TimeSheet Professional is used by a broad range of marketing services firms, including advertising, PR and public affairs agencies and SEO, e-marketing, internet marketing and data consultancies, with implementations ranging from 10 to 200 users.

All these firms appreciate how easy TimeSheet Professional’s windows and web timesheets make recording time. Typically, for most fee owners, recording time should take no more than a couple of minutes a day. How they use TimeSheet varies from firm to firm, typically related to how they bill clients and the information that they need.

Some firms only work against pre-agreed annual fees or retainers and on fixed price, pre-quoted projects. Time may be recorded at just the client and retainer or project level. This is because activity information would be unnecessarily detailed, although the time recorded may be split between hard and soft hours.

Where client billing is time based, if only in part, then TimeSheet provides the total hours and amounts needed for billing, by fee earner, by time period or for the job as a whole and with an activity breakdown if required. Invoices can be produced automatically if appropriate. However, if the text element and presentation of the invoice is critical, then it may be simpler to produce the invoices in Word using the information provided. Some accounts may require high levels of detail to support billing. In these cases, as well as recording time to the activity level, it may also be helpful to use TimeSheet’s facility to make notes and then print a detailed backing sheet to support the summary invoice.

TimeSheet also provides expense tracking. Whilst this can further help overall efficiency, whether it is used depends on existing systems and also client billing arrangements.

Another of TimeSheet’s key strengths are easy-to-use management controls. How these are implemented is likely to depend on the size of your organisation, the complexity of what you are doing and the company culture. Regardless, almost any business can benefit from automated email reminders for incomplete timesheets!

Measuring Productivity & Profitability

Even when client invoicing isn’t directly related to the time recorded, time recording is invaluable. It generates critical information on client and project profitability that provides the hard facts that are a key element when renegotiating fees and retainers and quoting on new projects. Whilst this information is always important, when economic conditions are tough and budgets are under pressure, it can make the difference between a profit and a loss.

Contact us now to discuss how TimeSheet Professional could make your business more efficient and profitable. For many smaller businesses, simple implementation can be completed in as a little as a day for both installation and training.