14 better uses for timesheet data

if you just pay people and move on, you’re missing critical information.

by ed mendlowitz

question: i keep timesheets for billing purposes but am not clear how i can use them to better manage my practice. how can i do this?

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answer: analyzing time records is a very effective practice management tool and is an essential part of most professional services organizations. some people contend that timesheets should not be used because they should not be the basis of any pricing, with fees solely based on the value to the client.

assuming the last statement is perfectly correct i still feel time records provide an important information and control role and should be maintained. here are some reasons for my feelings. (note that if you do not use timesheets and are very comfortable with that then this listing is not for you.)

1. time records are a method of keeping track of costs. while information is entered at the billing rates, discounting it at a proper percent makes it into a cost system.
2. the information can be used for future scheduling; determining if work is done at the proper skill level; to identify who worked on the client and if someone not scheduled worked on the client it could lead to why they did; to determine if work was done that was not part of the prior agreed upon engagement; or to just see how closely the actual work matched the budget.
3. flex time and telecommuting have provided less visibility of staff, less hands-on review and discussions and less mbwa (managing by wandering around) opportunities. timesheets provide a means of tracking staff activities.
4. time records provide a compilation and measure of the type of work that was done in less or nonproductive, but nevertheless essential, areas such as answering tax notices, preparing extensions, redoing work where the accountant didn’t have all the information when they started, correcting errors or extended on-the-job training that got out of hand.
5. time records are a way to monitor client satisfaction by measuring work done correcting errors or delays with work that was redone.
6. an example of the benefit of keeping time records was where it was highlighted that a low-level tax department staff person worked on quite a few clients that she had no reason to work on. when we looked into it we found that she was continually asked tax questions by mid-level audit staff because they got the answers they needed quickly, while the higher-level tax department people pushed these requests aside. this provided valuable information to evaluate the tax staff’s interaction with the audit staff and enabled substantial changes that sped up the turnaround for those questions, and eliminated an oblique bottleneck and a likely disregard of the importance of the questions asked by the mid-level staff.
7. insightful information was found out when it was noticed that a high-level tax manager decided to lump all his tax return review time into one account. not only were there some unrecoverable chargeable amounts, but it also showed that he didn’t quite “get it.”
8. time summaries also helped us identify considerable time spent on fixed fee tax returns when the clients decided to engage in hundreds of day trading transactions or invest in hedge funds with 30-page k-1s that year, which we were then able to partially bill for, and better schedule the following year’s tax work.
9. we found that sizeable time was spent redoing completed tax returns when amended 1099s were received from the broker. we were able to adjust the billing and timing of the work on those returns in later years.
10. the time run revealed significant time spent on extra services such as fixing up erroneous schedule c transactions generated from the client’s system; finding errors in bank reconciliations and also when comparing balances to the client’s running cash balance schedule; helping a client fill out college loan applications; and sometimes a lot of time was spent listening to a client’s unfocused ramblings because the staff person didn’t want to be discourteous.
11. the time records helped us realize the extra time spent on small fixed-fee “commodity service” clients. an example is a client who would always stop by the office to pick up her payroll and sales tax returns. since she was in the office, she asked if someone could help her by showing her where to sign and who to make out the checks to. well it seems the person who was usually in the office was a tax partner who would spend 45 minutes to an hour with her also answering other business questions since she was there already. in one year this unscheduled and unpaid-for time amounted to 16 hours. we reviewed this with the client and were able to get some extra billing for it (not too much, but more than we would have had if we didn’t see this when we did the realization schedule). further, since the client was unwilling to compensate us for this “hand holding” personalized service going forward, the decision to drop her was easily made.
12. client and staff realization can also be charted if you have time records. it helps us with scheduling and maximizing resources by assuring the right level person is working on a client. the realization information also shows us which staff are good at downward delegation, and which managers accept upward delegation from staff.
13. client fee realization provides a basis to determine profitability for each client. this is always helpful information.
14. time is our inventory and hours the units. inventory needs to be controlled. timesheets seem to be the best way of doing it. if there is something better, then we should look at it.  not having any system or controls is unacceptable and just not a good business practice.

we all know most of the things that we see in the time records, but looking at the time run forces us to focus in on it in a manner that we don’t do when we are in the middle of getting client work out.

posted on september 28, 2020