Timesheet Automation Tactics & Benefits Explained

There are few things as universally hated as timesheets. They’re always more work on top of the work you’ve done, you’re not getting any reward or fulfillment out of it, and it ends up being one of the most stressful tasks in any given work week.

And yet timesheets are required in many organizations because they’re the necessary evil of many business models. As long as you’re compensated for your time, you may as well be asked to report on where that time is going.

Luckily, timesheets have been undergoing the same digital transformation that other tedious, manual, previously paper-based processes have. The age of automated timesheet software is here and there’s every reason to embrace it.

A brief history of timesheets

Timesheets have been around longer than many industries that use them. For those of you who don’t have time to get deep into the origins of timesheets, here’s a recap.

Time card

The year was 1888 when a jeweler named Willard Bundy invented and patented an employee time clock. The device – a mechanical or electrical timepiece – served a single purpose of tracking the number of hours an employee worked.

This is the premise of the Time and Material (T&M) business model where the contractor is paid according to the number of hours put in. The practice of punching the time clock was therefore installed to record the time an employee is present at the workstation, which corresponds to the compensation they receive.

Paper timesheet

In the 1950s, the concept of a billable hour was introduced. Initially developed for increasing the production capacity of factories, billable hours as a unit of measurement was quickly adopted by the professional service industry.

Paper timesheets came about as a product of the time card’s evolution. In addition to clocking in and out of a workplace, employees were now required to document their time spent on various tasks and clients throughout the day. Similar to a daily activity log that can be paper-based, a timesheet was there to jot down what was done during the day, and for how long.

The amount of time spent on each respective task and client would then be multiplied by the billable rate, which then translated into employee wages. This is how some service businesses and self-employed professionals who bill by the hour operate to this day.

Digital timesheet

The digital timesheet is what became of the paper timesheet when digitalization rolled around. What used to be a paper sheet became a spreadsheet, which is a step forward in terms of record keeping but not much of an improvement in terms of manual admin work.

Digital timesheets still need to be filled out manually, with each task requiring a name, start and stop time, and description. Most workplaces have a weekly timesheet policy, which makes employees dread Fridays as this is the time to fill out the weekly timesheet.

Automated timesheet

Alas, the automation of timesheets marked a new dawn in operations management. Instead of manually filling out timesheets, employees can now use software that automatically tracks their work hours, helps quickly create time entries, and uses those to populate a timesheet template.

As you can see, timesheets have come a long way, and more and more businesses are embracing timesheet automation as a way to alleviate the pain of a manual task that proves to be extremely inefficient when left to memory.

Now is a good time to get into the benefits of timesheet automation.

Benefits of timesheet automation

The reason timesheets are still around is the fact that they’re indispensable in optimizing the profitability of a service-based business. Therefore, the benefits of automated timesheets are the same as their predecessors’ – paper timesheets – except you also get the benefits that generally come with automation.

Let’s go over the main ones.

1. Accurate billing

Hourly billing is a pricing model used by many professionals to this day. Just to name a few:

• Lawyers
• Consultants
• Agencies
• Software developers
• Freelancers

All of them use timesheets as part of their project management and time tracking software for billing and invoicing. When timesheets are automated, the quality of data improves dramatically. Every minute of billable time is recovered and client billing is finally accurate.

2. Reliable project insights

Timesheets is a powerful project management tool. PMs use timesheet data to monitor progress, ensure that all milestones are reached on time, and adjust capacity as needed.

With timesheet automation and little to no manual work required to fill out timesheets, it’s easy to 1) improve the quality of insights and 2) shorten the gap between timesheets.

For example, if you normally submit timesheets once a week with a manual process, timesheet automation makes it easy to submit several timesheets a week or even switch to daily timesheets.

3. Accurate utilization

Billable utilization is a core metric for many organizations. The biggest trouble with it is that more often than not, utilization data is incomplete, which results in teams being either over- or underworked.

You may have guessed that the quality of timesheet data has everything to do with the accuracy of utilization insights. Just like with billing, accuracy of utilization data can make or break a service business. Automated timesheets give much better quality of data, which results in more reliable utilization rates across your organization.

4. Profitability management

Profitability management starts with understanding where your largest expense – work hours – is being allocated. The only way to know if you’re charging adequately for your services is to compare your revenue per project to the amount of hours put into it.

Automated timesheets provide the most valuable insight into the profitability of your projects and services. By checking how much time goes into each project, you can adjust your pricing, focus on previously overlooked areas of business, and foster your relationships with the most profitable clients.

5. Reduced mental load

Now that we’ve covered the benefits of timesheets per se that are enhanced by automation, let’s talk about the benefits of automation per se. First and foremost, we need to mention the reduced mental load that comes with automating timesheets.

Imagine your team not being stressed about coming up with project hours or setting a timer for every task to make sure they don’t miss anything. When you automate your timekeeping process, you remove a manual, anxiety-inducing task of tracking time from your team’s plates.

6. Better focus & creativity

With a reduced mental load come better focus, productivity, and creativity. Less manual admin, the ability to multitask, and really concentrate on tasks at hand (instead of on the start/stop timer) all contribute to enhanced creativity.

Needless to say, the sheer amount of time that’s freed up from all the timers and guesswork that used to go into timesheets (up to 40 minutes every day) can be allocated towards team activities, rest, and recharging.

Timesheet automation tactics

So how exactly does timesheet automation work? Let’s look at some of the tactics used to semi-automate or automate the timesheet process.

Automated time tracking

Timesheets start with tracking the time it takes to complete tasks. This is the most important and the most tedious part of the timekeeping process. It’s also resented by teams as nobody likes setting timers or – worst case scenario – endure screen recording or other creepy methods.

Automated time tracking means that employees don’t need to deal with timers or compromise their privacy. Memtime, for example, runs in the background and keeps a log of all computer activities. This data is stored offline on the user’s computer to guarantee privacy.

Every minute of work is recorded with precision:

That is to say, 0 minutes of your day is wasted on time tracking, and yet you have 100% of your time documented for accurate timesheets.

Automated time entries

Naturally, not every minute of every workday is spent doing revenue-generating work. There’s admin, internal meetings, breaks, and all kinds of things that constitute a workday. What goes into a timesheet is usually billable time, i.e., project time entries.

Time entries have to be exportable and shared with the team – that’s their nature. This is the paradox of automated timesheets.

Time entries require manual work because the user needs to decide which tasks to record under which projects, and then export that data into a timesheet. This can be partially automated, e.g., Memtime can suggest time entries for captured activities based on the rules you create.

Since you only need to click once to accept each suggestion, time entries, and by extension timesheets, are semi-automated. But only to ensure privacy and avoid employee monitoring.

Automated timesheets

So we’re established that fully automated timesheets are a privacy paradox. At the same time, by completely automating time tracking you automate 90% of any timesheets workflow, and using e.g. Memtime’s suggestion rules for time entries you can semi-automate the remaining 10% without compromising privacy.

All of the time entries will be synced into your timesheet as they are the hours logged under projects (external or internal). Using the example of Memtime, you can use Memtime’s built-in timesheet populated in real time as you create time entries or connect any project software you’re using.

By creating time entries and assigning them to the projects imported from your project software, time is automatically synced into the connected software and your timesheets are populated automatically, too.

Which timesheet automation tactic is right for you?

As we established above, there are 3 key parts of automating a timesheet workflow:

1. Tracking tasks throughout the day
2. Creating project time entries
3. Syncing time entries into your timesheet

Whether or not you automate all 3 of them is up to you. For example, some people might prefer creating time entries from scratch to make sure every minute of their time is allocated to the right project. Especially if the tasks performed during the day include handling sensitive client data or if the billable time increment is as small as 6 minutes and it’s crucial to ensure precision.

However, it’s obvious that automating manual time tracking is a win-win for any use case. Especially when it can be completely private and precise down to the minute. If you’re ready to automate your time tracking process, go ahead and start your 14-day free trial with Memtime, no credit card information needed.

Once you’re familiar with Memtime’s activity timeline and the process of time entry creation, you can set up suggestion rules and further automate your timesheets to see if that’s right for you.

Final thoughts

Timesheet automation is an example of digitalization that not only enhances the benefits of its manual predecessor but also brings additional benefits associated with employees’ mental health and wellbeing.

Using the tools and tactics listed in this article, you can take your timesheets to the next level and enjoy better data, less stress, and increased revenue. I hope you’re inspired to automate your timekeeping and transform a previously daunting and largely inefficient process into an easy way to get invaluable insights and set your team up for success.