[R&D] Track your time management to boost productivity

Time management is often seen as the preserve of the human resources department, when in fact it concerns the whole company. Employees are asked to fill in their timesheets, and managers are involved in managing leave and absences, for example.

In the specific case of research and development (R&D) teams, time tracking is of vital importance in the context of the research tax credit (CIR) or innovation tax credit (CII). appvizer sheds light on the use of time management software in companies and guides you through the process.

See all software Time tracking

Time management: definition

Time management is an HR concept that is still perceived today as a means of "monitoring" employees' work. On the contrary, it is a way of ensuring compliance with legal obligations (working hours, rest periods, overtime, etc.) and knowing how to react to productivity imperatives.

In practical terms, this involves monitoring and reporting on working hours: arrival and departure times, number of hours worked over a given period, days of leave or RTT taken, etc.

Time tracking is used, among other things, for invoicing projects and drawing up schedules. In short, it enables you to manage your business proactively and boost the performance of your employees.

Why manage time in R&D?

Benefit no. 1: optimised project management

You can improve the quality of your project management thanks to a single environment. You manage the project, tracking resources and budget, the progress of tasks, etc. This allows you to check that resources are being allocated wisely.

Benefit no. 2: time savings

You save time when creating and updating schedules. You can see which resources are more efficient for which type of task. Result: you can monitor tasks more comprehensively.

Benefit no. 3: accurate reporting

Monitor the progress of your projects in real time using dashboards and key indicators. These will tell you how time is being managed, how tasks are being distributed and what resources are being used.

Benefit no. 4: process optimisation

Thanks to the reporting described in the previous point and better work organisation, you can adapt your processes to keep only the equations that work best and boost your performance even further. You can formalise your processes within your teams and use the tools to improve traceability.

All these benefits are vital to your company's long-term success.

Time tracking and CIR

The research tax credit is aimed at companies that spend money on research and development. These companies can benefit from this financial support, whatever their size or sector of activity.

To benefit from it, is the timesheet compulsory?

No. In the event of an audit, the company must be able to provide proof of the expenditure claimed under the research tax credit. In other words, it must be able to prove that the resources were actually allocated to research for a given project. This is where time sheets become essential.

What's more, the time spent on these specific projects needs to be known in order to accurately calculate the salaries of engineers, researchers and technicians.

So you need to manage your project teams' time right from the start of the project to ensure rigorous monitoring. To help you with this task, appvizer recommends that you use dedicated software.

Which software should you use to monitor time management?

JourOff is an organisational and human resources management solution that allows you to organise your company's activity. It includes :

• project management
• task management in Kanban mode
• scheduling
• holidays
• and time management.

• the standard approach, where the employee enters his or her time in a time and activity sheet. The manager then receives an email notification to validate. This approach is suitable for invoicing or overtime, for example.
• the intuitive approach, where time is calculated using the tools already in place within the team, i.e. diaries, planning, project management software, etc. This approach saves data entry time, particularly on large-scale projects.

Note: JourOff is free for companies with fewer than 15 employees.

See all software Time tracking

Improve performance with efficient time management

We saw above that effective time tracking is useful both for structuring your projects and for managing your business more generally. The benefits are felt in terms of productivity, budget and employee satisfaction.

You'll quickly see the return on your investment in time management software. You'll improve the quality of your project management, and your R&D teams in particular will perform considerably better.