Skip to main content

Use case: time-based client work

Team meeting with client
Photo by Claire Nakkachi on Unsplash

Whether you charge by the hour or use mostly flat rates, the underlying objective stays the same: to make every hour count. Not only do we want to provide value for the client, but we also want to be as efficient as possible as well.

The journey to efficiency begins with knowing what to work on and what to put aside. Flowmine's Task list and Board views will help you analyze, prioritize, and estimate your tasks. You can also use Tags to categorize and label your tasks in as many ways as you deem necessary.

Example of using tags in Flowmine's task list
Using tags in the task list

Analyze where your team spends their time

Knowing where to focus is vital to provide value, but we also need to know how much time we spend in the process, and this is where time tracking plays a key role.

Without detailed information about what the team spends their time on, it isn't easy to get an overview of how profitable the project is.

With Flowmine, it's easy to monitor your actual effective hourly rate for your projects. Both billable and non-billable hours are considered, and you can also adjust the chargeable time as needed while keeping the reported time accurate.

Detailed time reporting also contributes to better profitability. Fewer billable hours are forgotten, while the non-billable work is made visible.

A word of caution

Avoid making time tracking about survaillance, or you will never reap the benefits of seeing honest, accurate numbers being reported.

The final piece of the puzzle for achieving excellent efficiency is to continuously analyze and compare your estimates to the reported hours. The lessons learned from this activity will be of paramount importance when you undertake fixed-rate projects and struggle to set a price point.