#freetimetrackingsoftware

Time tracking has become a norm of late. Almost all the industries, from manufacturing to service, leverage time tracking software in project management. Whichever project we work on, we see time tracking as one of the activities that management focuses on. But why is time tracking becoming so important these days? Every now and then, we hear “Time is Money”. How does time tracking materialize into value, monetary or of some other form?

As a project manager, one has to quantify value creation through time tracking. Using a project management software, this is done through earned value analysis (EVA). Earned Value Analysis is one of the important techniques to monitor the project in different phases. EVA can be used to control project constraints like budget and schedule. In other words, EVA allows the manager to compare the amount of work completed against the amount that was expected to be completed at any given point in time. EVA can be performed at any stage of the project cycle which enables management to get early warnings about any potential threat to the project in terms of meeting the deliverables on time and tracking the project costs. This, in turn, allows management to review their budget and change their future course of action to use employee time tracking software get around these threats.

What specific information does EVA provide?

In general, EVA answers the following 4 questions.

Whether the project progress is in line with the schedule at any point in time?

Whether the project costs are in line with the approved budget at any point in time?

What will be the tentative completion time of the project?

What will be the probable cost for the entire project?

How is EVA performed?

EVA can be easily performed using the following steps.

Determine the Percentage of Completion

Determine Planned Value (PV)

Determine Earned Value (EV)

Actual Cost (AC)

Calculate Schedule Variance (SV)

Calculate Cost Variance (CV)

1.Determine the Percentage of Completion: The first step in EVA is the determination of the task’s percentage of completion (POC). For instance, if there is one 100-hour task, 50% completion means 50-hour work has been completed.

2.Determine Planned Value (PV): It is defined as the amount of the task that should have been completed at any point in time. In monetary terms, it is a portion of the task budget. For instance, consider a task worth $10,000 is supposed to be completed in 10 days. After 5 days, the task is supposed to be 50% complete. Therefore,

PV = 50% * $10,000 = $5,000

3.Determine Earned Value (EV): It is defined as the amount of task that is actually completed. In monetary terms, it is a portion of the task budget. For instance, consider a task worth $10,000 is supposed to be completed in 10 days. After 5 days, the actual task completed is 40%. Therefore,

EV = 40% * $10,000 = $4,000

4.Actual Cost: As the term suggests, it is the actual cost incurred in a particular task. For instance, consider the actual cost of the above task is $3000.

5.Calculate Schedule Variance: Schedule Variance pertains to the schedule status of the project. Mathematically, it is defined as

SV = EV – PV

In the above instance, SV = $4000 – $5000 = -$1000

6.Calculate Cost Variance: Cost Variance pertains to the cost status of the project. Mathematically, it is defined as

CV = EV – AC

In the above instance, CV = $4000 – $3000 = $1000

Interpretation of EV

Schedule Variance (SV) and Cost Variance (CV) are considered as the basic indicators of the project progress.

1. If the SV is positive, you are ahead of the project schedule. If it is negative, you are behind the project schedule.

2. If the CV is positive, you are cost-positive which is desirable. If it is negative, you are cost-negative or over budget.

Conclusion

In the end, we can conclude that as the basic indicators give us relatively important information about the project progress and free time tracking software, be it schedule progress or cost-efficiency, EVA is a significant technique for project management professionals. Since it can be used to monitor real-time project progress, it is a preferred tool for complex projects where the complexity is high.

Further Reading

How to Opt Between On-premise and Cloud base time tracking software?

Mitigating Production Challenges Through Time Tracking

Foraying into a new business is extremely taxing. From setting it up to managing operations, the entire process is such a hardship, although taken up by choice. When you are in a startup scenario, you would need to manage a lot of things. Projects, resources, workforce, and, most importantly, their productivity are to be taken good care of. At times, this becomes quite a handful and you need an efficient support system to manage your work. PurelyTracking is that support system for your business.

Designed meticulously to cater to a wide array of businesses, this Employee Time & Attendance Software consists of several solutions that you can use as per your need. With several unique features, including Geo-lock Time Clock, Timesheet Management,Employee Self-services, Leave and Absence Management, and HR Outsourcing, andReports and Integration, it is fully competent to manage the entire workforce of your company.

Let’s have a look at how PurelyTracking can make your business much more productive and your life, a little less stressed!

1. Geo-lock Time Clock

The PurelyTracking Time Clock app lets your employees clock-in and clock-out with a single click. Whether working from the office or remotely, its geo-lock feature ensures accurate data for employee shift, breaks, and daily time cards.

2. Timesheet Management

The Timesheet Management software assists you in the accurate maintenance of weekly and monthly timesheets. It tracks working hours of employees by creating flexible approvals for timesheets and maintains the daily, weekly, or monthly timesheet workflows with easy weekly submissions.

3. Employee Self-service

Employee Self-service is a fuss-free platform for employees that helps them manage their Time Clock and Timesheets. It features in-built Task management for a smooth running of daily jobs and provides easy access to key information about projects through a desktop or a mobile app, anytime, anywhere.

4. Leave & Absence Management

Leave & Absence Management software streamlines leave management system by routing employee leave applications for approval to concerned managers. It customizes leave types and holiday lists and lets employees check their leave balance, leave status, and leave history, using a desktop or a mobile app.

5. HR Outsourcing

From Time Clock to Payroll Management, HR Outsourcing is a 360-degree solution for all your payroll-related issues. Not only it provides error-free data entry services, doubly checked by accountants every month, but also a 24×7 customer care support via email, live chat, and Skype.

6. Reports & Integration

With the Reports & Integration services, you get easy-to-access automated reports for better business decisions. It streamlines the entire workforce by exporting reports and assessing key employee data and also offers ADP, QuickBooks, and Paychex integration for Invoice and Payroll generation.

In this age of information and new media, a number of companies and organizations have turned to advanced technology in a bid to incite an exceptional rise in their businesses. New-age technologies are being used to track and monitor employees’ working hours and the jobs they do on a daily basis.

There is an array of employee time tracking software available in the US market, among which, a lot can be customized as per the requirement. Many time tracking service providers offer their products for free. However, it would be only wise if you first compare their features against your requirements before zeroing in on any one of them.

Let’s have a look at a few of the best free employee time tracking software in the US:

TSheets

Businesses, which deploy employees on field duty quite frequently, can rely on TSheets. With its unique GPS tracking ability that shows the exact location of employees, this software is highly efficient in eliminating fraudulent entries. It also lets users use their smartphone as a punch clock.

Salient Features:

A. Employee time tracking

B. Reporting

C. Automated reminders

D. Mobile user support

Toggl

Toggl is ideal for businesses that utilize FreshBooks, as it is quite simple to export hours worked out of Toggl to a FreshBooks invoice. Administrators can easily track hours worked by employees on an assigned project or task with its free plan. Since it syncs across various platforms, users can switch devices (smartphone to PC and vice versa) even when they are in the middle of an assigned task.

Salient Features:

A. Employee time tracking

B. Reporting

C. Automated reminders

D. Offline capabilities

PurelyTracking

PurelyTracking is an employee time tracking solution that focuses mainly on efficiently managing the entire workforce of the company. Its unique features, such as Geo-lock time clock app, leave management, and payroll generation mechanism, makes it perfect for all types of businesses. Its Mobile Geofencing feature is especially useful in case of on-field deployment of workers. It is a SaaS product, which aims at providing solutions to different pain-points of managers and employees.

Salient Feature:

A. Employee time tracking

B. Check-in Check-out through Mobile devices

C. Mobile Geo fencing

D. Project accounting

E. Workforce Management

Hubstaff

Hubstaff offers efficient solutions for the time tracking of both, in-office and remote employees. With its integrated apps, working hours can be recorded both ways, automatically and manually, which, of course, can be regulated by the manager. It also boasts of in-built payroll features and invoicing for client billing.

Salient Features:

A. Mobile user support

B. Issue tracking

C. To-do lists

D. Calendar view

Harvest

Harvest offers an all-in-one solution. You can track time, estimate expenses, manage projects, create invoices, and many other things with Harvest. It can also integrate easily with various other popular software, such as G Suite, QuickBooks, Slack, and Trello, with which you can export hours without any hassle.

Salient Features:

A. Workload Management

B. To-do list

C. Automated reminders

Over the last decade, the US manufacturing industry has witnessed a tremendous transformation in the way it functions. A number of new technologies have been introduced to increase productivity within stringent timelines and limited capital. Among the new technologies, Employee Time Tracking has created quite a stir in the market with a long list of advantages and profits that comes along.

As the head of a manufacturing firm, one of the key jobs that require your minute attention is keeping a track of the hours worked by your staff members. Previously, it was quite a complicated task since it involved paper time sheets, punch cards, or various other means for recording employees’ attendance. Occasionally, workers put incorrect information regarding their entry, exit, and working hours in the timesheet, sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly. Often, these mistakes go unnoticed. Even if they caught eyes, they took a lot of time for the rectification. All these, eventually, impacted the productivity and payroll generation and created an unnecessary hassle. However, now with employee time tracking software, this process has become super smooth and easy to handle. From calculating the productive hours of your employees accurately to managing their day-to-day work schedule and generating payrolls, employee time tracking software delivers it all, that too without burning a hole in your pocket.

Many Advantages of Time Tracking Software

With benefits, such as accurate attendance registration, streamlined job distribution, and precise payroll generation, employee time tracking software has proved to be perfect for manufacturers, who seek to decrease operational cost, regularize production processes, and gain a competitive edge over their peers.

Let us have a look at what changes could an employee time tracking software bring in to your business and how is it beneficial for you:

Improved Workflow

Employee time tracking software enables employers to determine the exact location of their workforce and record the time they spent productively. You can set a geolocation restriction, which lets employees check-in and check-out only when they are within the set radius of the work location. Managers can look-over the workflow even remotely and modify the project plan as and when needed.

Better Utilization of Capital

Manufacturers are on a constant lookout for ways to reduce their expenses. Whether it is decreasing additional costs or limiting budgetary requirements, they are trying each and every method to manage their operational cost. With employee time tracking software at play, managers can easily understand the workflow and rectify faultiness in costing and improve the profitability by a large margin.

Effective management of Payroll

Employee time tracking software can be easily integrated with payroll systems, streamlining the payroll generation process and making it simple and effortless for managers to operate and employees to receive a well-deserved remuneration against the hard work they put in. The accuracy and perfection of these time tracking apps also help in speeding up the payroll generation process by multitasking on myriad processes simultaneously.

PurelyTracking – A Free Workforce Management Solution – is the best employee time tracking software for the US manufacturing industry available in the market at present. It records accurate clock-in and clock-out time of employees working in real time. You can easily generate weekly and monthly timesheets of employees through online web and mobile application. With exact information on hours worked by employees, it is much easier for a manager to estimate the job costing for them. It also lets managers assign daily and weekly tasks, as well as manage, approve, reject employee leaves, digitally through the employee central feature, which is a unique feature you will not find in other time tracking apps present in the market.

How do you record your employees productive hours? Using a spreadsheet that is manually filled in or via a self-reporting device, which keeps a record of their entry, exit, and breaks? Or maybe you are still stuck in the age-old practice of maintaining a muster book and calculating the hours worked by yourself. How will you decide that your employees are accurate and, moreover, honest while recording their productive hours? Can you modify an employee timesheet into a report, in case you need to identify issues or make some important business decisions?

The one-stop solution for all these questions is time clock software. Over the past ten years, time clocks have seen a dramatic evolution in terms of technology. However, tracking time is not easy always. Some environments are extremely difficult to manage and more challenging than many others.

PurelyTracking Time Clock Software is just perfect for such environments. It is a free time tracking software, specially designed to solve all your time tracking-related problems; even those that you are still not aware of. Employee time tracking has always been a practice for businessmen; however, the capability to record every minute detail accurately makes all the difference. With PurelyTracking, you can save thousands of dollars in additional labor pay, payroll taxes, and overtime.

Automation Leading the Path

Nowadays, we are surrounded by web-enabled technologies. With automation in every sector, business environments having general resources, like power and Internet connection, can be benefited at large with free time tracking and attendance solutions. With the present workforce being dynamic and floating, the fixed hours working schedule is passé. Flexible work culture is the current thing. Working from a central location is outdated now; this is the period of work-from-home professionals.

Such workforce needs all the more time tracking, as there may be time difference and disturbance in connecting live. No matter your workforce is working completely off-site or partially floating or a combination of both, PurelyTracking tracks and records all their productive hours effectively. For remote or floating employees, it can be used as a mobile employee time tracking app, while it functions perfectly as a browser-based free time tracking software in traditional settings.

With PurelyTracking -

— Employees can register their entry by checking in and exit by checking out in a single click with the help of an active Internet connection. It is as simple as that.

— The Geo-lock feature ensures accurate data for employee shift, breaks, and daily time cards.

— Employees have control over their time clock and timesheet submissions. The manager and the employee, both, can check current and past timesheets, which streamlines the process in case of any technical error.

— Project Managers can easily track job cost per resource by analyzing timesheets and eliminate human errors by automating job costing for accurate payroll.

And a lot more…

Time management is not an easy task. During a project’s life cycle, a whole lot of things, including the pace of its progress, capital investment, and contribution of fellow members, need to be regulated and managed properly. Whether it’s a freelancer or a team working on a project, time management is one significant aspect, you can’t really afford to mess with. Time tracking may appear complicated at times, but once implemented, it streamlines the whole process, garnering maximum productivity.

For your business to run smoothly, you need to know, rather understand, the pattern of time utilization, and for that the most efficient tool is time tracking software. Many a time, figuring out the completion timeline of a project becomes a reason for conflict in various organizations, especially when everyone has a different outlook of the project’s life cycle. More often than not, the difference in personalities among team members is the main reason behind these issues. Some of them overrate the amount of work, some underestimate the timeline, while many don’t like to calculate at all. However, when the project’s windup goes beyond the deadline, questions and blames are thrown at everyone, damaging the team’s equation and cohesiveness. The dearth of visibility into the actual timeline of a project would result in inaccurate estimation, which, eventually, will lead to the repetition of the same pattern over and over again.

To avoid going through the spiral of miscalculated timelines and missed deadlines, here are a few time tracking tips, you can employ for better estimation and timely delivery of your project:

Make Time Projection

Mark your deadlines in your calendar with projected hours. If the project needs more than a day, then block the productive time required. This will help you in estimating how much time you actually spend on working over various projects and deduce whether you need to free yourself from an activity that might not lead you to great returns.

Evaluate Entire Process

To begin with, you should jot down the entire project plan, document the work-flow, and break it down into one-on-one tasks. It is not uncommon in organizations to put together smaller tasks to make one bigger job. This, however, causes more complexity and mostly delays the whole process. How? If any of the small tasks get stuck midway, it results in the interruptions the entire job. Tracking down the faulty one consumes additional time. So, breaking it down as individual tasks is extremely important.

Use Tracking Software

An efficient time tracking software will iron out all creases in your project plan. With this tool, you won’t need to worry about the collection and storage of required data and reports. Employee time tracking software is specifically helpful when you are working with a team.

Select Best Time Tracking Software for Your Project

There are a number of free time tracking software in the market. However, not all will match up with your requirement. You have to carefully curate the one that suits your needs the best. PurelyTracking – A Free Workforce Management SolutionTM is a simple and easy to operate Web and Mobile solution for effective management of the entire workforce of an organization.

Stocked with Geo-lock Time Clock and Leave Management and Payroll Generation system, it is the best Free Time and Attendance System for your business. Since it is a SaaS product, providing solutions for different pain-points of managers and employees is its speciality.

With PurelyTracking, businesses have seen a massive rise in error-free payroll generation and employee productivity. To offer you the best solution for team time tracking, it comes packaged with a pool of unique features, including:

Time Clock

Timesheet

Employee Self-service

Job Costing

HR Outsourcing

Reports and Integration