Three Things Your Timesheet Vendor Should Do
If you've outgrown your current paper-based or homegrown timesheet system, or if you have multiple installed time collection systems that produce inconsistent data, it gets hard to understand project costs, to figure out what people are working on, and to send correct and timely bills out to your customers. It also can make payroll very frustrating.
How can you be sure you'll get a system that works for your company and is immune to the most common problems people experience when buying a timesheet collection automation system? Here are three of the nine critical things to consider:
- The Most Common Mistake In Buying Timesheet Software.
- ASP Flexibility Allows Early Rollouts, Server Protection, and Easier Upgrades.
- Why A 15 Day Trial Is Too Short For Timesheet Software.
Read on for the details on each of the above considerations. Or download the complete nine-part document, Nine Critical Characteristics To Demand From Your Timesheet Vendor, as a PDF from the White Papers section of our website.
- The Most Common Mistake In Buying Timesheet Software.
Don't fall for a deceptive demo.
You have the power to demand that any vendor absolutely, completely prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their solution will solve your company's specific business problem. You deserve a detailed demonstration that uses your employee list, your customer list, your project list, your company's logo and color scheme and that shows you reports on your data that will prove to you that your business problem is solved. If a vendor can't make you 100% certain that the solution will work for your specific business needs, then walk. Period. Canned demos are designed to deceive. Don't believe them.
What To Ask Competitors: "Can you absolutely prove that you will solve my business problem using my employees, departments, projects etc. then show me the reports I need to see?"
How We Do It: At Journyx our demonstration will not be a 'movie' that you just sit back and watch. You'll have free use of the full package yourself. And we'll show you exactly how our application can solve your problems. After the demo is over, we'll leave it up and live - still loaded with all of your data - so you can log into it afterward and show other people in your company how it works.
- ASP Flexibility Allows Early Rollouts, Server Protection, and Easier Upgrades.
Most timesheet software companies either sell software or sell an ASP service, not both. The majority sell only licenses.
ASP means 'application service provider'. It means you can rent access to our 100% web-based software that's running on one of our servers instead of installing it on a server at your office. This allows early rollouts, server protection, and easier upgrades.
What To Ask Competitors: "What sort of backup generator do you have in case of a power outage at your ASP site and where is it hosted? How much does server protection cost? Can I rollout on your ASP servers and later transfer the data to my own servers? Where are ASP backup tapes stored?"
How We Do It: We offer ASP services with power outage protection and full offline backups or the application can be run on your own server. About 100 of our customers use this service today.
- Early Rollout - ASP allows you to rollout much earlier. Customers can roll out on ASP and switch to a local install when their server arrives. We'll send you a backup of your data and you'll be up and running in a couple of hours.
- Server Protection - ASP technology lets us offer "Server Protection", so that if your server fails we can have you up and running again on one of our ASP sites in under 24 hours.
- Flawless Upgrades - ASP sites allow us to do flawless upgrades. At upgrade time, you send us your most recent data backup. We upgrade the data to the latest version and put it on an ASP site so they can test the behavior to ensure the validity of your data. If all is well we finalize the migration and upgrade on your server.
- Why a 15 Day Trial Is Too Short For Timesheet Software.
Most of our competitors offer a 15 day trial. We offer a forever trial.
In many cases it takes longer to see how reports work, how your employees like it, if your managers will use it, etc. Your client billing process is a monthly operation, right? Wouldn't you prefer to at least run a few payroll cycles on this application before you buy it? Every situation is different, and for most people, 15 days just isn't enough.
What To Ask Competitors: "Can I have a version of your software that is free forever?"
How We Do It: Journyx is not a shelfware company. To ensure this remains true, a 10-user version of our software is available for free forever, to anybody. We think you should have all the time in the world to make sure you're getting the technology that will work for you. Our product speaks for itself. If you still think there's a catch, our philosophy of freeware and shelfware avoidance is described at http://journyx.com/whyfree.html.
Don't Forget! You can also download and install a free 10 user fully licensed copy of our software.