Time management is a significant component of work over a project. Project time tracking, though sometimes is considered to be a pain, in fact has plenty of benefits. Nowadays, finding an appropriate time tracking tool is not a problem, for there is a variety of choice. Good time tracking eases the life of clients and service providers, project manager and staff.

If we speak about software development projects, here are some of the benefits that project time tracking may provide:

• Project time tracking helps bill clients and pay external consultants. Making clear time reports and providing them to the interested parties is much easier.
• An accountant will be able to generate more accurate financials because s/he will have the information to value work in progress. The accurate financials allows viewing company’s financial trends. Watching the trends allows to make decisions early, and not to end up in a cash crunch panic.
• Project time tracking allows keeping tracks of team’s effectiveness and gives the information one may use in the future to estimate similar projects. It can show the areas where the staff isn’t being productive, so they can review their working habits and adjust them to to get more out of a work day in less time.
• It gives the clear view on the time your staff is spending on tasks, and how time is spent. That helps to monitor when your staff is in danger of burning out, or whether you need to expand or downsize your team.

So project time tracking is not only about marking what was done, and how much time was spent on working on this or that task. One of the most important things is the possibility to identify which of those tasks were productive.