Time and workload Time entry software by project
Time entry software by project has two lives. In the first, it collects hours and nobody really knows what they are for. In the second, every quarter-day entered moves a margin, a workload and a remaining-work figure. The difference does not come from the entry tool: it comes from what the data feeds downstream.
Who this page is not for.
The rest of this page therefore assumes a managed project, where the question is not "how many hours were worked" but "do these hours bring us closer to or further from what was promised". The engagement modes are described on engagement levels.
What time entry software does.
Three things, and it does them well. It is the fourth that is almost always missing.
It collects
A timesheet per person, by day or by week, broken down by project or by client.
It gets validation
The manager approves, which turns a declaration into usable data, notably for payroll and billing.
It totals
Per person, per project, per period. This total goes on to billing or to cost accounting.
What it does not do is answer the only question that decides the margin of a fixed price: does this total put us ahead of or behind what was sold, and since when?
Why time entry fails so often.
For a prosaic and rarely stated reason: it costs the person entering more than it gives them.
It happens somewhere other than where the work is done
A separate tool, one more tab, a forgotten password. Entry becomes an administrative chore detached from production.
It happens too late
On Friday evening, or on the 3rd of the following month, time is reconstructed from memory. The data obtained is an approximation presented as a figure.
It demands useless precision
Cutting a day into fifteen-minute slices does not make anyone more accurate: it only makes entry longer, hence later.
It never comes back to the person who did it
The person entering does not see what their entry changed. They feed a system from which they receive nothing back.
Collecting hours, or knowing whether the fixed price holds.
The question is not to collect hours: it is to know what the workload spent does to a dated commitment. A time tool gives a total. It does not say whether the fixed price holds, because it ignores what was sold.
The shift fits in one sentence: entry stops being an administrative declaration the day it is the gesture that updates the gap between time spent and time sold. It then has a visible consequence, immediately, and for everyone. This is what we call operational commitment management.
Three ways to equip time.
They do not target the same downstream, and it is the downstream that decides the value of entry.
| Family | What it does | What entry feeds | What it does not carry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dedicated time tool | Collection, validation, export. | Payroll and time and materials billing. | No link with what was sold on a fixed price. |
| PSA | Consolidates time in an internal profitability view. | The supplier's margin, by project and by client. | Answers "am I profitable?", not "are my client and I talking about the same project?". |
 |
Attaches every entry to the work package and milestone it serves. | Workload, the gap between time spent and time sold, and remaining work. | No payroll, no statutory invoicing: it lives alongside these tools without replacing them, and optional connectors are built according to clients' needs. |
In pylotik.
Four design choices, all meant to reduce the cost of the gesture for the person entering.
By the quarter-day
The grain is the one at which a person honestly remembers their day. Any finer, you get invented precision.
No "Save" button
Every field is saved when you leave it. Only submission is an explicit act: nothing is lost, and there is nothing to think about.
Web and mobile, where the work is done
Entry is done in the tool where the project lives, not in a separate system you have to open on purpose.
An immediate consequence
Entry updates workload, the gap between time spent and time sold, and remaining work. What is entered is used, and it shows.
The rest of the chain is covered on the project workload plan. The full tour is on the product page.
What we are asked about time entry.
Why the quarter-day rather than the hour?
Because it is the grain at which a person honestly remembers their day. Cutting finer does not produce more precision: it produces a reconstruction, made later and less reliable.
Do you have to enter time every day?
It is preferable, and above all much easier when entry is done where you work and with no button to click. Weekly entry remains usable; monthly entry is a reconstruction.
Does the manager validate time?
Yes. Validation turns a declaration into data on which a workload and a margin can be calculated. It is also the moment when an entry error is corrected, while it is still fresh.
Does this replace our payroll tool?
No. Neither payroll, nor invoicing, nor the ERP. pylotik carries the link between time spent and the dated commitment; the financial downstream stays with your tools, with which an optional connector is built to your needs (see the roadmap).
What if the team does not enter time?
This is the real risk, and it is not solved by reminders. It is solved by making the gesture short, placed where the work is done, and above all useful to the person doing it: entry that visibly moves the state of the project holds better than entry that disappears into an export.
Can you enter time on several projects on the same day?
Yes, in quarter-days spread across the work packages or projects concerned. It is the most common case as soon as a person works on two engagements.
Going further.
- The project workload plan: what entry makes it possible to project.
- Fixed-price project tracking: the gap between time spent and time sold.
- Operational commitment management: the definition of the category.
- The product tour: entry, workload, financials, committees.