Guest Post: How to Focus on Profitable Work and Forget the Rest

It is crucial for small businesses to stay competitive and to maximize use of their resources, but this can be difficult when managers do not know where the business is profitable and where it is not. Fortunately, time tracking alleviates this problem by shining a light on true project ROI.

Why Track Time?

Small businesses cannot afford to waste time on projects that are not bringing in the appropriate ROI, but how can managers know which projects to focus on and which ones to drop? Since the cost of labor is often a major factor in total project cost, tracking employee time to tasks and projects provides a much-needed window into profitability. Suppose you have a client who gives you a lot of business. You might think that this is a client you need to keep, but time data could reveal that you spend twice as much customer service time on this client. They are not profitable at all, but you would never know it unless you had your employees tracking time by task and project.

Provide Focus to Your Limited Staff

Small businesses are often understaffed, and can face the danger of getting buried in necessary but burdensome overhead and administrative work. Whether you are tracking general employee time for payroll or tracking with more detail for profitability insight, you cannot afford to waste employee time on manual timesheets, double entry or other dated processes. There is affordable technology out there that can lift this burden, allowing you to focus time and energy where they belong – on your strategic goals.


Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx, which has solutions for project management and execution.

All opinions expressed in guest blog postings are those of the specific post’s author, and may or may not reflect those of Brian Combs or ionadas local.