Time Tracking Best Practices When Working with VAs

Time tracking is essential when you pay hourly or need visibility into how work is spent. This tutorial covers simple, respectful approaches that balance oversight with trust.

Choose the Right Tool

• Toggl: simple timers and reports.
• Time Doctor: screenshots + activity monitoring (use with consent).
• Harvest: invoicing + time tracking.

Policies and Expectations

• Ask VAs to log time daily.
• Require brief descriptions for each time entry.
• Define billable vs. non-billable activities.

Practical Rules

• Use timers for focused work blocks (25–90 minutes).
• For short tasks (<10 minutes), batch them under a single entry.
• Weekly review by manager to confirm accuracy.

Reporting

• Weekly summary: hours by project and task.
• Monthly: trend analysis and scope adjustments.
• Use reports to decide if tasks should be fixed-fee instead of hourly.

Time tracking should enable fairness and optimization — not micromanagement. Want a starter time-tracking policy template added to your repo? I can add one.