case study
Crowe Erastus & Co. provides services in audit, tax, risk and advisory for over 20 years. It is one of the largest financial services firms in Kenya and a member of Crowe Global, ranked as the 8th largest accounting network in the world.
Time is the key factor in service industry. Crowe Erastus & Co. projects are based around customers so the company needs accurate time logs for generating invoices and keeping track of agreed schedule to timely meet client deliverables. Each project usually takes 3-4 weeks and consists of a field work on the customer’s side and reporting. The firm was using Gantt charts for planning but was also striving for a better control over the time allocation for each project activity.
Initially the team tried to do it via an Excel spreadsheet but this tool had too many limitations.
Our main problem was lack of visibility in our performance. Project managers couldn’t automatically analyze time spent by staff members on different projects nor filter activities for a specified period. It was also very time-consuming to generate multiple staff reports and not all criteria were available for sorting.
Staff members also had their concerns: they demanded a simple and an easy-to-use tool for logging their time and for saving time spent on weekly reporting.
After running an online research of multiple time-trackers, Crowe Erastus & Co stumbled upon actiTIME that had a large portfolio of consulting and accounting companies among their clients. The latter became the deciding factor.
Company’s management did a short centralized onboarding session which included a demo and a step-by-step guide on how to use actiTIME. They also introduced time-tracking policies that included due dates for time submission. That was enough to get the time-tracking process run smoothly.
Changing work instruments is always a challenge but everything went smoothly with actiTIME. Actually it was a relief for our employees to switch to more efficient time-tracking system.
Crowe Erastus & Co’s employees immediately felt the difference. They reported a reduction in time spent filing their time logs of 50% that gave them opportunity to focus on other valuable activities. With actiTIME’s mobile app tracking time on the client’s side became a breeze as well. Now accountants simply start the timer on their phone as they start another task and get accurate time logs without taking notes.
A great advantage for managers was obtaining a complete overview of staff availability and leaves thanks to the integration with actiPLANS, a staff absence management system. Having this data together with time logs and estimations for upcoming projects improved staff allocation and scheduling and reduced employee downtime.
actiTIME helped Crowe Erastus & Co make most of the team’s time and optimize their work processes for maximum efficiency. As a result, this saved both company’s costs and reduced projects cost for clients. Crowe Erastus improved relationships with existing clients and got a competitive advantage for gaining new ones – all this thanks to establishing a smart time management with actiTIME.
