Time tracking is a common curse word in the office. Once mentioned it often creates panic and confusion not only between the employees but between the managers as well. However, despite its bad reputation, the concept has proven time and time again to bring great benefits beneath those of simply keeping time. This week we decided to share a story about one of our clients that benefitted greatly from simply starting to track time.
The client is a Lithuanian accounting firm that offers business consultancy and other services on the side. The company has been growing and expanding for years, all the while, little attention has been paid to not only growing the business but also to implementing the right processes. It all changed a little over a year ago, when the management decided to fix the messy processes in order to bring efficiency and clarity into the day to day operations. That is when they found us.
The initial request was simple – a tool to manage the work being carried out by the employees and the possibility to track time of task completion. They found Eylean Board to be not only very efficient, but also capable to offer the least painful time tracking experience in the market. Together we designed a custom task board, added missing specific reports and started tracking. Eylean Board has helped the company officials to sort out the missing structure and define clear and simple processes to follow.
The second request was time tracking. It provided the company with invaluable reports stating how much time resources were used for which client. Having this information, the company was able to sort out the pricing policy and establish clear pricing points for all the current and future clients. This meant saying goodbye to the days when clients were under or overpriced and felt that they were being treated unfairly.
However, that is not all. Besides getting their requirements fulfilled, the company has found some additional benefits they have not anticipated when starting the process. They were now able to not only track, but also to analyze their own work. Time tracking reports gave great insight into the company and they were sure to use it.
- First, they started noticing, that the same tasks took a different amount of time for different people. The company managers were smart to realize that and started dividing work up based on their employees strengths, ensuring that the work is done in the most efficient way.
- Second, they were now able to check the project time estimates, compare it with the reality and see the whole history of tracked time. This meant that they no longer guessed why a project ran short or exceeded the limit, instead they could heck the causes and make corresponding decisions on employee allocation and pricing.
Overall, by adapting Eylean Board and starting to track time, the company was able to fix the pricing policy, create the inside processes and better understand the way they are working. By not being opposed to using time tracking and realizing the possibilities of the gathered data, they created a valuable insightful tool to be used to better their business.
