September 25, 2000

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Time-Tracking And Billing Service Goes Wireless

Elite.com makes its Timesolv offering available for Palm devices

By Aisha M. Williams

More on wireless services:

UPS To Offer Wireless Access (9/4/00) Sprint Packages Wireless Services For Mobile Workers (8/28/00) Merger Means New Wireless Services (8/14/00)

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rofessional-services firms looking for an easier way for their mobile workforce to keep track of the billable time they spend with clients have a new option. Elite.com Inc. last week made Timesolv, its online time-and expense-tracking and billing service, available on Palm V and Palm VII devices.

The service is designed to let users track time and expenses and manage the status of projects in real time on their handheld devices without having to synchronize that data with notebooks and desktop PCs. The vendor revamped Timesolv by eliminating graphical elements that could slow the service on a wireless platform.

According to Warren Wilson, a senior analyst at Summit Strategies, the data-entry process can slow users who are required to enter and receive vast amounts of information on a wireless device. "Simplifying data entry and the automatic processing of transactions are key goals of all the vendors in this space," he says.

Jaffe Associates Inc., a virtual business-development consulting firm in Washington that targets professional-services firms worldwide, has been testing the new Timesolv service for about two months. Earlier this year, the company tried similar offerings from US Holdings Inc. and Deltek Systems Inc. in an effort to let its employees access pertinent data while on the road. President and CEO Jay Jaffe says neither was as efficient as Timesolv. "Deltek's service cost us $7,500 for the software and $2,500 for the training," he says, "but even after the training, most of our employees still had problems using it. It was a disaster." The firm migrated from Deltek's system to Timesolv within 30 days without any problems, he says.

Richard Milone, managing partner at CNX Corp., a software and services vendor that targets manufacturing companies, says the ability to enter time and billing information in real time will leave less room for billing errors. "We want our employees to be able to enter the time they spent with a client right after they've spoken with them," he says.

Available now, the new service is free to Timesolv customers, or $9.95 per user per month.

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