Software Second Look: BigTime

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When you first hear the name ‘BigTime’ you might think that this is just another ‘timekeeping’ App, but BigTime is so much more. BigTime provides project budgeting and planning, time and expense tracking, and invoicing/payments. It also gives you super neat reporting, analytics, and informetrics displaying the data you need about utilization, capacity planning, and project profitability. Best of all, BigTime works with either QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop software.

Insightful Accountant is hosting a webinar with BigTime on May 19 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time, titled Overcoming the 5 Most Common Accounting Workflow Inefficiencies. You can register here.

Designed for a Business Like Ours (and more)

A lot of times when Insightful Accountant reviews software we are looking at Apps that help you with the needs of your client. While you certainly can use BigTime for almost any kind of business, we believe that this is one App that you want to look at for yourself and your firm.

You see, BigTime specializes in being a complete management solution for professional service businesses like accounting and CPA firms. With BigTime you will improve your internal processes relative to each stage of your operations with easily configured standardized workflows along with project creation, budget setting, time approval, expense management, and client invoicing. And BigTime was built to leverage your entire ecosystem, so it offers deep integration capabilities with the tools and software that your team already is using like Lacerte Tax, Slack, Zapier or Salesforce, and many more.

Informetrics – As I said earlier, you won’t go without the information you need when you are using BigTime. You will have real-time analytic capabilities using a variety of pre-built reporting templates to track the most common KPIs.

You will easily build custom reports from reporting template ‘starters’ which will allow you to focus on the utilization, capacity, and profitability numbers you need to know. And did I mention that Gannt charts (like the one shown below) for your projects are standard with BigTime? You just get more data, more reporting, more dashboarding, and more ‘informetrics’ the way you need it with BigTime.

Advanced Billing Capabilities – You are probably wondering why you would want to do your billing out of BigTime when you are using QuickBooks (Online or Desktop) for your accounting. The answer is simple… ‘Options’! You simply get more and have more options with BigTime then you do in either QBO or QBD when it comes to Invoicing capabilities. 

With BigTime you’ll invoice faster and realize more revenue by leveraging BigTime’s central hub for tracking WIP, drafts, billing rates, cost rates, PDF formats, billing rules, and more. And BigTime’s Invoice Templates all you to easily customize your invoices to exactly the way you prefer them to be. As I said, you simply have more invoicing options with BigTime.

Designed for Times Like These (and beyond)

Who would have known even at the start of 2020 that just a few months later that the vast majority of users would be attempting to work from our homes while our offices are closed as a result ‘shelter-in-place’ and ‘social distancing’ orders impacting not only our country but much of the world as a result of COVID-19? While conditions are changing and we may see some businesses reopen in the not too distant future, it is also possible that the Coronavirus may well have changed work-life as we know it.  Hundreds of thousands of workers may have altered work relationships hereafter, with many employers feeling that if an employee can more safely work from home effectively, then they should do so except when circumstances dictate otherwise.

The good news for BigTime users is that the software’s cloud-based schema was designed to provide user collaboration no matter where personnel were located. With notifications built into the workflows you design for areas like timesheets, expenses, and invoices (as seen above), not to mention Slack integration that provides immediate notifications (as shown below) when tasks or assignments are posted or due, everyone will be on the same page whether they are at home or abroad, in Atlanta or Anchorage, the office or on-board the company jet.

Timekeeping Anywhere/Anyway – Of course you would expect BigTime to have tremendous timekeeping capabilities like customizable timesheets with the fields you need and not the ones you don’t. Choose your methods too, weekly to monthly time ranges, minutes, tenths of hours, etc. Reduce errors by limiting information your personnel must enter and controlling access to sensitive information.

The mobile BigTime App for either iPhone or Android devices allow employees to utilize timers or enter time manually while on a worksite or out of the office. They can also capture expenses and receipts simply by taking a photo on their mobile device and marking the expense as either billable or no charge.

And mobile App users even have access to clients, projects and key staff information (for which they are authorized) when they are working outside their office.

Dashboards/Reporting – Everyone wants dashboards these days, nobody wants an 18-inch wide report that’s 300 pages long of rows and columns of data to tell them what they don’t understand. They need graphics with a few numbers to give them ‘the Big Picture’ and then let them quickly and easily drill down on the few little pictures they are interested in.  BigTime has you covered with Dashboards you can customize to fit your specific role or needs and the work you are working on.

Then just as quickly select a specific area of interest and get all the details you want, it’s just that simple.

Find Out More

If BigTime sounds like the kind of solution you have been looking for to get your firm under control, or perhaps to even help bring one of your clients from the dark ages of paper-punch timecards to a cloud solution, then you are probably ready to sign-up for a one-on-one Demo. Or if you need more information then head on over to the BigTime website.

You may also want to REGISTER for the next BigTime Webinar Insightful Accountant is hosting on May 19 at 12pm Eastern titled, Overcoming the 5 Most Common Accounting Workflow Inefficiencies.