Best Practices for Tracking Employee Time for Professional Firms
Professional service firms know that it is critical track your employee’s time, but why? The correlation between tracking employee work hours and productivity undeniable. That which is monitored tends to improve. Additionally, if your business involves devoting time to a variety clients for different services, it can be hard to remember what you accomplish during a day’s work. Any professional service firm with a multitude of clients, needs to develop best practices for tracking employee time.
Enter Time Daily
It is important to enter the time daily as you are working for each client. This process informs 
the client of progress you are making as you are making it; this allows you to bill your clients for the appropriate spent working for them. When entering the time you are providing your clients with information on where their money is being spent. If a client were to ever question you about the amount on their bill you can show them the notes on specific services provided. If they are aware of what you were working as you were working on it, it provides more context on the use of your time.
The Importance of Accuracy
Accuracy is crucial, as it provides valuable data; it not only can help to drive your business’s growth, but it also ensures that we are not under or over billing a client. You are 60% more likely to make a mistake if you enter time at the end of the day or after moving on to work for another client. Additionally, you are more likely to underestimate (and therefore, underbill) the duration of the task for that client.
How You Can Use Timesheets (and Subsequent Notes)
While it is helpful for your clients, these timesheets and the notes are crucial data within your own company; it proves to be invaluable tool that provides data, information, and insight that helps teams to perform at higher levels and deliver projects on time. Through constant use, timesheets can provide key operational metrics such as benchmarking, budgeting, estimating, and compliance.
The “time is money” saying is true for all professional firms and holds subsequent weight when time tracking. Overall, it can help you to identify key areas for growth, optimize costs and resources, and improve overall team efficiency and productivity.
Follow Your Firm’s Style of Writing
If your firm has a specific way of phrasing your services, make sure it is included in the notes you write when billing time to your clients. Some standard practices for time tracking and note taking include:
- Keeping the tab open on main browser so you can switch between clients easily
- Be specific and timely with recording the task to retain as much information as possible
- Do not use abbreviations, because they can be confusing.
- Write a detailed note on what you’re doing, keeping in mind:
- There’s no downside to having too many details.
- It gives a better perspective for the client
- Start the task with an active verb
- -ing verbs are not strong, the note should not start with an “-ing” verb. Be specific if it is a work in progress. Example: “revise chart of accounts” vs “working on chart of accounts"
- Use semicolons between sentences
- End the note with a period
Recommended Verbiage:
Telephone conference, Office conference, Discuss, Create, Complete, Prepare, Revise, Enter, Reconcile, Analyze, Assist, Review, Respond, Research, Correct, Follow up, Attend, Advise.
Examples:
- Prepare Quickbooks report for overhead accounts and forward to partners.
- Create journal entry for February 2018 expenses; create journal entry for March 2018 expenses; create journal entry for Apr 2018 expenses.
- Enter checks for deposit, print off financials and dashboard to submit for review.
- Review reconciliation report to correct mismatched payments/deposits.
For more information, contact the Giersch Group today for a free consultation.
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