One of our absolute favorite things, here at OfficeTime, is to feature our users on our Blog! This week our interview on time management and how vital it is to a successful business is with Bill Dawson, founder of Bill Dawson & Associates. Bill is a cool guy who writes opera, plays trombone and remodels train stations on his lunch break – yep, just an average guy. Exactly the kind of client we love to interview!
Tell us about your company, Bill, and about the services you provide.
Bill Dawson & Associates, Inc. is a software production company. Our target market is small to medium businesses. We use the term “software production” because we don’t limit ourselves to any one specific platform or language. Our engineers are proficient in just about everything under the sun (or the Apple, as the case may be).
We’ve been doing this for a long time (over 25 years) and are well respected and connected in the industry, and of we don’t personally specialize in a technology, we probably know people who do (and bring them in to get the job done). Because of our relationships, we can often get better rates than most clients could get by going to those parties directly.
We write iOS apps, WebOS, and Android. Our internet development is generally LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) based, but we can handle Ruby, Windows .Net and Java too.
How important is time management in the day-to-day running of your business AND your life?
Time management is a necessary evil. Wouldn’t we all love to just show up for work whenever we want, work on whatever we want and not worry about money? Unfortunately life doesn’t work that way. Even if you only work on one project all week long, you still have to keep track of your hours. In our business, we work on several projects throughout the day for multiple clients with varying rates, often with multiple rates for each facet of those projects. (For instance, we charge differently for design, HTML, PHP or hosting services.)
Talk to me specifically about OfficeTime. What’s been your biggest takeaway of using it?
OfficeTime takes care of the things we don’t want to – and does it with simplicity and efficiency. Billing and invoicing take time – non-billable time – just keeping track of how long one person worked on one project for one client is time consuming. Add the complexity of that one person working on two different projects, three, or more; all with different rates, some hourly, maybe some flat rates… You certainly don’t want to bill client A for time spent working for client B. Add to the mix a team of people working on the same project(s). It gets to the point where time keeping takes more time than time working.
So what new and awesome thing have you been able to create in your business, since you’ve freed up so much time with the OfficeTime time tracking tool?
Probably the biggest feature of OfficeTime to answer that question is what I call the “nag screen”. I have OfficeTime set to alert me when I’ve been idle for 10 minutes or more. It then gives me the choice of keeping the minutes or deducting them. If I’ve been working on another machine – but for the same client – I keep the minutes. But if I was distracted by the telephone or gone to lunch without clocking out, I don’t have to guess at how much time transpired. I know.
It’s also very simple to switch between projects and have all the timers and rates instantly change. If I’m working for client A and client B calls me with an emergency, I can quickly change to client B’s timer. I have recouped so many dollars by this feature alone. Previously I would get to the end of my day and find that I only had 5 or 6 hours that could [ethically] bill even though I’d been in the office for 10 hours or more. OfficeTime also handles my billing for me. That’s one fewer pieces of software I have to pay for! The templates are easy to create and customize.
I also have a second occupation. I make movies. [um, can we just say WOW here, Bill?]
When I’m in Hollywood, I often work on a different show every day of the week. They each have different rates, expenses and scale. It doesn’t matter it I work on “The Office” on Monday, Thursday and Friday and “Captain America” on Tuesday and Thursday, OfficeTime will invoice each production separately and accurately. I don’t always have the flexibility to open my laptop and change studios, but the iPhone app syncs with my desktop so seamlessly that I can switch them on the fly using my phone and they’ll sync up at the end of the day.
Did I mention EXPENSES? I once worked for a producer whose license plates was “RECEIPTS”. There is no reason to give multimillion dollar corporations free stuff! There’s also the need to track your own business expenses. Postage and ballpoint pens add up to a tidy tax deduction if you keep track of them.
Like I said at the beginning, time management is a necessary evil. OfficeTime takes the “evil” out of it, leaving me with more time to concentrate on my business.
Sincerely, Bill Dawson
Bill Dawson & Associates, Inc.