The automation of business tasks can increase a company's bottom line just as much as factory automation has done for manufacturing. Professional Services Automation (PSA) is the elimination of manual, routine and repetitive business administrative tasks with computer technology that automatically populates forms with client, employee, and billing information, completes sales and tax calculations, and tracks employee time and expense billing, along with much, much more.

Office and project management apps such as time and expense tracking are responsible for recouping lost dollars that have previously been lost to employee error when doing accounting calculations, not having detailed records to charge clients for all expenses, and not accurately tracking billable employee hours.

But, many of today's time and expense tracking apps, project management software, and billing and invoice automation tools are cumbersome and difficult to navigate. The best time and expense billing should not only automate many administrative tasks, but also be easy to use, customizable to fit the way professional offices are run, and not be weighed down with too many bells and whistles that really never serve any real purpose.

Time and expense are geared towards project and/or client caseload types of professional service providers as a way to effectively record, track, and bill for hours worked and expenses incurred. The best time and expense app will allow for multiple ways to view employee timesheets and client expenses to fit the way your particular office works. 

Why a time and expense tracking app like BigTime is a good investment:

  • It offers a better client billing experience
  • It promotes a better employee time tracking process
  • It removes repetitive tasks and reduces manual errors
  • Its ability to standardize time and expense billing workflows
  • It’s easier to monitor employee and client data
  • It provides useful reporting tools and visual office insight

BigTime is an easy-to-use time and expense tracking app for professional service providers that eliminates wasted or lost hours due to time and billing expenses. After all, a professional consultant typically charges by the hour, the task, or the expense. Billing errors or lost time and expense tracking means a loss of money - and poor cash flow is one of the main reasons why small and medium-sized businesses fail within the first 5 years.

Continue reading to discover how BigTime time and expense tracking automates many office administrative processes and is the right choice for the way professional services and consultants do business.

Time and Expense Billing Software

BigTime PSA is a time and expense billing software that is a total office administration solution, and not just an Excel or Google Sheet template that is difficult to navigate with a clunky user interface. BigTime is made for the way professionals spend their time on client projects or caseloads, and how they need to charge for every billable expense that they have incurred.

The problem with spreadsheets is that you nearly have to be an expert in Excel to put together a usable time and expense tracking spreadsheet. Most professionals don't have this level of Microsoft Excel or Google Sheet experience - and if they do, they simply don't have the time to create the forms and embed the calculations and generate the reports that are needed.

BigTime has looked close and hard at how professionals who serve a client base work and bill for time and expenses. This includes accountants, lawyers, natural healing practitioners, general contractors, IT consultants, financial advisors, architects, engineers, graphic artists, personal assistants, and creative marketing professionals.

The benefits of time tracking and billing software for consultants over spreadsheets include:

  • BigTime features version history control, so you have proof of information edits, deletes, and additions.
  • You stay on top of important business KPIs without having to compile data from Excel spreadsheets.
  • Professional services automation streamlines operations and integrates multiple processes.
  • Easily duplicate current project forms to be used for new projects for faster project launches.
  • Pulls financial time and expense data to create reports in real-time

Even though BigTime is not free, they do offer a free trial period, so you can see just how easy this professional service automation app is to use and navigate. Also, your clients will see the difference in how you report and bill for time and expenses in a professional, easy-to-follow manner. Billing that is transparent means your clients feel more comfortable with your charges and feel more comfortable paying on time.

Time And Expense Meaning

Time and expense software is a subset of office and/or project management software. Actually, T&E expenses meaning is a combination of both these important professional service operations. T&E meaning finance is the gaining of money through the payment for hours worked and expenses incurred in relation to the work being performed.

Time and expense meaning even includes the fees associated with your services, like the costs a general contractor may pay when filing for building permits or the costs of professional printing needed when you hire a graphics artist to create your new business logo.

Some time and expense examples that professionals incur and should be paid for include:

  • Hourly or other direct charges for time spent on a project
  • Travel time and fuel costs, along with lodging and food while on the project
  • Any time spent researching and information gathering
  • Time and costs of documentation printing, collating, and binding
  • Packaging, postage, and shipping costs
  • Expenses for supplies that are directly related to project
  • Late fees or late payments due to non-payment

As you can see, a T&E expenses meaning is more than the tracking of hours worked. It must include all expenses as they relate to projects, or else your firm can expect to pay out-of-pocket if you cannot prove these expenses with accurate data. The best time and expense software applications will provide multiple ways to track your time and different ways to log expenses. Then you should be able to easily configure a report that shows your clients the entire view of how you have spent your time and efforts while on their project.

Another function of T&E expenses includes those workers that you have hired to help complete a project. They should also be able to input their time and expenses on different projects so you, the owner, can monitor and track their work-related activities and charges.

Time And Expense Management

The best way to add power to projects is to manage time and expenses. Time and expense management is not only critical to keeping day-to-day activities on track, it can also be used to forecast whether you'll meet target project deadlines and your company's financial goals for the month. This type of power found in time and expense software goes beyond using BigTime as a way to track your billable expenses and work hours, to truly manage projects to stay on schedule and within budget.

Consider the benefits of one centralized location to keep track of projects for better insight into the health of your company's finances. And, when meeting with clients, you have real-time data to share about the pace and progress of their project. When clients receive your time and expense report, they know your business is one that operates transparently and honestly.

Time and expense software acts as an administrative oversight. When everyone is inputting their expenses and hours worked into one, shared time and expense report, it enables companies to reduce errors, eliminate duplicate entries for the same date or the same activity, and also reduces the amount of time it takes to manage timesheets.

The best time and expense tracking app will allow for remote data entry so that even while in the field or lunching with a client, you can easily record your time as a billable expense or hours worked. Now, you have a daily activities record that you can refer to and know exactly where the financial health of your company stands.

Time And Expense Jobs

Time and expense jobs that were previously assigned to an administrative employee can be totally eliminated, helping small business owners reduce their overhead costs. One of the best ways to cut overhead costs attributed to time and expenses is to explore digital solutions. BigTime is that solution by offering a full-feature time tracking and expenses app that covers all the roles found in a time and expense job description.

A good time and expense job description will make entering time and expense easier with smart timesheets that auto-fill repetitive data entries. And, various levels of record privacy and security allow for you to set custom user rights that allow supervisors to override data or input data on behalf of another employee.

When staffers see too much information about the data that management collects and keeps, they can feel as if they're being scrutinized too closely. Another big benefit of BigTime is that you can customize the time and expense reporting app so that employees only see what they need in order to add to their expenses and hours worked, and they only see the fields they need to fill out.

The main goal of developing a time and expense app for professionals and consultants is to accommodate the way PSAs work and to make time and expense entry easier with smart timesheets and automated reporting. BigTime has accomplished this and so much more to help keep all your projects and caseloads on time and within budget.