Time tracking and invoicing for four departments - in use after six weeks.

The starting point

Four departments recorded their hours in four different ways, external partner firms sent timesheets by email, and at the end of the month invoicing was a week-long project. Nobody could say off the cuff which team was fully booked and which project was losing money. Standard software would have solved that - with a licence for every user, including every external one, and with a 70 percent fit.

What was built

A system of their own for time tracking, approvals, invoices and reporting: one-click timer and weekly grid, approval workflows for timesheets and leave, invoices generated straight from unbilled hours, utilisation per team and project at a glance. External firms record their hours in the same system, in five languages, signing in with their own company accounts. Specified, built with AI agents, reviewed - in use after six weeks, scalable and maintainable.

Six weeks to going live. And ever since, management can see every morning where the hours go.

What the company gets out of it

• Invoices are created from the hours at the click of a button instead of by hand at the end of the month.
• Every team's utilisation is visible every day, not just in the quarterly report. Management can see who worked where and whether it pays off.
• External firms work in the same system - without a per-user licence.
• New departments and new partners join without the costs growing with them.
• The system belongs to the company; maintenance and further development run with a named contact.

The calculation: licences and time

Licences: around 100 user accounts - 40 internal, the rest at partner firms - would have cost about 25 euros per user and month with standard time-tracking and invoicing software (assumption, 15 to 40 euros is usual). That is 30,000 euros a year, and more with every additional user.

Time: invoicing and reporting previously took up around 24 hours a week (assumption: three people, eight hours each). At 35 euros an hour that is a good 38,000 euros a year.

Together around 69,000 euros a year - against a one-off investment of about 80,000 euros. Amortisation after 14 months, then 69,000 euros every year, around 340,000 euros over five years.

How it went on

The system has been in regular operation since May 2026. New features take the same route as the first ones: describe the process, have it built, review it, release it. At their own request, the client remains unnamed.