Timesheet_final.xlsx. Timesheet_final_new.xlsx. Timesheet_final_new_v3_Jana.xlsx. Anyone who tracks project hours in Excel knows this game: at some point there are several versions and nobody knows for sure which one is current.
Why so many teams start with Excel
Most companies already have Excel, it costs nothing extra and everyone can use it. An Excel spreadsheet for project time tracking is quickly set up, and free templates are available to download, for example our Excel time tracking template. For a single person or a very small team with few projects, that can be enough. What matters then are clear rules on who enters what and when, and one central file. The chaos starts once more employees, more projects and more reporting come into play.
7 problems with project time tracking in Excel
Even with the best Excel template for project time tracking, these problems show up sooner or later:
- Multiple files and versions. Each person keeps their own list, or everyone edits the same file one after another. In the end the entries no longer match and nobody knows who changed what.
- Time gets forgotten or entered late. Excel doesn’t remind anyone. If hours are only entered at the end of the month, people often remember only rough numbers.
- Formulas break. A shifted row or a wrong time format is enough for totals to stop adding up. This often only shows when hours and invoices no longer match.
- Reporting takes time. How many hours went into a project or a client? The data has to be added up again every single time.
- Time and absences are kept apart. Vacation and sick days are in a different list. Getting an overview of who is working on what and who is away takes painstaking compiling.
- Access is hard to control. Anyone who can open the file can usually see everyone’s time entries.
- It doesn’t scale. What works for 5 people turns into a permanent headache at 30.
What Excel really costs: an example calculation
Excel doesn’t need any additional software. But the time spent around it costs plenty. Here is an example calculation (you can adjust the assumptions to your situation):
- 20 employees each spend 10 minutes per week entering time late and reconciling it. That’s about 3.3 hours per week and roughly 14 hours per month.
- On top of that come 4 hours per month for reporting and adding up the totals.
- Together, that’s just over 18 hours per month.
- At an assumed internal cost of €45 per hour, that comes to around €830 per month, or roughly €10,000 per year.
How absence.io solves these problems
- Files, versions and growth: Everyone records their working hours in one place. There are no copies and no competing versions, and new employees and projects can be added easily.
- Forgotten time: With the time clock on desktop or in the app, employees record their time while they work and assign it to a project and client. That way nobody has to reconstruct hours from memory at the end of the month.
- Broken formulas and time-consuming reporting: Totals are calculated automatically. The structured export shows who worked how many hours on which project, and you can create it at any time.
- Time and absences: absence.io also manages vacation and other absences. In the team calendar, you can see at a glance who is on vacation, off sick or on a business trip, and when requesting an absence, you can name a substitute right away. With the project status, you can also see where your projects currently stand.
- Access: You decide who can see recorded time and who can’t, instead of everyone who opens the file seeing everything.
How to switch from Excel to project time tracking software
- Review your existing lists: Which projects and clients do you have, and who currently maintains what?
- Set up projects and clients: Decide in advance how you want to structure your projects and clients.
- Involve your team from day one: The benefit only appears if everyone really works with the software. That’s why the old Excel lists shouldn’t keep running in parallel.
Conclusion
Excel is rarely a good long-term solution for project time tracking. Once several employees and projects come together, versions, late entries and reporting cost more time, and with it more money, than the spreadsheet saved at the start. If you manage project time, absences and employee records in one piece of software, you no longer have to piece everything together.
With absence.io, you can try project time tracking free for 14 days or book a demo to see how it works.