Time tracking for programmers
and IT service providers
A grip on hours, projects
and IT assignments
In software development and IT services, time is a key production factor. Programmers, consultants, system administrators and other IT professionals often work simultaneously on different customers, projects, tickets and support requests. A few extra hours of work on a project may seem harmless, but when those hours are not logged, they quickly disappear from view. That has consequences for invoicing, project planning and ultimately the profitability of your organisation.
With TimeWriter you can easily record how much time employees spend on customers, projects and activities. This gives you insight into the actual time spent on an assignment, and you can use the logged hours for invoicing, project monitoring and post-calculation. Whether you work with hourly rates, fixed project prices, maintenance contracts or a combination of these: reliable time tracking gives you the information to manage your IT activities better.
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Developing software takes more time
than just programming
A software project rarely consists solely of writing code. Programmers spend time on analysis, meetings, testing, debugging, documentation, code reviews, deployment and troubleshooting. On top of that there are phone calls with customers, stand-ups, sprint planning sessions and other activities needed to bring a project to a successful conclusion.
It is precisely with these activities that keeping proper track of the time spent can be difficult. A developer, for example, first works two hours on a new feature, then gets a call about a production issue and subsequently spends another hour and a half fixing a bug. If these hours are only logged at the end of the week, it is not always clear anymore exactly how much time was spent on which project or which customer.
Good time tracking ensures that this time is not lost. You see not only how many hours someone has worked, but also what those hours were actually spent on.
Where does time leak away
in IT projects?
IT projects are often dynamic in nature. New insights emerge during development, customers change their requirements, and technical problems sometimes turn out to be more complex than anticipated. As a result, the amount of work can change considerably during a project without the original project plan being formally adjusted.
A few extra hours for a change or bug fix may seem limited. However, when several employees carry out extra work over several weeks, the difference between the original budget and the actual effort can quickly add up. Without good time tracking, it is difficult to determine exactly what that extra time was spent on.
By logging hours consistently, such deviations become visible. You can then see, for example, that a project structurally requires more time for testing, that a certain feature is far more complex than expected, or that a customer makes a lot of additional requests.
That makes time tracking an important tool for recognising scope creep and unexpected project costs at an earlier stage.
For many IT service providers, hours worked are directly a major part of their revenue. When an employee spends an hour on a customer but does not log that hour, or logs it incorrectly, there is a chance that it will ultimately not be invoiced. On a small scale that may not seem problematic. On an annual basis, however, forgotten hours can make a considerable difference.
Of course, not every minute worked is billable. Employees also spend time on internal meetings, training, sales, administration and other activities. That is why it is important to be able to distinguish between different types of time spent. This gives you insight into the ratio between billable and non-billable hours and lets you better assess how efficiently your available capacity is being used.
Good time tracking thus answers questions such as: how much time do we actually spend on customers? How much time goes into internal work? Which employees are structurally under heavy load? And which customers or projects require more capacity than expected?
Time tracking with Agile and Scrum
Even when your development team works Agile or according to Scrum, insight into time spent remains valuable. A sprint plan indicates which work the team expects to carry out, but priorities can change during the sprint. A bug unexpectedly gets high priority, a user story turns out to be more complex than expected, or a technical problem requires extra investigation.
By recording the actual hours, you gain insight afterwards into the time that different types of work actually took. That can help with future planning and budgeting. You may discover, for example, that certain types of work structurally take more time than was estimated beforehand.
Time tracking therefore need not be at odds with Agile working. On the contrary, it can be an additional source of information that helps you better estimate how much work your team can actually get through and which activities require the most capacity.
Fixed price?
Then hours matter all the more
When you invoice a customer by the hour, it is logical that you want to know how many hours have been spent on an assignment. But even when you work with a fixed project price, time tracking remains important. After all, you want to know how much time the project really cost and whether the project ultimately proved profitable.
Suppose you sell a software project for a fixed price and expect development to take 400 hours. If 550 hours turn out to be needed in the end, that has direct consequences for the profitability of the project. Without time tracking you may only see that the project has been delivered. With time tracking you also see what the actual effort was.
That information is valuable for future quotations. You can use earlier projects as a reference and thereby better estimate how much capacity comparable work really requires. In this way, time tracking not only helps with today's administration, but also with budgeting future IT projects more realistically.
Support and administration:
every ticket counts
Not every IT organisation develops software projects exclusively. Many IT service providers combine development with support, system administration, consultancy and maintenance. Employees often work on dozens of smaller tasks and tickets per week. It is precisely in that environment that correctly recording all time spent can be difficult.
A support request from a customer may initially take only a few minutes, but several requests per day quickly add up to a substantial number of hours. When employees do not log these activities consistently, a distorted picture emerges of the amount of capacity a customer requires.
By also linking support and administration work to customers or projects, you get a complete picture of your services. This lets you better assess which customers require a lot of support, which activities fall within a contract and where additional services or extra work arise.
Recognise extra work and scope creep
at an earlier stage
In software development, the scope of a project changes regularly. A customer asks for an extra feature, an existing function has to be built differently, or an integration turns out to be more complicated than originally thought. For the developer these are normal tasks, but commercially they can have major consequences.
When extra work is not made visible separately, a project can imperceptibly cost more and more hours. The client still expects the same delivery for the same price, while the development team deploys more and more capacity.
By assigning hours to the right projects and activities, you can spot deviations between the original plan and the actual effort at an earlier stage. That makes it easier to discuss with the customer whether a change is part of the original assignment or should be treated as additional work.
From time tracking
to project insight
Time tracking only becomes truly valuable when the logged hours are also used to analyse projects. By comparing the hours spent with the original budget, you gain insight into how a project is developing. Is the assignment going according to plan, or is structurally more time being spent than expected?
This information also yields valuable insights afterwards. You can analyse which activities took the most time, which projects were profitable and where budgets structurally deviate from reality. This creates a factual basis for future project planning and quotations.
For an IT service provider, that ultimately means more than just a correct timesheet. It gives you the opportunity to connect projects, capacity and profitability more closely.
Insight into capacity
and workload
IT organisations work with scarce knowledge and capacity. A programmer who is fully scheduled on projects is not simply available for a new assignment. At the same time, employees may spend a large part of their time on activities that are not directly visible in the planning.
Good time tracking makes it clear how the available time is actually spent. You can, for example, distinguish between customer projects, support, internal work, meetings and other activities. This creates a more realistic picture of the available capacity and of the ratio between productive and non-productive time.
That helps with planning new projects and distributing work within the team. It also makes visible when employees are structurally overloaded or when capacity is available that is not yet being used optimally.
Easy logging
prevents forgotten hours
Programmers want to program and consultants want to help customers. Time tracking is therefore quickly seen as administrative work that has to be done in between the real work. The more complicated the logging process, the greater the chance that employees postpone their hours or have to reconstruct them afterwards.
That is why simplicity matters. Employees must be able to quickly indicate which customer, project and activity they have worked on. When logging time takes little effort and becomes part of the normal working day, the records are kept better up to date.
TimeWriter is designed to make that logging simple and clear. The same logged hours can then be used for various purposes, such as invoicing, project monitoring, reports and post-calculation.
From hours to
better business management
Time tracking is sometimes seen as an administrative obligation. For an IT service provider, however, it can be much more than that. The logged hours tell you how your organisation actually deploys its capacity and how much time different customers and projects require.
When you use this information structurally, you can recognise patterns. Perhaps a certain type of project structurally requires more development time than expected. Perhaps the number of support hours for a particular customer is increasing. Or perhaps it turns out that employees spend far more time on internal meetings than was foreseen in the planning.
By making this information visible, you can make well-founded choices about planning, rates, project budgets and staffing capacity. In this way, time tracking becomes a tool to make your IT organisation work more efficiently and in a financially healthier way.
For programmers, software companies
and IT service providers
TimeWriter is suitable for organisations in which time is spent on customers, projects and activities. That makes the system usable for a wide range of IT organisations, from independent software developers and small development teams to larger software companies, consultancy organisations and managed service providers.
Whether your employees mainly develop software, carry out implementations, provide technical consultancy, deliver support or manage systems: the basis remains the same. You want to know how much time is spent on a customer or project and what that time means for your planning, invoicing and profitability.
Why TimeWriter for IT?
Easy time tracking
Employees log their time quickly and clearly, so that hours do not have to be reconstructed at the end of the week.
Logging per customer and project
Link hours worked to the right customer, assignment, project or activity and keep an overview of the actual time spent.
Billable hours
Distinguish between billable and non-billable work and reduce the chance that hours worked are left out of invoicing.
Project monitoring
Use logged hours to follow the progress of projects and recognise deviations between plan and reality at an earlier stage.
Post-calculation
Analyse completed projects and use the actual time spent to budget future projects and quotations more accurately.
Insight into capacity
Make visible what employees spend their time on and get a better picture of the available and used capacity.
From logging hours to a grip on IT projects
A good IT project starts with a clear assignment and a realistic plan. During execution, however, something almost always changes. A customer asks an additional question, a technical challenge turns out to be more complex than expected, or a bug requires an unexpected amount of investigation. Without reliable time tracking, it remains difficult to determine what such changes actually cost.
With TimeWriter you record the actual time spent in a clear and organised way. This gives you insight into projects, customers, activities and capacity, and provides you with reliable information for invoicing and post-calculation.
In this way, time tracking becomes not just a record of the past, but a tool for planning and managing future IT projects better.
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Frequently asked questions about time tracking
for programmers and IT
Why is time tracking important for IT companies?
IT projects consist of many different activities and can change during execution. Good time tracking makes visible how much time is actually spent on customers, projects and activities. This creates a reliable basis for invoicing, project monitoring, post-calculation and future budgets.
Is time tracking also important for fixed-price software projects?
Yes. With a fixed-price project, the number of hours does not determine the invoice, but the number of hours is important for determining the profitability of the project. When a project takes far more time than budgeted, that can be an important indication that similar future projects need to be budgeted differently.
Can programmers log hours per project?
Yes. Employees can link their time to customers, projects and activities. This lets you see later how much time was spent on a specific assignment and which activities within that project required the most capacity.
Can I also log support hours?
Yes. Support, maintenance and other activities can become part of the time tracking. This also provides an overview of the time spent on a customer or assignment for smaller tasks.
Does time tracking help prevent scope creep?
Time tracking can help make extra work visible. When a project structurally requires more hours than originally budgeted, you can investigate what is causing this. Extra features, changes or additional requests from a customer can thus be recognised earlier as a possible scope extension.
Is time tracking useful when we work Agile or Scrum?
Yes. With Agile and Scrum too, it can be valuable to record the actual time spent. The logged hours can provide insight into the amount of time different activities take and can be used to estimate future projects, sprints and budgets more realistically.
Can I see how many hours a customer costs?
By linking hours to customers and projects, you can analyse the total time spent per customer. That is particularly interesting for IT service providers that combine different forms of services, such as development, consultancy, support and system administration.
Can time tracking help avoid forgetting billable hours?
Consistent logging makes visible which activities have been carried out and to which customer or assignment these activities are linked. This gives you a more reliable basis for invoicing and reduces the chance that hours worked are not included.
Can I use time tracking for post-calculation?
Yes. The logged hours provide insight into the actual time spent. By comparing this data with the original budget afterwards, you can determine where deviations have arisen and use this information for future projects and quotations.
More grip on your IT projects?
Good software does not come about only through good programming, but also by keeping projects manageable. That requires insight into the time employees actually spend on customers, projects and activities.
With TimeWriter you make time tracking easy for programmers and IT professionals and usable for project managers, administration and management. This gives you better insight into billable hours, project costs, capacity and the actual effort behind your IT services.
Try TimeWriter and discover how much more insight good time tracking can give you.
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