No matter what company you work for, there is no doubt that they’re not the favourite part of anyone’s job. In fact, it’s safe to say in most cases; they’re considered a hassle – and can even be seen by some individuals as a lack of trust within their role.

But once you look past a timesheet being a way for Management to ‘keep tabs’ on staff, you start to appreciate their true value.

If you are a company who estimates work based on hourly/day rates, then timesheets quickly become the most valuable tool you have; both from your own perspective and your clients.

Timesheets:

1. Allow you to see how many hours were spent on a particular project and evaluate it based on this measure. Has it been profitable? If no, where was the time burned? What can be done to mitigate this going forward?
2. Allow you to quickly produce accurate project KPIs, based on actual time logged.
3. Help you to validate contingency hours to clients, by providing an accurate breakdown of time spent on the project.
4. Allow you to monitor company billability across projects, departments and individuals.
5. Allow you to evaluate where time is being un-necessarily burned on a company and personal level. Would there be value in outsourcing certain tasks?
6. Help you to manage planning more efficiently; knowing that the time booked in for one person is achievable within the timeframe based on previous experience.
7. Evaluate current staffing levels, based on the level of hours being logged.
8. Ensure that new work is being quoted realistically, based on previous developments.
9. Help you to spot trends and identify risks.
10. And more.

Of course, the quality of data relies on your team to keep their timesheets up to date and accurate. This is the real challenge for the Project Manager, especially in a high pressure environment.

So, keep it simple. Make it as easy as possible for your team to log their hours.

Setting up a template for people to use that will save them time, is a good start. Below is an example of an Excel based version which is pre-validated with clients, projects and tasks. By providing your team with specific options to select from, this not only makes it more convenient for them, but will also make it easier for you to collate the data at the end of each week.

http://clients.welove72.com/blog/TIMESHEET_TEMPLATE.zip

There are also several good, free, software based solutions available online which remove the need for manual clock watching.  These are a couple used within our office:

For Mac:
http://www.getklok.com/

For PC:
http://0xff.net/

As long as you remember to turn them on and off, they take the hassle out of time tracking and will even provide you with a total spent on each task/project at the end of the week, saving you the chore of adding this up manually.

However you decide to implement timesheets, the one thing that is certain, is the results far outweigh the issues.  The process is never going to be welcomed with open arms, but used correctly, they provide a long term benefit to all and once they become part of your every day routine, you’ll wonder how you ever did without them.

  
Having worked Client side for a number of years developing his skills and wanting a new challenge, JD has made the switch to agency, working alongside myself to keep the rest of the team in check (!) and to offer our clients outstanding service.

We wish him every success in this position.

(And thanks to Gav for being kind with my blog name!) :0)

Niki comes with 6 years project management background. Working both client and agency side. So she has a good understanding of the pressures and politics that both environments.

And she wears funny slippers around the office!!