Paymo: Time Tracking Tool

Partners,

A while back, I asked you all about time tracking. Amy O'Connor helped create a document that I used first to evaluate how I use my time and then later to actually track my time. But at some point, I needed more detail. I wanted to assign tasks to grantors and she and I were at a loss for how to do that efficiently, so I asked the group.

I got a lot of "let me know what you come up with!" and not too many answers. I took the few suggestions and templates I got and looked around. What I decided to use was a free time tracking service called paymo. I think they charge when you get over a certain number of accounts, so we just called them and told them we're a non-profit and they let us surpass the limit (by one user) for free..

I really like this system because you can download a little tracker to your desktop. If you aren't online, it stores the info and uploads it later. In the online account, you can create summary reports for each employee that details how much time was spent on each project/grantor. I think there's also a mobile app, but I haven't used it.

Just like all things that were not created exclusively for non-profit use, you will have to perform some mental acrobatics to replace your words with their words.

For example: We use the "clients list" to categorize our work in general categories (biomonitoring, restoration, etc.) because we have multiple grants/projects under those programs. Then we use the "projects" list to add grantors in each category. So if I have two different restoration activities going on at once, I distinguish my time spent on restoration by selecting the appropriate project. You can also add specific tasks under each project (like"construction > meeting") but I rarely use this because I generally don't have to distinguish which tasks took how long.There's a notes section too, so I just type a little notes about what I was doing.

Anyhow, we've tested this thing for about three months and everyone likes it. I hope it helps some of you.

-Jenny