About Dynamics, Development and Life: Tracking your billable time on the Blackberry/Android/iPhone

Mark Polino on his DynamicAccounting site has covered a couple of write-ups about Consultant Utilizations and Daily Timesheets from eOne Solutions.

http://msdynamicsgp.blogspot.com/2010/04/consultant-utilization.html

http://msdynamicsgp.blogspot.com/2010/04/consultant-utilization-part-2.html

I’d encourage you to read the articles on the eOne solutions blog and Mark’s comments on his blog. Martin on his blog has written about how you can effectively track your billable time and increase utilization using daily timesheets and budgeting every hour for a consultant. He points out how that would help you to keep track of all billable time. Steve Endow in his comment agrees and adds -

“I previously managed a consulting practice with 6 consultants, and can confirm that those who did not track their time on a daily basis failed to record all of their billable time and had lower utilization.”

Mark has practical and insightful comments saying -

“I typically mark down my time and what I did daily but I don’t necessarily transfer it to my timesheet daily for lots of reasons, good and bad. These include the time it takes to connect and enter time, the schedule (not all planes have WIFI and the LAST thing my wife wants to hear when I get home at midnight is that I need to submit my time) and some clients truly do lock down internet availability. Some hotels also struggle to reach dial up speeds with their WIFI.”

and

“I generally agree but would add that it’s important not to lose sight of customer satisfaction in pursuit of squeezing out the last dollar.”

I had the first comment at the back of my head this week when I saw a few interesting applications related to this for the Blackberry( and Android/iPhone). Tracking on your smartphone helps solve the wi-fi problem Mark was pointing out. In addition they can help track the time you spend on your phone answering emails and taking calls that take long enough to be billable.

Again I’d keep Mark’s second comment about customer satisfaction in mind while using these apps. However, I can see how these would be a big help – just read their description below.

Blackberry

Call Time Tracker

Would you love an Excel sheet of your mobile calls, neatly categorized by the clients and projects that you work on? Could you use that report to bill your time, expense part of your bill, generate a timesheet, or make sense of your mobile bill? If so, download Call Time Tracker now.

Fierce Wireless, ZDNet and CIO Zone all recently awarded us 'top 10 mobile worker app'. CIO Zone said 'If you re trying to keep track of business activity conducted on your BlackBerry, it is a tough app to beat'.

The app pops up at the end of important calls, and within a few clicks you can book that call to a client and project and mark it as billable time or recoverable cost. Or dismiss it, or leave it for later. You can also tag the time you spend reading and writing emails.

Blackberry Lite Activity Management

BlackTrack provides business professionals with a complete log of phone/email activity with durations. These secure & private reports let you manage, control and bill the time spent on your mobile device.

Android

CallTrack

CallTrack allows you to keep track of all your calls on your Google Calendar. After a call is made, received, or missed, CallTrack puts an entry into your calendar with call details including name of the caller, number, and duration of the call.

I have just started using an android phone, so I tried this app. Loved how it immediately synced my google calendar will all my calls from this week!