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When I meet with small business owners, I find myself surprised at how often time tracking – employee time tracking – is an issue. And understandably, small business owners often struggle to articulate the issue they’re experiencing with employees until I mention the words time tracking, time theft, or a time tracking software.
Tracking Time – How you know it’s an issue
Most often, the issues small business owners share with me are articulated in some variation of one of these three issues. Test it out! Say these out loud and ask yourself if you’ve ever said one of these.
1. “I feel like my employees/teammates are wasting time.”
2. “My employees are constantly late to work.” or “My employees leave too early or clock out too late.”
3. “Scheduling and covering shifts for my employees is a pain.” Or perhaps…the most common
4. “Getting my employees paid takes hours!”
Most businesses face these issues in some form. A proper time tracking software can help solve them.
Don’t just run your business, GROW your business
I recently met with a small business owner in Colorado who, after starting a business three years ago, has gone from a team of two founders to an engaged and happy team of 30 employees. It’s always inspiring to meet entrepreneurs and small business owners who have had such success. Through smart, hard, and aggressive work, they’ve paved the way to a successful model that both provides value to their local economy and community, but also to individuals who now have a job and wage that did not exist before.
Interestingly, getting new clients was not the top challenge this small business owner faced. Rather, reporting time quickly and easily for payroll was, and time tracking was at the root of it. It’s no fun when at the end of the pay period you’re scrambling to figure out the actual hours people worked. Like I’ve seen with so many other businesses, inadequate methods of time tracking were eating away at precious time to focus on growth, like getting even new customers, or launching a new service. I often tell our clients that small business owners should be building the business rather than running the business. I learned much of this idea from EOS – the entrepreneurial operating system – a small business consulting company that helps leaders become leaders, not just managers. Check it out here!
As an entrepreneur myself, I know that common hang-ups for small businesses are found within administrative tasks like time tracking and payroll. While they are certainly necessary, these do not grow the business. They maintain it. Ultimately, the entrepreneur or small business owner will need to delegate or automate most of these tasks so that they can focus on growth, like bringing in new customers or launching the next product.
Time Tracking Software helps you GROW your business
The best solution to time tracking issues is to implement a time tracking software into your office. It’s as simple as that. Most programs take 30 minutes to an hour to get setup and going. And quite a few programs have a time tracking app, just like TimeClick does.
Most small businesses are surprised at how simple and affordable a time tracking software like TimeClick is. Even better, the time tracking and payroll process from start to finish is generally reduced from 2-4 hours per pay period down to 30-60 minutes. This is because employee error is reduced, record keeping is simplified, and time tracking is automated. Generally, most small businesses save $100-400 per month. This in itself pays for a time clock software like TimeClick!
A time tracking software also reduces time theft, be it malicious or not. And of course, whoever is processing payroll simply doesn’t need to spend as much time on the tasks. The latter usually saves small businesses $400-600 on payroll costs per year on average. Run the numbers for your own business with our free time theft calculator to see how much you would save.
Installation takes just a few minutes and employees may begin clock in and out immediately after. If you want to try clocking in and out on a tablet or phone, install our TimeClick Mobile App . It’s on both the Google Play and Apple app store. Don’t forget, you can try out TimeClick for two weeks, free, on our free trial page.
Conclusion
Whatever the case, make sure that whoever needs to be focused on the growth of your company is doing exactly that – growing it. You, your customers, and your business will be the better off for it.
If you or someone else in your office is getting too caught up in administrative responsibilities like time tracking, it’s probably time to reassess. Consider getting off of excel or paper and setting up a time tracking software, like TimeClick.