Thank you to Bellefield Systems, the creator of iTimekeep, for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month. iTimekeep is one of the most useful apps on my iPhone, and along with Microsoft Word, it is one of those rare apps that I use almost every day on multiple computing platforms: PC, Mac, iPad, and iPhone. iTimekeep greatly improves time entry and time management for attorneys. Everyone who bills their time would agree that this is one of the most annoying aspects of a law practice, so the ability to transform this task from a daily drudgery to something that can be done much more easily is a huge win. I posted a full review of iTimekeep two years ago, and here is an update on why I find iTimekeep to be so valuable, plus a discussion of some of the new features recently added.
iPhone
I don't use iTimekeep on my iPhone every day, but whenever I do, it is incredibly valuable. How many times have you had one of those "oh yeah" moments when you suddenly remembered that you forgot to record time for some activity? This often occurs to me before I go to bed at night. In the old days, I would hope to remember it the next time that I was in front of my PC in my office, but as you can imagine that didn't work that well. Now, in just a few seconds, I can open the iTimekeep app on my iPhone, record my time, and then be done. The iTimekeep app talks to the server that you use for time entry at your firm (we use Elite at my law firm) and instantly adds your time.
This is valuable to me for two reasons. First, I don't lose credit for the work that I did. Those little tasks may often be only a fraction of an hour, but they do add up over time when you do a better job of tracking all of them. Second, my time entry is always more accurate and descriptive when I enter it contemporaneously, or as close to that as possible, which means that the invoice that I provide to my client is a better invoice. Indeed, I will often enter time on my iPhone immediately after an event ends. I can step into an elevator after a meeting with my client, and I can finish my time entry before it is even time to get off of the elevator.
The iPhone interface is fantastic because you can enter your time so quickly. Tap "Matter" at the top and you can just start to type a few letters associated with a client or matter. As soon as you see the one that you want, just tap it.
In the Settings for iTimekeep you can also have the app default to your last matter when you enter time. This makes it even faster to enter multiple entries for the same client/matter, something that I do every day.
Tap the 0.00 to enter a specific time period.
If you want to instead have the iPhone keep track of your time, press the green Start button to start a timer. What if you started the timer too early or too late? No worries, just tap the nudge button to adjust the timer as necessary. What if you take a break? Just tap the pause button.
To make it even faster to enter time on my iPhone, I use the iPhone's built-in text replacement feature (Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Text Replacement. For example, if I type "rcf" on my iPhone, the iPhone automatically changes that to "Review correspondence from " and then I just type the person's name and what the correspondence is about.
iTimekeep validates your time against client billing requirements, so you don't have to worry about forgetting to add a needed issue or task code for a file, or for entering time in 0.1 increments when the client requires 0.25 entries.
PC and Mac
You can also use iTimekeep on a secure website, using your browser of choice, from a PC or a Mac. That's how I enter most of my time. In my office, I enter it using my PC. When I enter my time from the day at home at night, I use my Mac.
There are large buttons to click to add time or start a timer. From there, the process is similar to an iPhone, and time entry is even faster because you can use your computer's keyboard. The My Time page gives you a clear view of each entry, with the client name, followed by the matter name, and then your descriptive text and the time.
A recent update adds buttons across the top to make it even faster to switch to different views. The Dashboard gives you an overview of your month (or week or year), including the number of billable and non-billable hours, average daily load, and other useful statistics. The Calendar makes it easy to see an overview of how much you billed each day, and you can jump to any specific day to add more time for that day. Those two views also make it easy to review your timecards and fill in any missing time gaps, which is especially useful if someone else enters your time and you just want to fix the entries. And if you like the timer feature, the Timers view gives you a single view for managing concurrent timers, so you can quickly switch between timers in different matters.
Presumably, your billing system also has its own webpage or desktop software that can be used to enter time. But iTimekeep is so fast and easy to use that it allows you to be much more efficient with your time entry, freeing you up to either do more work or finish your work day even earlier.
Conclusion
Everything about the time entry process is better with iTimekeep. You spend less time entering your own time, and you do so more accurately and efficiently. And because your iPhone is probably always with you, it is incredibly easy to enter time contemporaneously or record an entry from earlier in the day whenever and wherever you think about it. Additionally, reviewing prior time entries is simple, and iTimekeep will even alert you when you appear to be missing time from a day. Thus, even if you don't enter your own time, iTimekeep makes it incredibly easy to see what time was recorded for you so that you can fix any mistakes earlier in the process. Thanks to iTimekeep for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month and for improving my own law practice.
