8 Reasons Why You Need an Integrated Time Tracking and Invoicing System

Time tracking and invoicing can both be major challenges for businesses of all sizes. Keeping track of how much time is spent on projects, invoicing clients accurately and timely, and ensuring timely payments can be a daunting task.

In fact, 48% of businesses process over 500 invoices a month. That’s a great deal of work especially for companies that are operating manually, causing numerous bottlenecks, delays in billing, administrative errors, miscalculations, and sometimes even misplaced documents. Worse, accounting teams are in a constant state of stress and pressure, trying not to drown in paperwork.

While the majority of organizations already have accounting software, not all of these platforms provide automated features for invoicing. Studies have shown that 57% of invoice data still needs to be manually entered. This results in 61% of delayed payments due to billing errors that had to be amended, rebilled, and reprocessed.

So, how can you address or completely avoid these pressing concerns from happening to your business?

The answer is simple: By using an integrated time tracking and invoicing system that is capable of automatically generating invoicing statements from work hours tracked. Through such solutions, businesses can streamline tedious, recurring tasks, making the entire billing process more efficient, organized, and accurate.

In this article, we’ll delve into the 8 key reasons why you need an integrated time tracking and invoicing system for your business.

Increased Efficiency and Productivity 

Automating invoicing systems reduce the time spent on invoice processing by 50% and invoice approvals often take too much time with an average of 2-4 days to secure a signature alone. Studies prove that nearly half of accounting professionals (47%) believe that slow invoice authorization is one of the biggest challenges they face. 21% cite “too much manual data entry” as their top processing concern.

As we’ve established, expediting invoicing is crucial for maintaining a healthy business. Cutting down the time and resources spent on manually creating invoicing statements by at least half of what you’re currently disbursing will greatly accelerate productivity, efficiency, and financial savings. Likewise, this frees up your teams to handle more high-impact projects that will contribute to the company’s overall success. In fact, research proves that system automation can increase business efficiency by 73%.

Through an integrated system, you’ll save plenty of time by automating the tedious tasks associated with time tracking and invoicing. The system will record time spent on projects and generate accurate invoices, reducing the need for manual calculations and paperwork.

Accurate Time Tracking = Precise Billing

Time tracking is a critical component of accurate invoicing. Precise time tracking ensures that clients are billed correctly for the services provided, eliminating any risks for discrepancies or disputes. It reduces the back and forth of documents due to the simplest clerical mistakes or the most significant miscalculations that could negatively impact your revenues.

Because all essential information is automated, it leaves no room for error often caused by manual data input. Likewise, it particularly reduces the risk for fraud and time theft in the organization. 

Implementing a reliable time tracking system not only promotes transparency and accountability. It also ensures fair compensation for the hard work and effort put in by your employees. Ultimately, accurately tracking time is an essential aspect of maintaining a successful and profitable business.

Professional, Error-Free Invoicing Capabilities

An integrated time tracking and invoicing system streamlines time data with the invoice generator. This means that all billable hours logged into the system will funnel into a single dashboard accessible to your accounting team. From there, they can easily filter and categorize time spent on each task or project, verify the data, and generate invoices.

However, it doesn’t end at producing just any invoice template– it needs to look professional and contains complete information. Through an automated time tracking and invoicing platform, you will be able to generate instant professional-looking invoices with just a few clicks. You can easily customize the invoice templates, add your logo, and include all the necessary details; essentially simplifying the invoicing process. This ensures that invoices are sent out promptly, accurately, and professionally.

Efficient and Amicable Collection Process

87% of businesses receive their invoice payments after the agreed upon due date. 35% of which are settled more than a month after the deadline.

At a time where on-time payments seem to be isolated cases, businesses need to re-strategize and think of ways to make collections more efficient without tainting relationships with clients.

With an integrated system, you can set up automated reminders for clients to pay their invoices, reducing the chances of overdue billing statements. Basically, you’re letting the platform handle the distress of chasing down payments. This ensures that each invoice is being monitored and traced. Additionally, the system can provide you with insights into outstanding invoices, allowing you to take appropriate actions as necessary.

Enhanced Client Relationship

One of the biggest consequences of prolonged invoicing processes is the tension that it creates between businesses and their clients. 

On the side of clients, receiving inaccurate invoices that are non-compliant with established standard procedures can be frustrating. This alone causes several delays due to more rounds of amendments, verifications, and approvals. For businesses, the collection phase becomes a drag especially when your accounting teams handle numerous follow-ups a day just to ensure that invoices sent are progressing. 

With a reliable time tracking and invoicing system, you can easily share detailed time reports with your clients. This shows them how your team spent their time on their projects, and giving clients an overview of what they can expect in the next billing period. This transparency builds trust and helps in fostering a strong client relationship, leading to faster invoicing and collection processes.

Avoid Cost Overruns on Project Expenses

55% of project managers believe that the number one cause of a failed project is cost overruns. This is because the average overshoot of a typical project is 27% of the original budget. While clients generally shoulder these expenses, as a service provider, you are accountable for managing the entire project including budgets.

An integrated system not only records receivables, but it can also help in tracking expenses related to different projects. You can easily record and categorize expenses, which can be automatically included in your invoices. This ensures that all costs associated with a project are accurately captured and invoiced to the client.

Reduce Unnecessary Costs Across Different Departments

In any company, there are billable hours which are directly charged to clients and there are non-billable hours added into the organization’s operation expenses. As we have discussed earlier, manually processing invoices takes 2x more time than automated systems do. This is proven by a Business Insider study which states that integrated platforms can minimize processing costs by 81%.

With an automated time tracking and invoicing system, you can easily analyze how time and resources are being used across different projects. This in turn, enables you to identify areas where expenses can be optimized. This knowledge can help in making informed decisions about resource allocation, project prioritization, and hiring needs.  

Make Smarter, Data-Driven Decisions Through Comprehensive Reporting 

According to a survey conducted among accounting teams, 48% said that their top priority is securing resources to improve reporting and data analytics. Another 41% believes that automation and integrated systems will help improve the quality and timeliness of their work. These figures validate the struggle of accounting teams in manually generating accurate reports. 

On a wider perspective, the data they produce will be the basis for your financial and operations strategies. Hinging on inaccurate data will result in poor decision making and higher risks of compliance issues. These are two major factors that will affect the entire organization’s workflows and revenues.

An integrated time tracking and invoicing system can provide you with comprehensive, precise financial reports. You can easily monitor your revenue, expenses, and profit margins. These reports offer a clear view of your business’s financial health and can assist in making informed decisions about pricing, cost control, and business strategy.

In conclusion, an integrated time tracking and invoicing system is essential for businesses looking to streamline their operations, improve efficiency, and ensure timely and accurate invoicing. From accurate time tracking to streamlined invoicing processes, automated reminders, improved productivity, and better financial reporting, the benefits are numerous. By implementing an integrated system, you can save time, reduce errors, enhance client communication, and ultimately improve your business’s bottom line.

Integrate your time tracking and invoicing systems with a powerful software solution.

Productively is a time tracker app that lets you elevate work efficiency with advanced time tracking, real-time reports, and powerful analytics. We believe that if you can manage your hours, you can handle everything else.

With a streamlined dashboard that lets you access time tracked by days, weeks, months, or even by client and project, you will be able to make more informed decisions based on accurate data. Its seamless invoicing feature allows you to automatically generate account statements for a more organized billing and receivables system. Altogether, it provides a comprehensive view of your teams’ efficiency, hours worked, billables, and profit.

Bolster productivity, reduce unnecessary costs, and improve the way you do business. All of these through an app that will empower you to visualize your capacity and opportunities.

Learn more about us at https://productively.io/schedule/