Time is money

Most of my clients work with me on a per-day basis, which means that I deliver them, say, 3 days’ marketing per month, and bill accordingly. To be sure that I am giving a good service and not short-changing my clients, I’ve always been meticulous about accounting for my time. Until very recently, this has meant logging it by writing it down, then transferring that at the end of the day to individual spreadsheets for each client.

This has never been too arduous, but it has on occasions led me to under-bill, due to losing a sheet of paper or forgetting to write something down.

Years ago, when I was contracting for a professional services firm, the accountants all used billing software that accurately logged their time, and I recently decided that maybe I should look into it too. So, I spent some time over the last few months trying out various programmes that all promised to help me log my time and so become more efficient all round. Some were free, and some were paid but had free trials.

I tried about four, but none of them really gave me what I wanted. Then I found an online time-logging application called Toggl. I’ve been using it for a few weeks now and I’m really impressed. Not only does it have an online facility, but there’s also has a free smartphone app (Android and iPhone) and a desktop widget. I’ve only signed up for a free account – I only need a free account as there’s only me – and it’s really helped my productivity. Instead of scribbling down the client name and task, I can set these up in advance and just click to start timing and then again to stop. It tallies up my day for me by client and project, and I can see at a glance what billable work I’ve done that day, or for the past week or month – and longer.

You can download reports or set up the system to email them to you weekly, and you can view your time over a certain period broken down by client or by project.

I can really recommend this fab little application if you need to account for your time or bill your own clients for time spent on their projects.

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