Time tracking

Time tracking is the recording of working hours against the project, phase and task they were spent on. In businesses that sell time it is not an administrative formality but the input from which budget consumption, utilization, billing and margin are all derived.

What does a useful time entry contain?

The project and phase, the task or service line, the duration, a billable or non-billable flag, and who recorded it. Without the flag the entry cannot reach an invoice, and without the phase it cannot be compared against a plan.

Why does time tracking fail so often?

Because it is done away from the work. Hours reconstructed on Friday from memory lose the detail that makes them billable, and anything recorded weeks later arrives after the decisions it should have informed. In businesses that sell time, those hours are the input for budget consumption, utilization, billing and margin.

What does incomplete time tracking cost?

Directly, the hours that are never invoiced. Indirectly, every figure built on top: utilization that looks worse than it is, project margins that cannot be trusted, and estimates for the next project built on a record of the last one that was never complete.

What is the difference between time tracking and timesheets?

A timesheet is a format, usually weekly and filled in at the end. Time tracking is the practice of recording as the work happens. The same system can support both, and which one a team actually does determines the quality of the data.

troi records the hour in the task, where the work happens. See time tracking.