Office Time Review

Office Time is a timeKEEPER! So I'm all in with Office Time. I've got the OS version for the desktop as well as the iOS version on both the iPad and iPhone. ...and I love it! For over thirty years I made valiant attempts to accurately record the time spent on creative projects whose ultimate billing was a reflection of and dependent upon my time expended. In some cases I would record the time on each successive draft, on others I would create a recap sheet and at other times I've tried to keep a spiral notebook with running record of all projects in one place. All of these options had their pros but they also had their cons. If this sounds familiar to you you'll very much enjoy Office Time. The need to write both starting and ending times and then do the math to turn the minutes into billing based on the applicable hourly rate was a time waster. Backing out the un-billable time occasioned by a phone call or other unplanned interruption was more guesswork than anything else. Was the guess short changing me or the client? Then there were the times when work was done on a project when the applicable time sheet was not in hand. Many a time the scribbled "note on a napkin" accounting for the time spent never ended up getting entered in the proper timesheet. Enter Office Time (insert drum roll here). Simple. Effective. Pays for itself quickly. Now, no matter where I am, I can accurately track the time I spend on anything and everything. I may not be in front of my iMac but likely will have the iPad nearby. If not, I'm never without the iPhone. Since Office Time syncs between its desktop and mobile apps I never lose track time earned nor bill for more time than spent. No guessing or reconstructing necessary unless I'm doing a lot of creative in the shower. Everyone keeps track of time for different reasons. Some need to track billable time while some have an interest in recording time donated to a community project. - yet some do both. Office Time allows you to create as many "projects" as you like and apply any number of "categories" to the time spent. While writing this review I stopped for a conference call and a simple click stopped the timing. On return another click to start session number two. The next interruption was unplanned taking me away from the iPad, leaving it idle for 15 minutes, although the timer kept running. On my return to the iPad I was reminded it had been idle for 15 minutes and given the option to deduct that time from the timer. Another simple but great feature. Relying on reviews, however thorough, is not necessary since Office Time offers a fully featured 30 day demo. This review took exactly 51 minutes to write. I know this because I use the iPhone App to record the time as I penned it on the iPad.

When Your Customers Become a Bother You May Need to Rethink Your Business Plan

Although I’ve always tried to create the impression that I am so careful as to be infallible, I do  on occasion make a mistake. One such mistake happened recently which raised an interesting customer relationship issue.

My customer wanted a repeat order on an item I sourced thru my vendor, Kinroj Inc., so I efficiently emailed my vendor for an exact repeat. Oh, efficient but stupid, as my customer had changed their address since the original order. In fact, that previous order was the very last item delivered while they were still at the old address.

No big deal - right. I called my vendor, Kinroj, Inc. and told the helpful sales coordinator that I made a mistake on the ship to address ad needed to have them change it. The very first thing the sales coordinator said was “UPS charges us $25.00 to change the address so we will change you $25.00”. 

Maybe you’re thinking they should have first  asked me the correct address or assured me they would be able to take care of it, instead of leading with the extra charge? I know I was thinking exactly that.

So it’s always good to get another opinion, which I did by calling UPS directly. I asked if the recipient could make the change and was told that the sender (my valued vendor) had not allowed that option - only the vendor could change the ship to address. Just before hanging up I asked how much the charge was from UPS and was told the charge to change an address was $15.00 - that’s $15.00 not $25.00.

Back to the helpful sales coordinator who acknowledged that UPS charged $15.00 but they (Kinroj, Inc.) charged an additional $10.00 because of the "time it took them to make the change." 

Now I don’t think this “project” required any overtime, or bringing on additional hires to complete the task. Is it just another example of a business just fed up with having to deal with the imperfections of its customers?

At first iI thought this was the result of an employee who lost track of the bigger picture. Until I got this email reply from the owner of the company

“As to the charge of $10 for fixing a problem, not of our creation, I do not find that to be exorbitant at all. If you think about it, we have to take those 5 minutes (which is really longer) getting hold of UPS and making it clear as to what is wanted; then she has to inform accounting that we will be billed by UPS for $15  (for something that only takes them 5 minutes), on order number xxxx, because the shipment has been redirected; and then we have to create an invoice and send it to you. In some cases we have to wait to get paid, in some cases we can run a credit card immediately. In all cases UPS gets their money within 7 days. I am sorry, but, I find $10 fee on top of $15 from UPS a small price to pay for a mistake.”

2 Questions...

How would you feel toward a vendor who had this policy? 

How would YOU deal with this situation to be fair to all parties and preserve your customer?