SmallBiz Technology

According to a 2009 Expedia study, less than half of Americans plan to use all of their annual vacation time. At first glance, this may seem like a good thing for the boss, but in reality, these businesses are left liable to pay out unused vacation should employees quit. If this vacation time hasn’t been accurately tracked, a quitting employee could cost more money than it should

This is just one example of how accurate time, expense, vacation and project cost tracking is crucial to keeping small businesses in strong fiscal shape. Some small businesses rely on error-prone Excel spreadsheets while others rely on cumbersome software programs. With many entrepreneurs working outside the “office” and beyond 9-5, easy-to-use time management methods that can track billable hours against multiple projects are essential.

“When you are tracking vacation time, you can see who’s going to be away and if you are able to meet client expectations,” said Lakshmi Raj, co-founder of Replicon.

For more than 10 years, Replicon has enabled 7,800 companies of all sizes in over 70 countries to maximize profitability and productivity by providing solutions of timesheet software that track time and expenses for attendance, payroll, project costing and client billing. The market leader in SaaS based time and expense software, Replicon is taking the mundane task of time tracking and making it hassle-free.

“You can increase your cash flow because billing is faster,” Raj said. “This leads to increased customer satisfaction and the ability to do projects with less resources.”

Replicon offers five different suites for enterprises to choose from: project and billing, time and attendance, business expenses, employee schedules, and research availability. A new customer can start with one, all five, or somewhere in between. The point is that all the resources are available as your company’s needs change and grow, giving business the opportunity to grow with Replicon.

“[Replicon] helps you to improve your productivity and profits,” Raj said. “You can easily see what’s happening today and which projects are being completed for who.”

A small business that has been successful with Replicon’s productivity solutions is mobile payment company Obopay. Obopay chose the Web TimeSheet in August 2008 for its ease of use, straightforward interface and its ability to be integrated with Obopay’s accounting software. Since Obopay was still only a few years old at the time, the scalability of Web TimeSheet was also a key factor – it would have to expand as the company grew.

Since using Replicon, Obopay has been able to:

• Train employees in only one hour.
• Back up its accounting figures with accurate data on employee time and projects costs.
• Use SaaS to have employees can enter their time into a single system, regardless of their location around the world.
• Easily compare costs between its development teams in the U.S. and India.
• Use customizable reports that enable better analysis of department productivity.

With successes like these, Replicon is moving forward with its services. The company is planning on releasing a mobile version this quarter, where small business owners don’t even have to be on a computer to access the systems and to track projects. It will also help in keeping better track of that vacation time, so no one is taking more than his/her fair share at the expense of the business.