1. Time Track Your Way To Improve Your Projects
Everyone in business today is constantly seeking ways to improve. No one
can afford to remain stagnant or complacent, unless they want to be
overtaken by their competitors in an ever-growing market. Here are some
surefire ways to improve your business and get ahead of your competitors
with very little effort or investment.
Use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to gauge success.
KPIs are used to measure the performance of an organization, frequently
through measuring activities such as performance improvement derived from
training, labor utilization rates, or customer satisfaction. KPIs are often tied to
strategy through techniques such as the Balanced Scorecard, but they don’t
have to be as complicated as that to be useful and effective.
As with most things, simplicity increases efficacy.
KPIs can differ depending on strategy. They help an organization to measure
progress towards their organizational goals, such as increased penetration of
existing customers or markets, on time delivery or reduced scope creep.
A KPI is a key part of a specific measurable achievable relevant time-based
goal (a SMART goal) which is made up of a direction, KPI, target and time
frame, e.g. "Increase Average Revenue per Sale to $10,000 by December." In
this case, 'Average Revenue per Sale’ is the KPI. The above mentioned goal
wouldn’t be SMART if it wasn’t an achievable goal. Nor would it be SMART if
the word ‘December’ was left out or if it was not relevant, e.g. if this was a
portion of the organization that had nothing to do with sales or marketing,
like HR.
Track time in order to manage project risk.
Time data can make a fundamental difference to your company if collected
and used correctly. One of the ways in whichtime tracking can lead to
success is by using it to plan for projects and then follow their progress along
the way. Knowing a project is behind schedule or over budget towards the
end of the project’s life span does no one any good. Knowing this information

2. sooner, however, will help you act accordingly and stop wasting time and
money.
How can you do this? It is quite simple. The early phases of a project are
usually referred to as ‘requirements,’ ‘design,’ or ‘specification.’ Let’s say that
after carefully tracking time on a batch of similar projects you find that the
first two phases take approximately 10% of the project time. You can then
use that data to predict the length of future projects. I’ve found this project
estimation technique, an example, to be extremely accurate, regardless of
whether your company’s magic number is 3% or 30%.
Automate your time tracking system in order to reduce errors in data
collection.
Not only should you track time within your company, but you should find the
appropriate time accounting platform to automate it for you. According to a
major research advisory firm, fully automating the timesheet process reduces
errors and staff time by 75 percent or more. Automation technologies and
practices reduce improper time tracking activities and associated costs by
validating project/cost code lists and monitoring approval processes
electronically. Additional savings are realized by eliminating paper costs, and
policy and regulatory compliance is improved.
Ensure that your company complies with SOX, DCAA and/or other relevant
standards.
When payroll executives implement time and attendance systems to automate
payroll, they often miss the chance to facilitate greater profitability
throughout the entire company. These payroll executives are, of course,
payroll experts. They are usually not, however, experts at project accounting
or billing automation.
However, the time data, if collected appropriately, can also be used to
automate project management, project accounting, project tracking and
project estimation improvement, as well as for internal, external and reverse
billing automation -- and any of these can become SOX concerns. Most payroll
and HR executives know little about these subjects, but increasingly, they are
being asked to rise to new challenges with federal regulation requirements
being just one of them.

3. Effectively manage PTO.
Controlling and understanding PTO expense allows you to recruit better
talent. You can promise people more vacation than your competitors if you
know that it's controllable. This tips the balance in your favor, allowing you to
build a better team. It’s another way to win.
The first issue businesses need to address when creating their PTO plan is
what to do about employees who quit or are terminated. Many states require
that the balance of vacation pay be paid when an employee leaves the firm
unless the company has a policy that states otherwise. If you choose to
disallow vacation time to resigning employees and you run a company of high
turnover—a fact of life in certain industries, like retail or food service—this
allows you to reallocate the PTO that those who leave might have used in
favor of those who stick around. In essence, you can offer more generous PTO
packages when recruiting than your more lenient competitors can offer, at no
additional cost. Considering the fact that employees deserve benefits
commensurate with their loyalty, it is also arguably more ethical.
According to a recent Expedia.com study on U.S. vacation habits, in 2002, a
typical American was granted 16 vacation days, but only took 14 days
off. Consequently, American workers handed back over $21 billion in unused
vacation days to employers that year. So be generous when you hire. They
probably won’t use it all anyway.
Consider SaaS (Software-as-a-Service).
We’ve already covered the need for an automated time tracking system. A
Software-as-a-Service or SaaS solution may be just what you need to increase
profitability through time tracking. Consider the following:
It removes much of your IT cost.
It reduces the risk involved in acquiring new software.
It allows you to influence product and service quality via an ongoing
relationship with the vendor.
It gives you the flexibility to change usage commitments as business
circumstances change.

4. It allows you to predict more accurately your ongoing expenses as your IT
budget is tightened and scrutinized.
The prevalence of hosted project- and time-tracking solutions is on the rise,
and many companies will be willing to try the model out -- especially if they
understand the clear benefits. After all, all they have to lose is one month's
rent.
Improve employee buy-in by clarifying rewards.
Choosing the appropriate time management SaaS solution will only benefit
your company if you can get your employees to actually use it. Hourly
workers are easiest to convince because they want to be paid, so they already
have an incentive. And yet, everyone regardless of status should want the
company to be a success, so once they understand that using time tracking to
automate billing—thereby making it more accurate—leads to more revenue,
they should become more open to it. (If your employees do not care about the
success of your company, timesheets won't help you. In that case, you’d better
go back to the basics of creating a moral, compelling vision of how your
company makes the world a better place.)
Project accounting is more abstract than payroll or billing, and you don’t want
to wind up with unnecessary overtime, stressful blown schedules, bad
estimates or cancelled projects. Try relating specific examples where good
time collection could have prevented problems in order to make that
connection in the minds of your employees.
Time tracking and SaaS solutions are the tools that will see your business
through to the next level of profitability, and in today’s competitive
environment, thoroughly understanding your costs is no longer an option.
Reference Link: http://theicpm.com/blog/item/4656-time-track-your-way-
to-improve-your-projects