How Near East Foundation Improved Its Budgeting and Program Management with ClickTime

By the numbers

87%

increase in productivity versus reporting in Excel

For nearly 100 years, the Near East Foundation has pioneered innovative solutions to social and economic development challenges impacting communities throughout the Middle East and Africa. The organization helps build build more sustainable, prosperous, and inclusive communities through education, community organizing, and economic development.

With ClickTime, the Near East Foundation is able to easily track and manage employee time, increase productivity, and better understand program costs.

Easy-to-Use Nonprofit Timesheets

Before switching to ClickTime, the Near East foundation tracked their hours in Excel, which was a cumbersome process both for those entering time and those managing it.

“Our team was happy to get rid of Excel timesheets,” said Justin Pritchard, Controller at the Near East Foundation. “ClickTime makes tracking time simple. And we now have access to dozens of reports about employee time.”

Despite being a distributed organization with offices around the globe, it was a low-effort, straightforward experience getting started with ClickTime.

“ClickTime was easy to implement overseas and locally,” said Pritchard. “We’ve used ClickTime in Lebanon, Jordan, and Morocco, and we’ve been pleasantly surprised at how effective it is,” said Pritchard. “It’s easy to download and use the ClickTime app in any country.”

“Also, the customer service and tech support are both really helpful,” said Pritchard.

“ClickTime allows us to understand the true costs of our projects and ensure that we are most effectively planning and managing employee time.”

Justin Pritchard

Controller

Increased Productivity

Previously, the Near East Foundation relied on a number of manual processes to enter time into Excel and then into their accounting software.

“ClickTime has definitely made us more productive,” said Pritchard.

“It used to take eight hours to gather and summarize monthly time by project. Now we can do it all in under an hour. It’s such an easy process.”

But it’s not just entering time that is more efficient – ClickTime has streamlined the management and approval of employee hours.

“Approving time is easy,” said Pritchard. “We can instantly see who worked on what project, and quickly analyze time and costs.”

Improved Budgeting and Program Management

As an international NGO, the Near East Foundation’s clients are donors, each with a budget for specific projects. One employee may be overseeing as many as seven or eight projects, and much like an advertising agency, the foundation uses employee cost rates (plus overhead) to understand and manage project costs.

“ClickTime allows us to understand the true costs of our projects and ensure that we are most effectively planning and managing employee time,” said Pritchard. “The reporting in ClickTime is a tremendous help.”

This data is not only shared with the local management team, but also with executives who benefit from new insights into operations and deeper understanding of employee resources.

“The utilization reports in ClickTime provide a great high-level overview to our executive team,” said Pritchard. “We’re really happy with the results we’ve seen from ClickTime.”