How MGE Used ClickTime’s Mobile App to Track Time and Expenses in Remote Locations

Mountain G. Enterprises, Inc. (MGE) has more than 10 years experience providing civil construction and environmental services in California.

The business strives to protect California’s natural resources by restoring habitats impacted by land development, wildfires, and natural disasters. These efforts include erosion prevention, forest thinning, and the stabilization of roads and slopes, among many other preservation activities.

Teams at MGE track time and expenses so that they can accurately bill clients and calculate safety statistics.

Challenges

When MGE first started looking for a cloud-based timekeeping solution, they needed more than 230 licenses and their wishlist was clear. They required a system that would:

• Document both time and expenses.
• Maintain data integrity via a Mobile app.
• Automate the duplication of data-entry tasks.
• Produce custom reports to facilitate payroll.

Tracking Both Time and Expenses

Before ClickTime, MGE was using a legacy system that only tracked time, not expenses. This led to client invoicing becoming onerous as critical data was siloed across spreadsheets. Administrator Shannon Campbell explains, “It was essential that our invoices included both time and material for accurate billing and transparency.”

In order to gauge the costs and billings of each project, administrators were forced to perform manual calculations. The team also couldn’t monitor project progress at a glance, inhibiting leaders from seeing a holistic view of costs in real-time.

Logging Time from Remote Locations

Equally frustrating, the old system was notorious for losing entries when workers logged real-time hours from remote locations. Campbell recalls, “It didn’t even give you notice that your time entry didn’t take. You’d be reviewing your hours the next day and discover everything you entered was gone.”

Over time, it became obvious that the legacy tool couldn’t maintain the integrity of the time entry data, severely hindering the team’s efficiency.

Campbell explains, “95% of our resources are in the field, all over California. We cover a lot of remote territory. We are regularly in the woods and mountains and we needed a timekeeping application that was reliable.”

Frustrated employees reluctantly duplicated entries, but struggled to remember how long they spent on projects a few days later.

Reducing Excessive Admin Work

Reducing administrative overhead was also a concern for MGE. Because of the sheer volume of data entry tasks, the business was forced to expand headcount to collate their data across different spreadsheets.

Campbell laments, “There was so much manual work done by hand with excel spreadsheets. We were paying admin staff to essentially cut and paste data all day.”

To run a lean operation, Campbell knew that she needed to find a tool that had custom reporting features that would eliminate the need for extra staff.

Benefits from Custom Reporting

Campbell recognized that in order to save the business time and money, she needed custom reports. Specifically, she needed to export time data directly from ClickTime and import that data into her payroll system.

This proved challenging, as the reports needed to reflect company-specific overtime rules.

Campbell says, “We discovered that if you want any kind of custom report, ClickTime can do it. That’s where their world-class Professional Services Team came in.”

After just a few meetings with ClickTime’s talented Professional Services Team, Campbell was wowed by exactly how motivated the team was to solve the problem. She says,“When I found out how customized they could make the platform for us, I got really excited.”

A Unified Time & Expense Platform

After a successful implementation, it didn’t take long for MGE to realize the benefits of storing both time and expense data in a singular platform.

Campbell comments, “The fact that ClickTime has timekeeping and expenses in one application is what initially drew us to the product, but we never imagined how many hours we saved due to its custom reporting capabilities.”

Data Exports Formatted for Payroll

This custom reporting also proved essential for facilitating MGE’s payroll operations. To circumvent the out-of-the-box restrictions, ClickTime’s Professional Services Team created export logic outside of the standard capabilities. This ensured MGE could export their time data in their payroll system’s preferred format.

Campbell says, “We need an incredibly granular amount of data to keep track of our resources on a project. ClickTime worked for us. It really has the ability to collect and report on everything you need to run your business.”

Less Time Spent on Administrative Tasks

Moreover, the custom report reduced a significant amount of manual data entry. No longer did the team need to employ extra admin staff to wrestle with unwieldy spreadsheets. Because of this time savings, the company was able to funnel those funds directly back into the business.

Campbell says, “ClickTime reduced the number of hours it took us to run payroll. Doing so increased our efficiency and ultimately impacted our profitability.”

A Mobile App that Stores Data Locally

MGE’s data integrity problem was also quickly solved with ClickTime’s mobile timesheet app. Workers were able to log time into the system no matter how remote their location in the field.

Any hours logged were stored locally on the app before being automatically synced to the cloud, eliminating the possibility of lost data. For the first time since the inception of the business, time and expense tracking finally became easy.

Campbell raves, “We found the platform not only incredibly user friendly, but more importantly, reliable for our workers in the field. ClickTime really hit the mark.”

Ongoing Support

MGE’s communication with ClickTime didn’t stop after implementation. Their Customer Success team was brought in early and often to train and support MGE’s staff as needed.

Campbell raves, “The Customer Success Team was never hurried, and never nickel and dimed us. They were always there to answer our questions. They are phenomenal.”

A Seamless Timekeeping Experience

MGE chose ClickTime because of the product’s robust time and expense capabilities, the reliability of their mobile app, and their deep reporting capabilities.

The implementation proved to be successful, resulting in time savings, staffing optimization, and increased transparency into the operations of the business.

Find out how ClickTime’s bespoke solutions can reduce your costs, increase project visibility, and help you streamline your back end processes.