7 Timesheet Best Practices Your Small Business Should Implement

Starting a business is a dream come true for most, a chance to truly be your own boss and run things how you want.

19:51 24 October 2019

While it is a rewarding and fulfilling journey, it’s also a very challenging one with plenty of ups and downs. Between finding the required financing and keeping your company on track, you will have many sleepless nights.

One thing that a lot of small business owners have trouble with, though, is time tracking, and keeping up with what their employees are doing all the time. It’s as tricky as it is important because this is how you ensure that your company is going in the right direction. Timesheets are most often your best option, but you need certain practices to help you make the most out of those. 

1. Know what you want to track

Sounds fairly simple, doesn’t it? Well, in reality, it’s far from that. There are plenty of time categories that you will be faced with, and a lot of business owners find they’re stuck when it’s time to create the timesheets. This is why you really need to carefully consider what exactly it is you want to track because if you don’t, things will definitely be messy. Keeping up with attendance, for example, is a given, but what else do you want to know?

The thing about timesheets is the fact that they can really help you with projects, but you have to be specific about it. Do you want to know every hour your people spent working on this project? Most likely yes, but do you need extra activities like emails and meetings? You have to figure out just how detailed you need the timesheets to be because that is how you can create an accurate one that would help your business. 

2. You are equal to your employees

It can be extremely frustrating when you come to the office at 11, while instructing your employees to come at 9. One of the best timesheet practices out there is treating your employees as you would yourself because that is how you ensure their compliance, and more importantly, their respect. Time tracking is important for everyone working in the company, management included, especially considering the fact that it is still a small one. So, always make sure you and the rest of the management comply with timesheets as much as anyone else. 

3. Keep it simple

A big mistake a lot of companies fall into is complicating time tracking, which doesn’t end well for anyone, really. The last thing you need is for people to waste the first twenty minutes of their day logging their data into the very complicated timesheet you created. It’s a waste of effort and time, not to mention testing people’s patience. As you can see on ExcelTemplate.net, there are ready and available timesheet templates online. They can help you create a simple and effective form for your employees to follow. 

So, before you unleash your creativity on your people, adding a lot of unnecessary steps and overcomplicating the timesheet, make sure you examine your options. Remember that a simple time-tracking process is an accurate one because people will do it with ease and without any frustration.

4. Instruct your people

Running a small business is hectic, and it can be a bit overwhelming at times. But you can’t let that get in the way of proper communication between you and your employees, especially when it comes to something as important as time tracking, which will reflect on your estimates for future projects, payrolls, billable hours, and other details. 

So, you need to make sure that you conduct proper trainings on the importance of timesheets, and how employees can properly fill them out to avoid errors. Most of the time, any mistakes happening with time tracking––and in turn payroll, which is a nightmare––are a result of employee errors, and that happens when they don’t know how to properly use timesheets. To avoid all that, conduct regular trainings for current and new employees on the necessary procedures and steps of time tracking. 

5. Be careful with what you track

As mentioned earlier, it’s important that you know what you need to include in the timesheets, but you need to be careful with how you go about that. There’s no need to track every little detail, and every minute your people spend on the job. It will only serve to complicate things and put them off. In other words, people don’t really need to input their bathroom breaks into a timesheet! 

On the other hand, you should also keep track of things other than billable activities, even if you don’t plan on adding them to the invoice. Time spent on research, brainstorming, and the likes might not be billable, but it will give you insight into the accuracy of your hourly rates and the real-time work your people do.

6. Automation is key

In the past, manual timesheets were the real deal. People would log their time in/out on paper, as well as keep track of progress on projects the same way. Needless to say, that wasn’t very practical for many reasons, and the probability of error was too high. This is why you need to automate as much as possible and make sure your timesheets are online or have some form of automation one way or another. That way, there will be fewer errors, no time wasted, and more accurate details. 

7. Delegate the entire process 

While a lot of small businesses don’t exactly have HR departments, you still need to delegate the entire process of time tracking and timesheets to someone. It doesn’t have to be their only job, but you need someone who’s mainly responsible for ensuring that your employees fill in their timesheets regularly and accurately. That way, you won’t have to keep up with every small detail, and you’ll have extra time for more pressing tasks. 

Timesheets aren’t intended to make employee lives harder, but to ensure the business runs smoothly. Make sure your people understand that, and explain to them the importance of timesheets. They’ll be more diligent about it when they understand their importance, and your business will reap all the benefits.