How a small business owner doubled revenue and halved working hours with Timeular

Valdemar Alfred is a Danish independent illustrator and creative. He translates complex information into something easily understandable using illustrations and animations. His clients comprise both public clients and private companies.

The challenge: building and maintaining a time tracking habit

Valdemar charges his clients a fixed price for projects as it’s easier to sell services when able to give a guide for the overall cost.

He needed a way to be able to effortlessly keep track of how long each stage of the creative process took from idea through to delivery so that he knew how to quote and charge the right amount.

Valdemar had tried other team time tracking solutions but struggled to maintain the habit and so was without the accurate data that he needed.

The solution: supercharging Timeular with integrations

Valdemar came across Timeular through a referral from his friend and uses the software with his team of two assistants as an internal project managing tool. Using the Timeular API, he set up an integration with Zapier and Google Sheets and uses the combination to create elaborate sheets containing all the necessary information about clients and the associated budgets.

Every time Valdemar creates a time entry using the Tracker, it creates a line in the Google sheet so that he can always follow how many hours he has spent on the project to date and how far away he is from hitting the budget. His team uses a folder for each client so they can easily see an overview of the ongoing projects.

Tip: you can now use our budgets feature to manage client and project budgets and ensure that you never go over budget again.

Thanks to Timeular, Valdemar is able to deliver projects before the budget runs out, which means he is able to stay profitable, he can make a better hourly rate and the client is happy with his efficient work, so it’s a win-win for everyone!

Valdemar’s preferred tracking method is the Tracker but his team tracks their time through the desktop app. The options work well for the team and they find it incredibly beneficial being able to see all of their data in the same place so that they know how much time they’ve collectively contributed towards the set budget and how much of their time is taken up by admin and what portion is billable.

The outcome: doubled earnings, halved hours

Valdemar has made some surprising revelations thanks to the insights Timeular has unlocked: he’s realized that out of an eight hour day, a lot of time is spent on activities that are not work including breaks and socializing with colleagues. Knowing this has helped him optimize his working time:

Valdemar explains that he was working in the dark before using Timeular as he had no idea how many hours he was spending on projects. He says that looking back, he realizes he could have made three times more revenue if he had managed his time.