Field service technicians often work in shifts at a job site. If they are contractual labors, knowing their availability is also a problem statement to think about. As a field service business, you have to take care of such variables to ensure your job is taken care of seamlessly.
A timesheet management software helps field service businesses ensure their projects are on schedule and remain so till completion. The benefits go beyond the nitty gritty of field service project management – as one can ensure employee accountability, gather information to make decisions, time tracking, etc.
We cover the various use cases of a timesheet management software for a field service business and what to look for while choosing one.
Making the most of project timelines with timesheet management software
Time tracking is an essential feature of timesheet management software. When you have accurate time estimates and on-ground values, your project manager can take care of below tasks in a project:
Get accurate time clocked on the field
You can perform time-off tracking, fix break times, and any overtime done by your field service technicians or indiscipline during work hours on the job site. Zuper, a field service management software with time-tracking functionalities includes advanced features like geo-fencing. Here, you will get notified whenever your field service workers travel beyond the designated area.
This helps you understand the actual situation on-ground while knowing how many productive hours are spent on the job site. You can use this data to optimize your project estimates and recalibrate them to accommodate on-ground situations.
Payroll management
Eliminate cases of overpaying as time tracking enables you to pay your field service technicians based on billable hours.
For a timesheet management software that is integrated with payment features, with a few clicks you can make on-time payments to your labor. The tracked time also serves as proof to showcase your clients and justify your pricing.
Stay compliant with labor laws
Field service businesses often operate across geographies that have their labor laws to comply with. Messing with labor laws may lead to invoking your license to operate in that region.
A timesheet management software provides necessary proof for any audits conducted by officials. Good compliance practices also attract talented field service technicians for whom ethical workplace culture is of importance.
Prepare reports for making decisions
Good timesheet management software will have provisions to make quick reports for management to review. A dashboard feature is great to collaborate and get visibility on how your business is operating on job sites.
Retrieve data that your company tracks like clock-in/clock-out timings, hours spent versus hours billed for, payments done, etc to prepare custom reports.
Overcoming challenges to implementing timesheet management software
Since the end user of a timesheet management software are your field service technicians and employees, their comfort in adapting to it is important.
Here are best practices to overcome any implementation challenges of a timesheet management software your business might face:
- Provide software training: some field service technicians may be technologically handicapped. Ensure your software vendor provides training services to remove the fear of the unknown for your workers. Opting for user-friendly software is necessary since time tracking determines your worker’s final pay.
- SOP for technical issues: does your software vendor provide good customer support? Sometimes such services are paid for extra, hence you should ensure good documentation for self-diagnosis. Before making a choice, conduct enough due diligence on customer reviews about technical outages.
- Ensure software has integration capabilities: if you’re already using software for other tasks like accounting, project estimation, contract management, etc – ensure your time tracking software can integrate with them to share data. To avoid managing multiple software, better to choose a field service management software that includes timesheet management.
- Use mobile features: choose a time-tracking software vendor that comes with mobile app capabilities. Ensure field service technicians understand how to operate the app to avoid loss of tracked time. Avoid solutions that require implementing hardware components for attendance tracking.
- Take measures to secure data: using an unreliable timesheet software management software may lead to the erasure of tracked time, causing chaos in your project schedule. Conduct due diligence to know about any episodes of data hacking or corruption. Work with the software support team to implement necessary security measures.
Time tracking is an important input for your field service business
Inaccurate time tracking will create a complete mess for your payroll, client invoicing, project scheduling and cash flow management. Thus, you must choose a timesheet management software that is reliable with good customer reviews.
At Zuper, we understand the criticality of time tracking for field service business. Our dedicated field service management software provides a secure way for timesheet management. Book a demo to explore our time-tracking features and automation.
