6 Tips for Choosing a Time Tracking Software Solution

Have you recently been thinking about starting to track time in your organization? If yes, then you may as well get it started. It helps you not only make sure that all of your employees are paid for the time they’re putting into certain projects, but also ensure that all the projects are done on time and that you’re meeting the necessary deadlines. Plus, most of the great time tracking software solutions offer other important features as well, such as invoicing solutions, reports and analysis.

Here are some more reasons why this may be so important: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-reasons-why-employee-time-tracking-essential-every-silky-bhadarwaj/

Now, while you might have already understood the significance of time tracking, there is a chance that something else is actually bothering you. Put simply, you may not know how to choose the perfect time tracking software solution for you, and there’s nothing uncommon about that. If you’ve never used any of these platforms before, it is completely normal for you to be confused about how to make the best choice and thus ensure you’re getting the most out of the program you’ll select.

So, how do you make this choice exactly? Well, quite a lot of things to consider here, meaning there’s not an easy and straightforward answer to the question. Yet, if you take the time to understand which steps to take and what kinds of factors to take into consideration, you’ll absolutely make the perfect choice. If you’re ready to take that time, then you should read on to get the necessary tips for choosing the perfect time tracking software solution for yourself.

1. Table of Contents

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   Define Your Business Needs

You could perhaps begin the research by asking some people, other business owners, to give you recommendations, and that isn’t the wrong move. Yet, what you should remember when making that move is that every business has different needs, meaning you can’t exactly rely solely on those suggestions and make your choice that way. While you should listen to other people’s experiences and recommendations, the point is you’ll have to do your own research as well.

And, that research begins with defining the specific needs of your business. Think carefully about the tasks you want to track and about all the other important features you may want to get from your time tracking software solution. Ask yourself if invoicing is important to you and if you want to automate that process as well, think about what kinds of reports and analytical insights you may need and basically try to put any such needs on paper before you even begin searching for the right platform.

2. Remember Compatibility

You could already be using a project management platform of sorts and it may be working perfectly for you, but it may not have the time-tracking feature. In this case, you’ll have to be extra careful when selecting your time tracking software solution, because you need it to be compatible with your current platform. To be more precise, you need to be able to integrate the new program with the existing one, so that you can easily have all the features you need at one and the same place. Not checking compatibility can easily lead to making the wrong choice and thus complicating the projects and day-to-day operation both for you and for your employees. Complicating things is not what you want, because, the simpler the programs, the more productive your staff will ultimately be, as they won’t waste time figuring out the complex software pieces.

3. Check the Ease of Use

Speaking of simplifying things, checking the ease of use is another highly important thing you’ll absolutely have to do when making this particular choice. After all, we have made it clear that you want your employees to be able to easily use the software solutions you’re incorporating into your company, because the point of those is to increase productivity, at least to some extent. If certain platforms are too difficult to use, they’ll be eating away at your employees time, which is not what you want. Therefore, always check the ease of use and go for those solutions that won’t be too complicated for any of your employees.

4. Check All the Offered Features

As I’ve already hinted at, most of the great software solutions won’t offer simply time tracking and nothing else. Instead, you’ll be able to get some other benefits from them as well, as long as you check all the other offered features and cross reference them to your business needs that you’ve previously defined. Not all the time tracking software platforms will offer the same features, so you need to carefully think about what you need and what you could benefit from, aiming at making the right ultimate choice for yourself. The great thing is that you’ll easily get to check all of those features by simply visiting the official sites of the software providers you’re considering.

5. Research the Providers in Details

Since I’ve mentioned the providers, here is another thing you’ll absolutely have to do when aiming at making the best choice. Put simply, you’ll need to research the actual providers in more details, aiming at choosing those that are not only highly experienced, but also quite reputable on the market. Working with shady providers won’t get you any far, and you’re likely to regret making an agreement with them in the long run. Therefore, checking reputation is the crucial thing to do when researching the providers, as that’s how you’ll get the perfect time tracking method, and you can read more about the methods on this page, and enjoy the software solution you’ve chosen.

Wondering how to check the reputation, though? Well, this shouldn’t be that difficult. Finding some reviews that the past clients have written will be of great help, so that’s what you should mostly focus on. Of course, if you have that option, you should also talk to those other clients directly, so as to check how happy they are with the programs they’re using, as well as with the overall services they’re receiving from the providers, such as customer support and similar. This way, you’ll ultimately choose the perfect solution.

6. Compare the Costs

Another thing you’ll have to do so as to choose the perfect solution is compare the costs of those software pieces you’re considering. Different providers are bound to charge different prices, and that’s completely normal. Remember, though, that you should always put quality first, meaning you shouldn’t make your choice based on the prices alone, but that doesn’t mean you should completely ignore them. After all, you have a budget to stick to when running a business.