Tracking employees’ time has long been an effective way to ensure that businesses are running efficiently and profitably. But there hasn’t always been an easy way to keep track of time in some industries. While it’s straightforward enough to track office workers’ time, when it comes to scheduling retail workers, shift planning for servers, and monitoring construction project management, it wasn’t always as simple.

Thankfully there is now an easy way to track employee time and implement shift scheduling for small businesses, no matter what industry you work in! Time tracking software provides the perfect tool to streamline these processes.

Find out the benefits of time tracking for your industry below.

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Planning for the Retail Industry

Managing the schedules for full-time, part-time, and weekend staff in retail can be time-consuming and confusing, especially when covering the overtime during busy periods. Scheduling retail workers manually can result in human error. This might mean that the shop floor is understaffed, more senior team members are overworked, or some team members are allocated fewer shifts.

Manual shift scheduling can result in no-shows of a team member and staff shortages, leading to long lines at the checkouts, incomplete tasks, stock gaps on shelves, dissatisfied customers, and less money in the register at the end of the day. Mistakes made when planning timesheets can have a knock-on effect on productivity and profit, as well as staff morale and employee turnover.

Employee scheduling and time tracking software offers a solution to all these issues. Thanks to a mobile app, employees are notified in real-time if their scheduled shifts change and always have access to their rotas. Managers can create, edit, and publish shifts from anywhere and send notifications, so the team is updated in real-time.

The result? A store that runs like a well-oiled machine, with well-planned rotas, happy staff, and satisfied customers.

Scheduling for the Service Industry

The service industry is another sector that benefits significantly from time tracking and scheduling software. From consumer services, hospitality and cleaning, to transport, logistics and IT, many service-industry jobs don’t operate on 9-5 hours, which means that shift planning for servers can be stressful, chaotic, and time-consuming for managers.

Many service-industry roles are also mobile, meaning managers won’t always have direct contact with their team members when they’re working on jobs. This can make time tracking for service industries complex and leaves room for error and lost income if time is tracked manually.

The QuickBooks Time time tracker and mobile app offer:

• Peace of mind for managers
• Autonomy for team members
• Keep track of projects from anywhere
• Maintain trust in teams
• Update schedules in real-time
• Smart reporting
• GPS feature so you know where your team is while they’re working

Tracking for the Construction Industry

Construction is another industry where many workers are contracted or mobile workers, moving from site to site as projects are completed. As such, managing and scheduling shifts and tracking construction projects can be a convoluted process for managers. With crew members being paid different salaries, working on various projects, and different shift schedules, it’s all too easy to get tied in knots.

Construction project management apps, like QuickBooks, help construction managers organize their staff effectively and efficiently while tracking their time accurately. With features like GPS and geofencing, online timesheets, project tracking, costing, and crew functionality, managers can save time and stay on track with ease.

Team members also benefit from easy access to their shifts and important information accessible through the time tracking app. This means there’s no need to duck out of projects to make phone calls to the office, and they’re informed ahead of time of any shift changes.

There are many benefits to using time tracking software in construction, such as:

• Keeping your team on track: Assign a set number of hours to the job tasks and receive notifications when your team reaches the end of those hours.
• Capturing all costs: Avoid under-billing clients on projects and justify your invoices with time tracking data from reports to show correct billable hours.
• Adding value for the client: Your clients benefit from a detailed breakdown of time spent and the costs, enabling them to budget accordingly.
• Improving quotes to correctly bill clients: Use data from past projects to provide more accurate insights on timings and costs when quoting new jobs.
• Keeping tabs on multiple projects: Tracking construction projects means being able to see who has been working on which job and how long it has taken.
• Knowing where your team is: The GPS feature means you know which team members are on-site and when and adjust their hours accordingly.

Using QuickBooks Time for Your Industry

Time tracking and shift scheduling for small businesses might sound complicated and time-consuming, but thanks to technology, it’s easier than ever to effectively manage your team’s time. Tracking software like QuickBooks Time is designed with the user in mind; with a simple and intuitive interface and user-friendly functionality on both the desktop and the mobile time tracking app, it’s easy to pick up and quickly learn to use.

No matter what industry your business works within – quality time trackers can save you time, money, and a headache in the long run. Sign up for a free trial of this time tracking solution today, and see what we mean!