Re: What's the best way to track time?
MyHours can work for both single VA practice or multi-VA practice. It can be set-up as simple or as complicated as you make it. Clients will want to know the tasks that make-up the time billed. If implemented properly, MyHours captures what you do through-out the day minute by minute. If you use MYHours as you work, you do not have to go back and reconstruct your day. If you wait, you're not going to capture everything. When supporting multiple clients, this is pertinent.
Here's a simplistic example - lets say you support three clients. You spent the morning setting of social profiles for Bill on various networking sites. You started MyHours when you began your project. At 10:00 a.m. you have a scheduled call with Sarah. Sarah wants to spend some time discussing a research project. With three clicks, you've gone from tracking time on Bill's project to Sarah's brainstorming call. Off the call, you end the timer and enter a quick synposis of the call and then you check your email. You see an urgent request from Dave. Three clicks and you're now tracking Dave's project once you take care of Dave's project it's back to Bill's social network profiles. Three clicks.
At the end of the month, you run your reports, totals are calculated for you. I use Quicken SimpleStart. I download the MyHours details of each project into Excel, customize it with my logo etc. and attach it to my invoice from SimpleStart as a PDF and it's done.
I capture all my time as it happens. I don't have to think about tracking the time, writing it down, etc. By tracking the time while you work, you always have an overview of hours spent for each client. If you have retainer clients, this is important so that you can also give them a heads-up of where they are at, at a moments notice.
HTH
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