Effective

Time Tracking using

Zoho Projects
Overview
Timesheets are digital time tracking solutions
used to record the time spent by employees on
project tasks. It provides detailed logs on the
number of hours an employee spends on specific
tasks, issues, or other work items of a project each
day. This helps organizations forecast the
project’s roadmap and also predict the budget
with the right metrics.

Effective Time Tracking 02

Timesheet Workflow
Each timesheet goes through a generic three-step process.

Submit Review Analyze

Regardless of your Timesheets can be Timesheets are rich

employee work approved by the data records
style—a diligent reporting manager, encompassing
worker bee working project coordinator, or multiple insights. You
on one task at a time any specific approver can evaluate employee
or a busy bee according to the performance, plan
juggling multiple project’s requirement. upcoming tasks,
tasks—timesheets Approvers must interpret employee
provide a method to evaluate the task and workload, optimize
log and submit the also consider the employee allocation,
number of hours budget before and keep tabs on the
spent on each task. approving timesheets. project budget.

Zoho Projects supports a built-in timesheet that allows organizations to track

and manage time logs in one go. Zoho Projects’ suite of features allows you to
submit, review, and interpret timesheet findings alongside other project
management modules and also integrate timesheets with invoice or payroll
management software.

Let’s take a comprehensive look at timesheet management in Zoho Projects.

Effective Time Tracking 03

Timesheets in Zoho Projects
feature a detailed layout where users
can log time for tasks, issues, or
other general work assigned to
them. It documents details like time
period, billing type, approval status,
notes, and log cost.

Additionally, you can also customize this layout to add more fields that help
organizations gain detailed insights on the timesheets recorded. You can
add daily or weekly time logs, view the logs as a list, grid, or in a calendar,
and also filter it to view the required logs.

List

Grid

Calendar

List Add Time Log

View

Effective Time Tracking 04

Manual and Automatic
time tracking
Organizations handle several projects at a time, and their requirements are
unique. While a few projects require manual methods to track time, some
prefer automated timers that can be turned on and off, when the work occurs.

In addition to the Timesheet module, the Log Hours tab in tasks are used to
record timesheets manually in Zoho Projects. To add an entry, select the task and
navigate to the Log Hours tab, choose the user name, and enter the daily log.

Automated time tracking is supported using timers in Zoho Projects. A little

timer icon is displayed on the task's details page. When a user starts working
on the task, they can click to start the timer. It can also be paused when they
take a break from the task and restarted later. When they stop the timer, the
record gets added to the timesheet.

00�00�24

Effective Time Tracking 05

Global and Floating
Timers
Global Timers in Zoho Projects allow users
to track the current running timers of all their
tasks from a single window. You can add
timers to both tasks and issues from here.

Floating Timers allow you to monitor the

time log from any screen in Zoho Projects,
allowing constant visibility of the timer,
even as the user navigates between 00�07
�45
different modules.

01�10�24

Effective Time Tracking 06

Set Work Hours
The weight of each task in a project varies depending on the effort,
collaboration, processing time, and the like. Factoring in all these
conditions, you can plan the work hour each task will require when
creating the task. This will be displayed on the task's details page.

When the assignee finishes the task, they log the actual log hours taken to
complete the task. The difference between planned and actual hours is
calculated and recorded on the task list page. This helps identify gaps and
analyze time-taking processes in the project.

Effective Time Tracking 07

Timesheet approval
The project owner will be the default approver for the timesheets. However,
users with the Approve Timesheet permission in Profiles will also be able to
perform approval actions.

Approve

Finance

Additionally, you can set restrictions for approvers in Portal Configurations.

Approvers can be configured to approve all log entries, approve log entries
of direct reports only, approve entries of all subordinates, or approve log
entries associated to them.

Effective Time Tracking 08

If you are an approver, you will have the option to either approve the time
log or reject it. If an entry is rejected, the approver has to provide the
reason for rejection.

Automatic timesheet approval

Without awaiting manual approvals, timesheets can also be configured to
be approved automatically when they are logged.

Effective Time Tracking 09

Time log restrictions
and reminders
Time log restrictions are used to set limits to the daily and weekly log
hours. Once this is set, users will not be able to record time logs higher
than the set limits. For example, if you follow an 8-hour work schedule, you
can restrict the daily time log entry to 7 hours and the weekly time log entry
to 35 hours. Users can also be restricted from logging timesheets on
weekends and holidays.

Effective Time Tracking 10

Recording time logs is mandatory in some organizations where these
records are submitted to clients for billing and invoice purposes. In such
cases, employees are advised to record timesheets punctually. To ensure all
the employees fill in their timesheets, you can send out reminders daily,
weekly, or specifically when the log hours are less than a specific limit.

Timesheet reports
Zoho Projects hosts numerous default reports to analyze data from the
recorded timesheets. Timesheets reports are available on a global level to
track all projects in the organization, and on a project level to plot graphs
based on specific project timesheet data.

Effective Time Tracking 11

My Timesheet widget
The My Timesheet widget on the homepage plots a graph for the time
logs recorded in the last seven days. It displays the total billable and
non-billable hours.

View More

View More

36�00 04�00 40�00

Effective Time Tracking 12

Integrate with billing
applications
The final desired outcome of logging timesheets is to create invoices for
clients or process payroll for the employees. Integrating Zoho Projects with
billing software like Zoho Books or Invoice bills the timesheets directly as
invoices. Apart from timesheets, this integration also helps you plan the
project budget and record expenses incurred for the project.

Summing
up

A good project management software lets everyone

in the organization plan and organize their timeline to
analyze their workload on various tasks. While
tracking time may sound tedious, with the right tool,
it is effortless.

Zoho Projects hosts numerous features that help you

track timesheets in your organization with precise
specifications. The real-time insights driven from those
timesheets help organizations appraise projects and
optimize workflows. The built-in reports and integrations
make it much easier to transform data into actionable
knowledge. Try Zoho Projects' timesheets today!

Effective Time Tracking 13

 • • T H A N K Y O U • •

Help Documents Help Videos

https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/projects https://www.zoho.com/projects/projects-videos.html

Webinar Projects Community

https://www.zoho.com/projects/webinar.html https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/zoho-projects

© 2024, Zoho Corporation Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.