TIMESHEET, Oh! TIMESHEET !

The most spoken word, desired (by few people), hated (by the most) and that should be loved and worshiped by everyone!

Very few businesses can afford to have such few and important management indicators and tools as Law has in Timesheet. Other companies must be managed with production reports (PCPs), stocks (ABC curves), optimization of strategic resources, logistic of production and distribution , representatives, besides, obviously, all others economic and financial reports, etc, etc.

Law, mainly in corporate firms, has in Timesheet a single and complete management tool (except the exclusively financial ones) and its correct use may provide the most extensive vision of the business. It is a pity that not all office leaders give the proper value to this small procedure that is very simple to install and even easier to do.

Timesheet is basically a working agenda (Outlook -style) prepared by a professional that has some specific characteristics in order to appropriate the time devoted to each task, that is, time that was spent, task that was performed, to which client and matter (or contract, or process, etc), the job was dedicated.

Having in mind these basic pieces of information plus some more supplementary ones, which are the collection fee of each professional and his cost/hour, the sector or area of work to which this professional belongs to, the classification or seniority of each professional, the unit, branch or center he belongs to, and the kind of job the professional performed (this is a novelty introduced by the international systems of electronic billing where each task receives a specific code called code “LEDES”), the timesheet turns itself into the following tools to the manager:

1-) As the management tool of the team may (and should) estimate:

– The performance/efficiency by comparing the time spent in each task and the expected or normal time for each one per type of professional.

– The devotion to compare the downbeats versus the established goals.

– The consistency between the type of work and the experience (seniority) of the professional.

– The distribution of the tasks depending on seniority

– A better distribution of the staff in order to minimize downtimes.

2-) As the management tool of the client’s matters may (and should) estimate:

– which work is being elaborated to each matter or client.

-which professionals are involved.

– how the development of the work is going.

– what the estimates for the conclusion or steps are.

3-) Cost planning and control tool, estimating:

– the amounts spent in terms of the costs of the working hours of the professional versus charged amounts ( mainly in case of fixed charges.)

– What the best distribution of the team in the matters would be, allocating professionals that are coherent with the complexity and charged amounts.

4-) As budged support tool is able to:

– collect and estimate previous cases, observing the charged amounts, generated costs, teams engaged and mainly the results that were obtained.

5-) Estimating tool of:

Performance/efficiency per team, sector, area, cost centers or branch.

– profitability when associated to the financial controls and allocating of costs.

As it has already been mentioned, the simple exact making of the works executed by all professionals in a single system generates a very powerful tool in the management of any law firm.

If it is so simple and highly powerful and efficient, then why does not everybody adopt it? The answer is not so simple and goes through several interpretations and the first and most obvious one, as it is a repetitive task, it is very “boring” to be done. As it is boring, the professional tends to procrastinate its execution and this behavior ends up becoming one of the worst problems because, when not doing it immediately at the end of the work, they forget about the correct detailing and also forget about any other small works that were executed.

In addition to being boring for the ones that should do it, the task of review and checking by the team coordinators needs a very hard work, but its correct execution and checking provides a highly detailed report of the work done to the client, being an important factor for the client’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

Another issue is the false sensation of the lack of need, mainly in the case of fixed charges, by steps and with professionals with fixed salaries. As opposed to what may seem, it is exactly in those cases where the figure of the timesheet may clearly determinate where the positive and negative results are, preventing the blind management of a “cake” (mess?) that may be potentially fatal for the business.

The support by an outsourced consultancy firm that is experienced and exempt from internal interactions and relationship may indeed help solving this challenge,  as well as defining a specific model to each office/ company.

José Paulo Graciotti, is consultant and founding Partner of GRACIOTTI ASSESSORIA EMPRESARIAL, engeneer by Escola Politécnica Universidade de São Paulo, with Financial MBA at FGV and specialized in Knowledge Mnagement by FGV. ILTA Member since 1998 (International Legal Technology Association) and ALA (Association of Legal Administrators), with more than 27 years managing Law Firms in Brazil – www.graciotti.com.br