Time and Billing Software:

Software designed to handle time and billing tracking as well as invoicing customers for services and products. Billing software can track the hours worked by employees as well as expenses associated with projects or clients.

Time tracking and billing software is designed to support professional services firms. Features include client billing and accounts receivables with integration to general ledger and accounting software packages. Employees or consultants are entered into the system with an associated billing rate. When the employee enters hours against a project or client, the client costs are automatically calculated and the organization can bill clients, report on revenue and find and leverage available consultants and time for other projects.

Features and Benefits of Time and Billing Software

• Time tracking. Generally, this core functionality captures worked hours down to the minute in real time and records these on a timesheet. The timesheet is used it to bill clients or calculate payroll with accuracy. Time tracking also lets you visualize tasks in a timeline. It helps project leaders or managers to estimate deadlines and completion dates.
• Online timesheet. Not all time tracking software features a timesheet, which centralizes all recorded billable hours. The timesheet acts as attendance report that also tracks absences, time-offs and holidays. It is usually exported to PDF or CSV and used for payroll or invoicing.
• Project management. Although many time tracking software solutions are integrated to a larger project management system, some time tracking apps do feature lightweight project management tools. For example, they allow you to group tasks or set deadlines by project and set priorities. You can also track project’s progress by time element like daily, weekly and month or set budgets per project. For small and simple projects a time tracking app does the job.
• Online invoicing. This feature is a must-have if you bill clients by the hour or minutes. The feature tracks all worked hours with accuracy and automatically generates billing based on your settings like billable time and rates. This tool helps you invoice clients with transparency, so disputes are avoided. The tool also automates wage calculations, a great time-saver for small businesses. Employees need only to clock in/out and their time is captured on a timesheet, which is fed into a payroll system.
• Alerts. Notifications can be applied to different ways. For example, a reminder is sent to employees when they miss to check in or out. You can also be warned ahead when the team is falling behind schedule. Likewise, your team and its members can be alerted for urgent or pending tasks. Notifications are automated and can be sent to different channels and devices like email, SMS and dashboard.
• User management. It allows you to create groups and manage users by team or department. This helps you to assign tasks or generate reports by group. It also helps you delegate team tasks to a team leader. This feature uses permissions for different user types like admin, manager and staff to manage system access.
• Reporting and analytics. It lets you create reports and summaries with a few clicks to analyze a wide range of data relating to tasks. For example, you can review total time spent on a project or drill down to specifics such as weekly and daily stats or analyze the numbers per task. You can also run analytics on budget or find out areas where to cut costs. Reports are visualized in charts and graphs for quick lookups. Most solutions also provide templates with customization options.