Episode 22: Mastering Time Tracking: Unleashing Efficiency and Finding the Perfect Hires for Your Bookkeeping and Accounting Firm

Jul 5

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In this solo episode, Alyssa Lang covers everything you need to know about time tracking, the importance of what data it can produce for you, how to time track with detail and maximizing your efficiency and productivity.

In this episode you’ll hear:

Importance of time tracking and how it can produce vital data
What information time tracking provides to you
Tips and tricks to time tracking with detail
My step-by-step process for compiling time tracking data to make changes and improvements
How to get your team on board to time tracking

Resources mentioned in this episode:

⚙️ Clockify

💻 Kickoff with Asana for Bookkeepers & Accountants

💻 Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants

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Ready to look at how to find the BEST areas of your business to outsource, increase profitability, and really set an intentional focus on where you need to improve? Let’s talk time tracking.

In this blog, we’ll tackle some of my favorite parts of time tracking, including:

How to actually time track and what that looks like.
How to get started with time tracking.
How to get your team on board so that it’s logistically improving profitability.

Let’s dive into one of my all-time FAVE topics!

Why Use Time Tracking?

Am I trying to talk you into tracking your time for every single thing you do in your business? Hell yes I am!

So many people think time tracking is an annoying little thing that no one enjoys doing. But really, it’s a trainable habit you can get into and find success in. And it’s crazy beneficial! When you work for yourself, it’s easy to get into a routine in your day to day and not realize that you’re getting distracted constantly.

Maybe you start by searching for an informative video— then, before you know it, you end up binging funny cat videos. Or you think a task will take you an hour, so that’s what you allow for every time you need to do it for a client. If you had time tracking data to show you how long you’re spending on each task, you’d be able to learn from it!

If you’re a newbie listening to this, you may think you don’t have any data to look at because you’re so new. But that’s WHY you need to be tracking your data to see if you’re pushing your business the way you think you are! How long you’re self-promoting on Facebook, or how long you’re cold calling or handing out cards. It’s EXHAUSTING to be new, so it can feel like work is all you’re doing. But having that time tracking data to look you in the face to see how long you’ve done it can help ensure you’re spending your time efficiently.

Another time tracking perk? Managing workload. You can assume a team member is overworked and miss out on offering them an opportunity to get more work. Or, on the other end, you can assume an employee is doing A-OK when in reality, they’re DROWNING.

How To Get You Team On Board, and What I Use to Track Time

It’s okay if you’re not as pumped about time tracking as I am. You don’t have to do it forever. Just give it ONE cycle. Thirty days. That’ll give you enough data (which we’ll dive into in a minute) to use and make adjustments.

Time tracking for one full client cycle with your team will help you focus on what you’re working on and when your team is the busiest. You can see who’s doing some clean-up projects, when people are doing month-end close, and who has wiggle room to take on tasks at different points.

Speaking of your team — yes! They absolutely should be tracking their time too. And it’s sooo important to present this time-tracking opportunity to your team. Most of us hear this term and remember the feeling of someone watching over your shoulder as you work. But that’s not the goal here!

Every business will have a different time-tracking goal. For example, we are looking for efficiency in my firm. We want to have a four day work week. We want team members to go on vacation whenever they want. Time tracking isn’t about micro-managing them. It’s about being able to cover each other as we go on trips or have emergencies. It’s an opportunity for automation and efficiency, which enables us to produce MORE which lets us better serve our clients and make more MONEY.

So let’s say you found your goal, and your team is on board. Now we have to find the best way to track time with your team. There are a lot of different software you can use. I use Clockify. It’s FREEEEEE which is such a perk. But there is a Chrome extension that puts it right into Asana. And you know I’m the Asana Queen!

A few of my clients ask why I don’t use Harvest, the time tracker integrated into Asana. And while it’s fine for some, I like Clockify because it feels more powerful with reporting. And I love having that data. Since I’ve used Clockify for so long (they even wrote a blog about me!), that’s who I always recommend to my Breakthrough and Asana students. And there are other options, but you know I only preach what I use and believe in.

Whether it’s Clockify or something else, you’ll want to track your time more granularly than you’re used to. If you’re working on a month-end close, you aren’t going to want to name time “month-end close.” You’re going to want to get even more specific.

When you pull statements for the month-end close, go ahead and time that to make it its own timed event in Clockify. Because in the future, if you need to outsource a month-end close— you could outsource someone to pull reports, but then someone else would need to go in and review them.

Along with being super specific with tasks, you’re also going to want to assign your tasks to each client. You can go into your time tracking system and tag it, identify it, or assign it to a different client. That will help you to pull a report or a list per client, then see what you’re charging them, what you’re paying for any software, and what you’re paying for any outsourcing. I’ve had students realize they’re actually losing money on clients, and they wouldn’t have known that if they hadn’t tracked their time!.

How to Use Time Tracking Data

You’ve bought into time tracking. Your team is on board. You have so much data! Now what?

Please don’t just sit there with that data. Let’s dive into it! I suggest giving yourself a full week to go into this data, which sounds aggressive, but the first time you dive in, it can be a lot to digest.

With your time-tracking data, compiling it all together is the first great thing to do. You can do that by the client, by task, and use a spreadsheet to organize the time you spend on each thing. What is the best way to break tasks up? Identify your difficulty level, then break the tasks up in that way.

I suggest breaking them up that way because if you decide to outsource some of those tasks, it will be easiest for you to outsource the “easy” tasks because those make the most sense to you, making it an easy task to explain. And those are tasks that are easy for YOU.

Looking at the amount of time you spend in business sitting right in front of you can teach you a lot. Maybe you’re realizing as you look at this data that you no longer have time to build the business or market. I always suggest creating a Google sheet and listing those things as they come up in your brain. List in the spreadsheet what you want to be able to work on or outsource in the future or how long they may take. And now, in the future, as you’ve outsourced other tasks, maybe you have time to take some of these tasks on for yourself.

As we wrap up, I want to say— most importantly— please give yourself some grace. It is SO HARD to be a business owner. It can feel overwhelming, so I suggest just starting for just a month of time tracking if you feel like it’s too much to chomp off at once. And if you’re still overwhelmed— reach out to me! I’m ALWAYS pumped to talk about all things time tracking with my fellow firm owners.

Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag me, @workflowqueen

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