Three Reasons Everybody Hates Paper Time sheets

We recently announced the release of our new contract module, an addition to our cloud recruitment software that allows agencies to track contractor time using online timesheet management. This new module in the Chameleon-i recruitment management software suite was developed in answer to a common problem – paper time sheet systems are a pain for everyone involved. Time reporting is crucial when you have contractors, but filling out paper time sheets, getting them signed off by the employer and submitted to the agency is a chore, and far from the most efficient way to collect and use information about time.

Here are just three of the reasons why everybody hates paper timesheets:

All That Chasing
When you have a number of contractors out there working for different employers, and they’re all supposed to submit timesheets on a weekly basis, you just know not everyone is going to remember. This kind of personal admin is something people tend to see as a less important task than doing their work, and even though contractors have the incentive of needing to submit them to get paid, you have the added level of needing to get them approved by authorised managers within the business the contractors are placed at. This means that somewhere in the process, you’ll be chasing somebody for something almost constantly. While digital timesheet systems still require people to ‘do stuff’, the built in workflows make it much easier for the time reporting to make its way back to you on time, and of course, reminders can be automated.

Monotonous Data Entry
So, you have your time sheets back for the week at last, but now you need to record the time somewhere so you can start using it with your accounting software or for other reporting. This means tedious data entry, which also creates room for human error – so you will have to double check everything as you go. Every single week. With digital timesheets, everything is already stored in a way you can use to generate your reports, import into your accounting systems, and archive permanently.

Just Paper in General…
Another reason most people will agree paper time sheet systems are awful is that all paper based systems generally are. You can far too easily lose a time sheet (or a single file with a time sheet in it in Word format that someone has emailed to you), they are a hassle to archive, and if you ever do need to check something from an old one, you’ve got loads of stuff to manually sort through. With more and more businesses trying to become as paperless as possible, having to fill out and deal with paper timesheets feels clunky and old fashioned, and digital systems are a better match for our expectations in terms of modern efficiency.

Whether you are submitting or approving time sheets or doing the admin tasks around time management for an agency, it is easy to see how replacing a paper timesheet system with a digital, cloud based solution is going to make the job of recording hours worked a more efficient and less annoying one.