Timesheet in Excel vs. Your Outlook Calendar
Timesheet in Excel – The Facts
Timesheet in Excel vs. Your Outlook Calendar
Until a few years back, timesheet reporting used to be an immensely simple operation whose role was more or less confined to just billing clients and/or determining employee payrolls. And as one could guess, due to the inherent simplicity of these tasks, everybody was comfortable using a timesheet in Excel as their primary time reporting tool. But the landscape of the corporate world has drastically changed today. With the realization that splitting up any given project into several coherent tasks and assigning a timesheet for each of them could be the best way to enhance the productivity of their workforce, businesses started looking for more advanced, sophisticated and user-friendly tools for handling their everyday timesheet reporting tasks. If your organization is also looking for a handy and easy-to-use platform for daily time reporting, then Microsoft’s Outlook Calendar alongside a good timesheet reporting tool, such as TimeSheet Reporter, could be the most suitable option to try out.
The advantages of timesheet reporting tools with Outlook Calendar integration over a timesheet in Excel are multifold. But the most notable differences between the two options include:
No manual entries
All entries in your typical timesheet in Excel are manual, which can be challenging but managable, if you are assigning and monitoring the work of a small group of employees – for example, three or four at best. But, for an organization with a larger workforce, manually making time-entries for assigned and completed work for each and every employee is not only painfully time consuming, but also tend to be error-prone. However, that’s not something you need to be bothered about with a good timesheet reporting tool such as TimeSheet Reporter at your disposal. While integrated with the Outlook Calendar, such a time reporting tool allow the user to easily do their time reporting, simply by adding a few extra details in their Outlook appointments, such as organization, project and activity. When they are done with the task, they can simply submit these appointments as their time entries. That’s it. It cannot be any easier or more accurate than this.
No need to switch between Outlook and other programs to make time entries
Since TimeSheet Reporter integrates with the Microsoft Outlook Calendar, you can create all your time entries right from the MS Outlook interface itself. That’s not the kind of privilege you enjoy by working with a timesheet in Excel. With Excel, the user requires to switch to and from the Outlook window again and again every time an assigned task is done.
No need to memorize your previous week’s tasks
When preparing a timesheet report on any given project in an Excel spreadsheet, it’s imperative that the user precisely remember the day and time he or she completed the assigned tasks in their correct order. Needless to say it’s not a convenient option even if they keep a detailed record of their everyday work progress manually. But with TimeSheet Reporter, the user can easily leave the “memorizing” part on the Outlook Calendar itself.
Less effort in accessing and monitoring the status
With TimeSheet Reporter, the administrator can easily access and assess the time-entries submitted by individual employees. With a timesheet in Excel, however, the task requires rigorous inspection by the administrators in order to ensure that the entries made by the employees are consistent and error free.
Export your TSR time entries to programs such as ERP, Accounting, and… Excel
TimeSheet Reporter actually lets you import and export data to and from the program. So you can for example export your time entries from TimeSheet Reporter, and import them in your other programs, for example your ERP, CRM, and also Excel, so you can work with your data here, if you wish.
More advantages of TSR vs. timesheet in Excel
Apart from these most notable advantages, TimeSheet Reporter alongside your Outlook Calendar brings you a range of other features that transcend the sheer limitations of the now-obsolete Excel timesheet reporting.
Click here for more details on the features and advantages of TimeSheet Reporter over a timesheet in Excel.
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