Keeping track of time spent on projects?

[Magnum440d100]

I usually have 1 vehicle I work on at a time.

But now have a few projects, some for people, not just my flip cars.

I need ideas of how to track time spent on each project. Ie: 1/26/2019 6:45am-7:15am “drained 4.5q motor oil, installed new Wix 51515 oil filter, refilled with 5 quarts of Castrol GTX 5w20” for XXXXXX person.

Something similar to that. Not just for oil changes, but any repair, or anything that I’ll be charging per hour.

IE, I have a car here I’m waiting for parts to come in to complete it. While I’m waiting for parts, I am working on another car and again waiting on the machine shop. So now I have a THIRD “vehicle” I’ll be starting on Monday.

I want to account for the time I was working on the first car up until I had to order parts and wait.

Then account for the second car up until heads had to go to the machine shop.

THEN account for the third vehicle I’ll be starting on.

1 vehicle is easy using an excel spreadsheet. 2 is “ok” but 3 or more seems too much.

Or am I overthinking things?

My goal is to charge accurately. I don’t want to be losing out on profit because I worked on a car for 5 hours, but I “THINK” I worked on it for 3-4....

Thanks in advance!

 

[strength_and_power]

What about a clipboard with a sheet of paper on the windshield. List the task, start time and stop time, tally up at completion. Also could either list the parts used or put tickets on the clipboard. Will take some time I’m sure to get into the habit of logging but I wouldn’t be surprised if your invoices go up.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[stangconv]

I have an app called hours tracker on my iPhone. Does what you want it to and it’s just on the phone

 

[Dmoen]

just get a punch card clock. or look into geting flate rate books r software to see what the job is supposed to pay.

 

[mikegt4]

I tried to keep track of the time that I spent building my house. After a while I realized that i was spending a lot of time keeping track of time.

 

[3rdgendslmech]

On my regulars I keep each car on a file on a google doc. Usually just a basic description of the work, mileage and date. I'll go into more detail if its a more serious problem etc etc. If i work on the same vehicle more than once, I've got a file for it so I know what I did to it.

 

[rayra]

A simple work log will do, break the time down in whatever increment is good enough for your billing purposes. Just jot down Date / start / stop times, vehicle / customer, task performed.
Cut and paste relevant stuff into your billings, or just tally it off the log. And if challenged you have the log at hand.

 

[Stuart in MN]

1 vehicle is easy using an excel spreadsheet. 2 is “ok” but 3 or more seems too much.

Or am I overthinking things?

I think you are. Personally, I'd probably write down hours each day on a sheet of paper or a whiteboard, then enter them at the end of the day, but it should be easy enough to enter it right into the spreadsheet as you go. Just create another line in the spreadsheet, or put each car in a different tab.

 

[Low50s]

I used to have to punch in and out on every car I worked on and that was nice to keep track you could just write down the time then subtract for total example

Vehicle #1 Out - 15:00 In 13:00 subtract out from in and shows 2:00 hours

Op I’m in the same boat now I do work from home and I want to show people how much time I actually spend on a car I either charge $30 per hour and bill actual time and I say since I’m not a actual shop I don’t have every machine/tool to get he job done the fastest so a 2hr job might actually be 2.5hrs that’s why I charge actual time. I am cheaper than shops make enough to be content and I’m building a customer base first before I raise my labor.

 

[stangconv]

^^^ That’s what I use!

 

[Bretny]

Im sure theres an app for that. When i did side jobs out of my house i would always round up and still charged way less than a shop. Many many loyal customers.

 

[joe_padavano]

Or am I overthinking things?

^^^THIS. Long before computers, people did this with pencil and paper.

Excel works just fine also. When I had my small engineering company, I made up a timesheet in Excel. Use different charge numbers for each project and record the time against each charge number every day. Yeah, there are lots of apps and complicated ways to do this. You don't need them. The Excel time sheets were more than sufficient for charging cost-reimbursable government contracts, and DCAA even approved our accounting system after an audit.

 

[wssix99]

If you get to a point where you have multiple paying jobs in-progress, you can use a RFID system:
- https://timepilot.com/landing/construction.htm
- https://www.exaktime.com/rugged-time-clocks/

Construction crews use these for the same purpose. You can have multiple tags and/or clocks for start/stop work and on/off particular jobs.

If you have job tickets, etc., the RFID tags can go with the ticket or hang on the wall and you just swipe the tags as you come and go, start and stop. At the end of the day, the system can give you an itemized breakout of your time and you don't have to waste 5% of your day's time fat-********* figures into a tool, app, or spreadsheet.

 

[The Cobbler]

in my work jobs are either time & material or flat rate by the foot or sqft .
each job location has a work order sheet . the hours & material used , or the footage and description gets documented for later invoicing
simple paper & pen on a clip board

 

[Magnum440d100]

Thank you guys for the links and suggestions!