Time Tracking and Hour Billing: More Profitability Through Precise Project Costing
01.10.2025
Time Tracking and Hour Billing: More Profitability Through Precise Project Costing
In the construction and trades sector, time really is money.
Every hour spent on-site, in the office, or on coordination impacts the bottom line, yet most businesses still track time using outdated methods.
Manual timesheets, Excel files, and guesswork make it nearly impossible to know where time (and money) actually goes. The result? Inaccurate quotes, hidden costs, and lower profit margins than expected.
With Odoo ERP, time tracking becomes effortless, accurate, and fully connected to every project, enabling trade and construction companies to uncover where they earn, and where they lose.
The Problem: Blind Spots in Project Time and Costing
Even well-run businesses often face these issues:
Unreliable timesheets: Employees record hours at the end of the week from memory, leading to errors.
No real-time visibility: Managers can’t see how many hours have been logged until after a project ends.
Manual billing: Admin staff spend hours matching time reports to invoices.
Unknown profitability: It’s unclear which projects are profitable and which silently drain resources.
Without precise time tracking, there’s no accurate project costing, and no way to improve it.
The Odoo Solution: Integrated Time Tracking and Project Costing
Odoo makes time tracking simple, transparent, and connected.
Every hour worked is linked directly to the project, task, and employee who performed it. That data then flows automatically into billing, payroll, and performance analytics, all in one place.
1. Easy Time Tracking for Field and Office Teams
Employees can log their time from anywhere: desktop, tablet, or mobile app.
Each entry is tagged to a specific project or task, giving managers real-time insights into who is working on what.
Field technicians record on-site hours instantly.
Office staff log administrative and planning work.
Managers can review, approve, or adjust entries before billing.
No more collecting paper sheets or chasing team members for updates.
2. Accurate Project Costing
Every logged hour automatically contributes to project cost calculations.
Odoo multiplies the hourly rate by the time worked, factoring in roles, overtime, or subcontractor costs.
This gives you:
Real-time visibility into actual vs. estimated project costs
Instant insight into profitability per project or client
Early warnings when projects go over budget
Instead of finding out at the end of a job that margins disappeared, you see it happening live, and can react immediately.
3. Effortless Hour-Based Billing
Once time is approved, invoices can be generated in a single click.
Odoo automatically compiles all billable hours, adds expenses or materials, and creates a clean, professional invoice, ready to send.
You can bill:
By project phase (e.g., planning, execution, finishing)
By hourly rate per employee or role
By milestone or retainer if agreed with the client
No more manual data entry or missed billable time, every minute is accounted for.
4. Productivity and Performance Insights
Because time data is centralized, Odoo helps managers identify:
Which employees or teams are the most productive
Where unnecessary time is being lost
How long common job types really take
These insights make planning more accurate and help set realistic timelines and prices in future quotes.
5. Compliance and Transparency
Time tracking isn’t only about billing, it’s about accountability.
With Odoo, each project has a full activity history, including who worked, when, and on what.
This builds client trust, supports legal compliance, and gives everyone, from project managers to finance, a clear audit trail.
Example: Turning Hours into Insight
A 30-person HVAC company we supported struggled with inconsistent time logs and under-billing clients.
After moving to Odoo:
All employees tracked time through the mobile app.
Project profitability reports updated daily.
Invoicing time dropped from hours to minutes.
Within three months, they discovered that two long-term clients were consistently unprofitable due to underestimated labor hours. Adjusting rates and workflows increased margins by 18%.
3 Key Takeaways for Trade and Construction Businesses
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Accurate time tracking is the foundation of better profitability.
Automation eliminates leaks. When time flows directly into invoicing and costing, no billable hour is lost.
Transparency builds trust. Clear reporting strengthens both internal accountability and client relationships.
Ready to Turn Time into Profit?
At FlexCode Systems, we help trade and construction companies use Odoo ERP to track time, control costs, and boost profitability, without extra admin work.
💡 Book your free digitalization audit today and see how smarter time tracking can transform your projects and margins.
