By Mindy Williams

What is this thing called time? Great scientific minds have debated that question trying to determine its nature. But in the business world, time is really down to earth. It's how both management and staff spend their work day. It's what we do for our clients and our company. When time is tracked successfully and invoiced to clients, it's how we make money to pay our bills because mark up of outside costs doesn't go too far. We get back to the old equation: time = money. Whether you bill directly for your time or not, how you are spending your time is important and expensive. So how are you spending your time? You're working as hard and as fast as you can, but are you working as smart as you can? Tracking your time-all your time-and then looking at the results will give you the answer to these questions.

Tracking time easily

     In the advertising world, there are two parts to time keeping. The first is tracking the time itself-how it gets applied to different jobs, how it's monitored and kept on track, and how it gets billed. The second is the universally-dreaded problem of getting staffers to turn in or enter their time. Most people hate keeping track of their time and any obstacle is one more reason not to do it. Who wants the job of beating it out of them or rewarding them for doing something they are supposed to do anyway? You have your own work to do! So instead of threats or bribes, Clients & Profits offers you tools that remove the obstacles which make time entry so odious.

     What problems occur if you don't manage and track time successfully? You have no real idea of how you spend the day. Your clients are dissatisfied because jobs don't get done within budget. You might even go out of business because you unknowingly give too much time away. Every hour that you don't bill, you are working for free.

Keeping a client's confidence

      How does tracking time well help in your relationship with your clients? With complete time tracking, you can provide clients with more accurate estimates of how much a job will cost. You'll know how much time needs to be spent to complete the job by comparing new work to similar work previously done.

     Also, you can instantly provide printed time reports to back up billings. Give your clients detailed accounts of time costs-who is doing what, hour by hour-showing them that you don't waste your time or theirs. Your clients will be impressed by your organization and efficiency concerning how time is spent on their jobs. The agency down the street isn't going to be able to offer this kind of control and assurance-unless they have Clients & Profits, too!


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