In my new series, Featured App Alert, I’ll be featuring various apps that integrate with your bookkeeping software and can take your business to the next level. Contact me for an App Analysis, included in all my Setup packages for suggestions tailored to your business and industry.
Businesses and accountants who bemoan the the lack of features in QuckBooks Online compared to the Desktop version often just aren’t looking in right place. While QBO isn’t right for every business, most of the loss in functionality is made up for by integrating apps with your online system. The ease of use and data security found with fully cloud based software is unparalleled in the Desktop versions of QuickBooks, which is why I don’t even work with Desktop.
Do you have employees and are you ready to put the full force of the last few decades of technological advances into your time tracking? Because if so, TSheets is whats up! Yes, employees clock in and out, you may not have known you needed much more than that…prepare to have your mind blown.
Featuring super easy to use drag and drop technology, your week starts with the scheduling portion of TSheets. Now owned and operated by Intuit, the company that owns QuickBooks, TSheets communicates seamlessly with QuickBooks, this means all of your QuickBooks data is automatically in TSheets and you can create your schedule using the same clients, services, locations and classes you already have in QuickBooks. Depending on your industry, you may want to assign an employee to a certain location or a certain client, you can do that easily, and the beautifully color-coded schedule makes it aesthetically pleasing and easy to read.
When your schedule is complete, your employees (who have enabled the following services) will have their schedules automatically integrated into their preferred calendar app. They’ll receive a notification an hour before their shift starts, and a reminder to clock in. When they clock-in they can select the client or service they’re working on.
Uh-Oh, was Ben a no-show today? Is Alex clocking in late everyday? Are employees working overtime a lot? With text alerts to managers and customized reports like “hours scheduled vs worked”, you can know what’s going on all the time and make the best decisions possible for your business.
Maybe you own a private security company or landscaping biz, your employees can clock in using an app on their phone, and with GPS locating you can see where your employees are working while clocked-in. Maybe you own a shop and one of your employees doesn’t have a smartphone, no worries, you can turn any computer, ipad, or smart device into a kiosk for employees to clock in and out.
These features are just the tip of the iceberg, I could go on and on about how fabulous I think this app is, (I mean seriously, the reports, I just LOVE the reports…) but there is one serious feature missing that could affect some businesses that I want to mention. While employers can use TSheets to schedule employees and manage paid/unpaid time off, I couldn’t find a great to way edit employee availability. I spent 10 years in high school and college working in places with complex scheduling needs, like retail and restaurants. Places where employees work shifts and are often requesting a certain night off and managers are expected to work around things like school schedules. In my trial of TSheets so far, I’ve yet to come across a way for employees to request a specific night off or for the employer to block out Tuesday and Thursday mornings for Suzie who isn’t available to work those days, I think this is a big shortcoming for those more complex scheduling needs. Nonetheless, smart clock in and out features, calendar integrations and shift reminders for employees, and alerts to management are still a huge benefit to these types of industries, and at the very least, you wouldn’t be any worse off than trying to figure out the schedule by hand or in excel.