ago coming into her time for the week on the digital platform that her firm makes use of for timekeeping. As she vented concerning the complexities of this system, she snarkily famous, “However they provide a category on learn how to enter your time if I wish to attend that!”
Few staff benefit from the guide technique of coming into their time. It takes away from time they might be spending on extra significant work. Ensuring each second is precisely accounted for also can lead to stress and anxiousness.
It’s time to shift to automated time monitoring options
For small companies, groups working remotely, and freelancers, RescueTime created a brand new product to automate time monitoring and supply perception into the place their time went every day.
RescueTime Timesheets simplifies timesheet era, reduces guide entry time, and enhances staff productiveness by automating monitoring and activity assignments. Our automated timesheets remove the fear you’ve got about logging your hours appropriately or lacking out on billable hours you by no means recorded. It contains easy monitoring instruments so that you’re at all times updated together with your mission standing—and due to this fact on observe to fulfill your deadlines.
Timesheets additionally integrates with GitHub, Asana, and Trello that will help you observe the work you full for every of your shoppers. Calendar integrations with Google and Outlook help you see conferences in your every day timeline.
Once you attempt RescueTime, you get Timesheets free of charge. What are you ready for?