Outsourcing Through the Time Card Interface

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Running a small business is challenging.  We’re constantly performing a wide variety of tasks which could probably be defined as “everything.” Thing is, a portion of that “everything” doesn’t always contribute to business income.

Not directly anyway.

That’s where outsourcing can help. Through outsourcing, we can improve productivity.  In this article, we look at how the time card can help clear the air, and improve cash flow.

Let’s examine two scenarios.

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In the first scenario, a manager reports “We feel that project X came in on budget but we need to budget for a little more time to complete project Y.” In the second scenario, a manager who used a time card, reports “Project X was completed at 23% over budget and project Y came in 19% under budget.” The first manager made a mistake by estimating the time it took to complete a project, whereas the second manager who used a time card made no mistakes by quantifying her statement. 

From those two scenarios alone, few would argue against the fact that a time card is an essential tool for tracking and analyzing business performance and productivity.  And you don’t have to be a huge corporation to benefit from it.

Getting Started

Start by creating a list of projects that you want to monitor and then break those projects down into sub-projects to get detailed information about what gets done and how it gets done.

Then create a time card for each individual job. We recommend vWorker’s time card.

vWorker’s Time Card

vWorker’s time card makes the process of monitoring performance and productivity a whole lot easier and more accurate than if you were to monitor these things by hand (or simply trust your service provider to report them). To monitor the time workers spend on projects, both workers and employers install and work through vWorker’s Timecard Desktop Application. 

A worker uses the Timecard Desktop Application to punch in and out while the software captures periodic images of the worker’s webcam and computer desktop. An employer then views resulting images to a) verify a worker is really working on a contracted project and 2) how much time that work commenced. When a worker completes the work, the software calculates the total hours worked and then it calculates relevant (that’s, ‘contracted’) costs.

Once you’ve tried outsourcing through the time card interface, you’re well on your way to discovering more about what your real performance and productivity numbers are.

Time cards give you the information you need to make better business decisions, increase productivity, and get an edge over your competition.