So you’ve tracked your time, billed the client and gotten the payment. Now what?
OfficeTime does a great job of tracking time, a good job of invoicing, but comes up a bit short on the accounting side of things. Most companies don’t like to admit their product doesn’t do something well. But I like to see it from the buyer’s perspective. When I’m looking at a product, I want to know exactly what its strengths and weaknesses are. That’s the problem with most marketing material. It gives only glowing praise when you need an honest picture. But should we be trying to fill the role of an accounting solution?
We like to focus our improvements on what OfficeTime does best: Tracking, Reporting and Billing for time and expenses. We’re hesitant to bring in accounting features because that’s not our strong point. There’s great accounting programs out there.
That’s not to say that improvements aren’t coming for tracking your invoices. We’re just going to concentrate on the ones that will make the most difference.
You can still track payments, retainers and invoices in your current copy of OfficeTime.
If you receive a payment or an advance retainer, create an expense but enter it negative. Yes, it’s slightly odd. Let’s walk through it step by step. Example: You got paid $500 by ACME Inc. Go to the ACME Project, create an expense and enter -$500. Now the total for your project will be reduced by that amount, and you can see exactly how much you still have owing, or to be billed, or even how much of your retainer you have left.
If you produce a report that also contains details of your expenses and then make an invoice, the invoice will show the negative expense. You may wish to enter a note for that expense like “Payment received. Thank you!”
Negative expenses are easy on the Mac/PC and iPad, but unfortunately there wasn’t enough room on the iPhone to put in the minus key. (We’re working to fix this. Rather than just trying to cram in the minus key, we’re going to fix the negative expense business itself and make a proper way to enter payments.)
What about tracking if specific invoices have been paid?
When you make an invoice by default, a note about that invoice is made in the project notes. You can get to the project notes on the Mac/PC by clicking the pencil icon – and on the iPhone/iPad by going to Projects, tapping Edit and tapping your project. When you receive a payment, simply write Paid next to the invoice. You can also enter any additional notes you wish about the invoice or payment freestyle here.
What do you think? Should OfficeTime become more of an accounting program or should it focus on time tracking? If you were to add an accounting or billing feature, what would you choose? We welcome your input and feedback.
Until next time,
Yours truly,
Stephen Dodd, Founder of OfficeTime
PS: Get your no-cost trial the desktop version of our Time Tracking Solution at OfficeTime.net
PPS: How do you use OfficeTime? Let us know – or share your own best time management tips – and get featured in our blog!