Importance of Field Employee Time Tracking Software

Keeping track of your remote team’s time can be a messy and tedious task. Read on how a field employee time tracking software can help you experience a new kind of ease!

“Time is Money.”- Benjamin Franklin

This statement justifies how time tracking is an important factor. It’s a must for field service organisations to track their employees’ time via dedicated time-tracking software to ensure they are paying wages and salaries only for productive work hours. The software becomes valuable as it automates admin tasks of compiling accurate timesheets to process payroll.

In this article, we have uncovered 8 prime reasons why field employee time tracking software is indispensable for tracking field employees’ working hours and productivity.

Let’s get into it!

What is Time Tracking Software?

Employee time tracking software is an essential tool to track and manage the field workforce’s billable hours and productivity level. The software gives information on how much time was spent on assigned tasks, and projects, and honoring clients’ visits. Broadly speaking, the time tracking tool streamlines employees’ billing and payroll procedures by keeping track of the field force’s time spent on assigned tasks and jobs.

Additionally, it gives managers more information about field operations, such as which jobs took the longest time or which one was completed in a shorter timeline. This enables field managers to restructure their task-assigning process.

With the use of time tracking software, field staff can be sure that their time is being used effectively and that they are getting paid appropriately for the tasks they do.

Take a Bow! Up to 93% of US employees report that their paychecks are always delivered on time, thanks to business and productivity tools such as time tracking software.  31% of businesses have reported a positive increase in their ROI within just six months of implementing automated time tracking systems.

8 Reasons Why Field Employee Time Tracking Software is Important

Here are 8 reasons why time tracking software is important when it comes to managing and monitoring field employees.

1. Enhanced Field Force Productivity

Field employee time tracking software allows field forces to have a big picture of their working hours, which can significantly increase their productivity and attention.

Time tracking has a direct correlation with staff productivity. High-achieving field employees can feel confident as they will feel their efforts are being noted and might be recognised by their higher-ups. It also speeds up resolving issues and keeps underperforming staff members accountable.

Heartbreaking News! Time tracking data reveals that the US economy loses a staggering 50 million hours of productivity per day due to unrecorded work activities. Activities such as unrecorded emailing alone can cost professionals up to $50,000 annually.

Additionally, supervisors find it easy to monitor their team’s time management and pre-plan projects to meet deadlines when they operate remotely. The company can also maintain track of its workers’ assignments and assist them when they feel stuck.

2. Recording and Tracking of Accurate Working Hours

How often have you —

• Wanted to know the exact project status at any particular moment.
• Wished to be informed of any delays preventing your team from moving forward.
• Wanted to know which bottlenecks are obstructing the team from balancing target v/s achievement.

Looks like many a time!

When you use a time management or tracking tool that allows real-time reporting, you can monitor events in the field in real time. By using employee time tracking software, you can estimate the amount of time spent on each specific job or client meeting, including external breaks or unnecessary idling.

Facts You Must Know! 43% of hourly workers admit to committing time theft!  21% of employees add 30 minutes to an hour to their shift. Some steal well over two hours a week.

On the other hand, having field workers manually enter time records at the end of the day often leaves too much space for erroneous estimates and overlooks time blocks. If the time scheduling software indicates any delivery delays or other issues, you can take immediate action to resolve any problems and satisfy consumers.

3. Real-time Accountability of the Employees’ Work

Time monitoring software provides essential data analytics and records circling exactly what the field force has worked on – and for how long. This can be very helpful at times. Clients might ask for a thorough justification for the length of time something took. They want to be sure they are getting good value out of the time they have paid for.

With the appropriate field employee tracking software, you get automated data reports and instantly have access to the task status of each employee. Tracking the time and recording the work done by the field force enhances accountability and elevates operational quality.

4. Save More and Spend Less – “Money”

Since time is money, saving time also equates to saving money. In fact, the new time tracking software will help you save money only by removing the administrative work related to an antiquated field employee time tracking system.

Another obvious result of all that came before it is the ability to save money. If you improve the accuracy of project expenses and staff productivity, you will experience financial savings. However, you can only do this if you keep track of their working hours.

With the help of time tracking software, you can find tasks that require more resources but don’t yield a high return on investment. By monitoring your field employees, you can find more efficient ways to complete their less lucrative tasks. Alternatively, you might eliminate those chores and swap them out for more lucrative ones.

5. Expect Transparency Throughout

Transparency is one of the main benefits of time tracking software. Field technicians gain from this transparency because it gives them access to work schedules defining tasks for the day, which helps them organise their workload more effectively. Employees also contribute to greater transparency in the workplace by sharing information about completed projects and due dates.

Additionally, by knowing which activities should be accomplished first and which are all secondary, managers can start to prioritise the work of the field team accordingly. By managing their workload, the field force can increase output.

When employees are responsible for reporting to their managers their daily work schedules, they are more focused on their tasks. They become more productive at this stage since they use their time more wisely.

💡The Silver Lining Because of the time tracking solution, you will better keep an eye on their working hours, and employees in exchange will know how they are responsible for their actions. This encourages a sense of responsibility for completing daily tasks. Field employees would be less likely to procrastinate and waste time on unnecessary tasks if they knew that their work time records could be reviewed at any moment.

6. No More Micromanaging

Micromanagement is a critical issue in many small businesses and companies where the managers are hypervigilant. They try to track down an employee’s every move, and sometimes, it feels like they are spying on their employees. So, in a company where micromanagement is prevalent, employees working in such an environment don’t have considerable flexibility.

Modern time tracking software like TrackoField doesn’t believe in the art of spying. It helps managers to track an employee’s performance remotely but only when they provide consent to do so. Once the employees wrap up their shift for the day, the software auto-stops tracking their locational movements and tasks. This helps put a stop to micromanaging.

7. Reduces Time Spent on Paperwork

In the present business world, operating without time tracking software would mean completing all necessary tasks via a hefty paper trail.

Managers lose time doing this that they could have used to do more lucrative endeavours.

For instance, in the event that time tracking software is not used, managers will need to manually:

• Examine reports (20 mins)
• Determine the amount owed to each employee (30 min)
• Spend another 30 minutes filling out invoices

This comes out to an hour and twenty minutes a day or six hours a week spent on paperwork. That’s 24 hours of lost profit per month if you charge by the hour for your work.

Using time tracking software may save a lot of time, money, and possibly paper and ink. The software automates the generation of reports, invoices, and payroll processing in minutes. 

8. Organise and Prioritise Tasks Better

Teams that use time tracking in their everyday work are more likely to have better-aligned work schedules. This means they are better able to rank their assignments according to their priority, urgency, or profitability.

Improved prioritisation and organisation will build a team that completes its tasks by the due date. Additionally, it lets teams contribute to lower project expenses by better prioritising and organising their responsibilities and concentrating more on profitable activities.

Must-Have Features of Field Employee Time Tracking Software

Field employee management software like TrackoField helps companies of all sizes manage employee time prudently and elevate their performance quality to the next level. It offers complete visibility and transparency of the working hours through: 

Geo-sensitive Attendance Marking

This solution allows the recording of accurate attendance of the remote employees. With its geo-sensitive attendance marking feature, employees can only mark their presence once they reach their first start location.

Additionally, it has a visual verification feature where the managers can ask employees to click a picture of themselves to confirm their presence at the task site. The picture is clicked from the app itself and stamped with real-time coordinates, times, and dates. This successfully eliminates chances of time theft and buddy punching.

Leave Management Solution

Field employees can apply for leave or time off remotely. Managers have a calendar view that provides them with complete details of the project timeline, making it easier for them to decide whether to approve or reject the request.

When requesting time off, employees can see the exact number of leaves they can take or how many work hours or days they need to complete.

Real-time Locational Tracking

Managers get real-time updates on the employees’ locations, which is vital for time tracking.  With features like geolocation tracking and clock-in/out reminders, employers can easily verify work hours.

It helps to record the time taken to travel from one task location to another, which is considered helpful when billing. Also, you get access to play back the history of the route travelled, breaks taken and idling done by your staff while working. 

Payroll Management System

Time tracking software simplifies payroll processes by automating the process of compiling timesheets and calculation of salary data. This significantly reduces manual errors and streamlines administrative tasks. The payroll feature further streamlines the process, allowing seamless transfer of data for accurate and timely payroll processing.

The system automatically calculates the working hours, privileged or paid leaves, unpaid time off, overtime, or late log-in. Since it automates payroll computation, there are no errors, which reduces the administration’s headache. 

Task Tracking System

Managers can track the real-time status of the assigned tasks and the time they start and finish. Also by linking tasks with attendance, they can ensure that employees are only able to access the task lists once marked present. This mitigates the chances of time theft, increases accountability, and decreases lag time in task completion.

Also, having an idea of the time it takes for each field employee to complete the tasks allows managers to form a lucrative work schedule and prioritise tasks easily.

Analytical Reports

Reports such as the Target vs. Achievement report, productivity, and performance reports, shed more light on each employee’s work hours and time usage. This helps with allocating resources, making decision-driven decisions, breaking down huge projects into smaller ones, and meeting deadlines.

Executive App

TrackoField’s executive app allows employees to track their time and manage their tasks from their smartphones or tablets. This feature offers flexibility and convenience, as employees can easily log their time and access important project information while on the go.

Conclusion

Employee time tracking software is an important aspect, especially in cases where managers have remote or field teams to monitor. Using time-tracking software turns out as a soluble choice that equally helps managers and employees.

• Managers stay assured about how productively their staff is using their time.
• Employees when are aware that their time, activities, and tasks are being tracked, they stay more focused.

If you haven’t started tracking how your employees use their time, you are missing that much-desired productivity and efficiency. Don’t worry! It’s not that late.

TrackoField is here to help you track your valuable employees’ tasks, time, and efforts seamlessly. All you have to do is just make up your mind and sign up for our free trial.