What Can Leaders Expect from TimeBee for Their Consultancy Firms?

Consulting firms are the holy grail that help businesses sort out their problems. But what do these firms do when issues like missed deliverables and fussy clients become a nagging bone in their back?

Well, there, their expertise and knowledge reach their limit. Here is a smart way to tackle this: hire another expert in the form of a consultant time tracking software, something that can fit into your workflows and sort all your issues for you.

But we have another wall to breach, which one to choose? Today, on our agenda is a well-known app called TimeBee. Let’s see if it is all talk and no show.

The Unique Challenges of Consultancy Firms

Consultancy firms are driven by clients and have challenges unique to their industry that can lead to slow growth and render firms incapable of upscaling if not dealt with promptly. Some of them are listed below for you to see:

Several Clients – Consultants, on average, deal with around 6 clients per year, which translates to multiple meetings every day and endless deadlines to meet. Over time, the constant context-switching can deplete their attention and result in missed deliverables, eventually impacting client trust.
Resource Allocation – Project distribution is another challenge, with the management having to pair the right consultants with the right clients and projects. Not only that, they have to further ensure that no employee is overburdened.
Employee Tracking – With every employee working on multiple tasks at once, productivity monitoring and time tracking are also a struggle.
No Visibility – The lack of insights into consultants’ work ultimately causes subpar performance, billing disputes, vague project profitability estimates, and undermines clients’ trust in the organization.

What Is TimeBee?

TimeBee is a consultant time tracking software that is designed to help consulting firms improve their efficiency and streamline processes.

To begin using the software, you are required to first add your team to its dashboard and then customize the organization’s and users’ settings as needed.

The settings allow you to configure the working days, shift start/end time, late/early margin, screenshot frequency, timeout after, expected keypresses/mouse clicks per minute, etc.

An added functionality is its role-based access. Rather than letting everyone in an organization see what the employees are up to, TimeBee enables management to give member, admin, and owner access to users.

While members can only self-monitor and see their own logs, admins and owners have access to the data of all employees to help with monitoring and decision-making.

Once fixed, your consultants can start tracking their time and productivity with TimeBee. For starters, the software is low-resource-intensive and therefore runs in the target device continuously without disrupting the user’s workflow.

Moreover, to start and stop monitoring, the employees only need to click the desktop app timer and go about their day without the app demanding constant input.

All the recorded data is sent to TimeBee’s web dashboard in real-time for admins to see. The dashboard in question is centralized, intuitive, and offers a user-friendly experience.

But before you start the monitoring process, ensure ethical and responsible use of TimeBee, since it will make employees more accepting of this tool.

Key Features

Logged Hours – See the time automatically logged by each consultant, and also allow them to manually add any time entries from when they were in a meeting. However, the entries must first be approved by their manager to be added to the timesheet.
Attendance Report – Check the exact time your employees clocked in and clocked out of work. Also be privy to any early leaves, late arrivals, absences, and short hours based on pre-determined settings with the tagging system of TimeBee.
Overtime Tracking – Automatically calculate each user’s overtime using minimum logged hour requirements and start/end shift time.
Web and App Rating – Rate every website and application used in your organization. TimeBee records all used websites and apps on the web dashboard with a default rating of unrated. Admins can then change the ratings to productive, unproductive, or neutral as deemed fit.
Activity Summary – Based on the time spent by each user on the rated websites and apps, you get insight into your employees’ productivity and unproductivity levels during work hours.
Project Tracking – Apart from time categorization based on web and app activity, you can also see the time spent by each consultant on any internal and external projects. All their logged hours are, therefore, divided into specific projects and their subsequent tasks.
Payroll Calculation – Salaries for each employee are automatically calculated based on their hourly rates and total worked hours to reduce tasks and improve business efficiency. You can further add any adjustment amounts, offering compensations, bonuses, etc.
Client Invoicing – Based on each employee’s set client rates and logged hours on external projects, bills for each client can be calculated and then exported for invoicing.
Profitability Reports – Through comparative analysis of calculated payroll and bills, TimeBee helps executives gain insight into overall and project-specific profitability.
Screenshot Monitoring – Capture an employee’s screen snapshots based on a predefined frequency. The interval can be set at every 2, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 minutes, as deemed fit. Contrarily, they can be turned off entirely by selecting “Never.”
Client Dashboard – All the above-mentioned records, except for payroll and profitability reports, are also made available for clients in a separate dashboard when employees log time in an external project.

Benefits of Using TimeBee for Consultancy Leaders

So, why can manual timesheets and gut feelings no longer suffice in consultancy firms? That can be answered by looking into how tools like TimeBee can help firms in both the short and long run:

Culture of Transparency – Complete visibility, both for the managers and the clients, reduces the risk of objections and helps see exactly where projects are headed. They further provide solid statistics and fact-based discussions to present to executives and stakeholders.
Accurate Logging – The hassle of human error and time theft is reduced significantly due to the accurate time and activity logs of each employee. Also, the reliability of recorded data reduces the chances of billing disputes.
Optimized Allocation – Managers are allowed to allocate resources more smartly and make changes before project damage becomes irrevocable. Using the insights from TimeBee, they can redistribute projects and reassign tasks based on a consultant’s skill set.
Streamlined Workflows – The automation of approvals, tracking, and other tasks frees up time for managers, finance, and administrative teams. Rather than having to chase any discrepancies in employee time records, the automated data collection allows them to focus on other, more significant issues.
Scope Creep Prevention – A large number of projects, i.e., 52% of them face scope creep. While some clients require the bare minimum and pay only for that, over time, they can ask more from the consultant than initially agreed upon. With all the records available on TimeBee, scope creep can be prevented, and if not, then paid for.
Accountability – Due to a proper trail of work available, audits are made easier. Moreover, performance improves because employees know that they are answerable for their work.

Bottom Line:

While TimeBee consultant time tracking software can be a helpful tool for your consultancy firm, you must encourage its use within reason and not lose sight of employee privacy.

If not used responsibly, you can adversely impact team morale and cause their motivation to dwindle. Remember, most employees are doing their best; you should too.

Pro Tip:

While using TimeBee for data-driven decision making, make sure your employees are involved in the process, with the goals of all new policies laid out properly.