Using Outlook Time Tracking Software – TOP Benefits
Why is Time Tracking Important for Business?
While no business is created equal, every business, whether large or small, share one resource in equal measures: Time!
As a valuable asset, time has always been the source of competitive advantage for companies. Regardless of what your business is about and where you are based, there is no argument against that proper time management via time reporting leads to better results for the business and for everyone involved: employers, employees, customers, partners and investors. Having proper time management within the organization helps you to keep projects and teams focused on priorities. Time tracking not only boosts efficiency and productivity, better time tracking actually leads to happier and better motivated teams.
While most organizations tend to focus on profitability exclusively or otherwise spend millions of dollars on improving the strength of their human capital, managing time can actually prove to be the most vital element of organizational success. Without the ability or the motivation for using your time properly, you are likely to find yourself in the soup. Instead of considering time tracking a necessary evil, employers and employees alike should think of it as a crucial insight into business and learn to better make use of it to achieve improved personal, professional and organization-wide results.
Better Time Management with Time Tracking
Time is a resource we all want to manage better; we strive to control it, master it and get more out of it every day. If you have never attempted to track time before, you might find it surprising that many seasoned business tycoons and startup entrepreneurs consider time tracking the very essence of their business. Time reporting is as important and as indispensable as payroll or project management or accounting, and you as a manager should consider time tracking a worthwhile business investment.
While you are able to reap many benefits out of proper time management, you should also keep in mind that bad time management will hold you and business back against those competitors who might be taking full advantage of time management in their own workplace. Time management and time tracking touch upon some of the most critical areas of your organization: it is like an X-ray vision of your business.
Time Tracking Software
The ability and freedom to leverage time tracking with other tools one uses to keep track of how much time we spend on different activities on a daily basis is astounding. Whether it is about planning one’s workday, scheduling meetings or managing teams and projects, time tracking software can always come in handy.
Timesheet software is designed and developed to help employees and managers at the workplace keep track of different work-related activities in one place, without having to resort to cumbersome and time-consuming manual methods, or even copy-pasting the information from one software to another. By enabling us to gauge the big picture, time reporting allows us to take stock of how we work, how we use and misuse time, where we might be struggling and how our actions serve or distract us from productive activities.
Does Outlook Have Time Tracking?
Are you someone who is forever struggling with time-bound tasks and missing project deadlines? Would you like to be more in control by learning to track and manage your time on a day-to-day basis?
If you are a Microsoft user (like most of the world around you), there is one little-known Outlook feature that you should know about, and utilize for efficient time and project tracking purposes. You can acquire time tracking software for your personal use as well as using it with your team. You will find many different such software available in the market, both for small businesses as well as large enterprises, each with their own unique set of qualities and benefits. However, time tracking software that offers maximum features and suits your needs is the one to go for.
- Choose time tracking software that helps you track and report time via your Microsoft Outlook Calendar to make your life easier;
- Besides helping you to track time and time-bound projects, the ideal time reporting software should be able to facilitate you in generating standard reports, making time entries and adding hourly rates to those time entries for billable services offered to clients.
- Choose timesheet software that will assist you in role-based permissions and obtain supervisory approval of time entries.
- It should also be compatible with other systems that you use on a daily basis, such as Microsoft Excel, CRM, ERP, etc.
- It should provide a simple flextime solution and a simple-to-use, hassle-free and user-friendly web interface.
Your time tracking data will not only be more accurate and precise with an Outlook time tracking plugin, it will also be readily retrievable for reporting purposes, or to keep track of billable hours to clients. Not only that, the Outlook time tracking software will enable you to automatically log even offline time, or productive time spent away from the computer.
Microsoft Calendar Integration
A typical day at the office is spent in attending to client calls, going to surprise meetings, and addressing a myriad of things that pull you in a thousand different directions. What you had started thinking would be an incredibly productive day is now spent on a million things you had never planned in the first place. With proper timesheet reporting, these seemingly mundane problems can be solved, or at least managed more productively if you knew how to schedule your plans and track your time accordingly.
The time tracking functionality is available with the Microsoft Outlook Calender, when you use a proper add-in, and it can be used to manage all kinds of appointments, meetings and events. This helps users attain better project management as well as time management outcomes.
If you have ever found yourself wishing to bill your clients perfectly or unlock hidden billable hours spent in meetings, here is your perfect solution. You can plan meetings, sync team schedules and deliver projects quickly and more efficiently with Outlook time tracking software that integrates and leverages your Outlook calendar. The process being almost automatic, gone are the days when you had to wrestle with manual time registration.
Turn Appointments and Meetings into Time Sheets
Outlook time tracking software allows users to turn meetings, appointments, emails, and even travel plans into timesheets. By enabling you to hold, save and organize such crucial information in one place, time tracking software takes the chore out of timesheet entry.
To begin using a time tracker, all you need to do is allocate a client or project to an appointment, and the appointment will be turned into a timesheet. Simple, automated timesheets help users manage work-time entries based on user activity. Even time reporting becomes a piece of cake, and all you need to do is simply add your info to your appointments and they will be turned into time entries.
You become more in control of how you manage your time and complete tasks with Outlook time tracking software. By simplifying the recording, reporting and managing of work-related tasks, the time tracker frees your work day and allows you to focus on what matters the most.
Delegate More Efficiently With Outlook Time Tracking Software
As an employer or project manager, one of the key aspects of managing time better is to learn to delegate. Entrusting tasks and assigning projects to your team is not just part of the job, but it also ensures that each work assignment will be completed on time. Team-based projects can be better managed if you can break down and delegate duties to the appropriate team members.
Software for time tracking in Outlook allows project managers to easily see the time spent on each task or project, ensuring that deadlines are met and important milestones are reached as planned.
Bottom Line
Outlook time tracking software enables efficient project management, real-time reporting and accurate billing and timesheets at the workplace. Good time reporting software will make it so much easier for everybody. You no longer have to be the boss who has to remind his or her employees to report where they were or what they were doing at all times. They simply use the information already in their calendar. Say goodbye to outdated manual methods and switch to contemporary time tracking tools today.
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