Jan. 2000 Issue of WebBusiness Magazine
A new ASP sends bills and tracks
expenses for small companies
BY MEGAN SANTOSUS
s the number of self-employed professionals and small firms proliferates, the internet presents an attractive forum for offering services to them. After all, most self-employed professionals work either from home or in a small office without the luxury of an administrative staff to keep track of expenses, record bills and process invoices. And they have better things to do than learn the intricacies of packaged software applications. For these folks, TimeBills.com (http://www.timebills.com) is ready to provide web-based time billing and travel expense applications designed to ease administrative burdens.
The Boston-based company was launched in March 1999 by four executives who knew firsthand the pain of filling out time sheets and recording expenses manually. “There is a huge and growing number of professionals who bill by the hour and the number of freelancers is growing,” says Jeff Hunt, TimeBills.com’s cofounder and vice president of marketing. By hosting applications on the web, TimeBills.com sought to eliminate the need for small companies to buy and upgrade packaged software applications that handle time and expense reporting. According to Hunt, the market for offering such services on the web was wide open. “When we started the company, there was no one in the marketplace who was going after the small company or solo businessperson.”
The first service offered by the company was its namesake, TimeBills, a time and expense tracking application that also allows users to create and send invoices. To sign up for the service, all that’s needed is a computer with a browser and internet access. Simply visit TimeBills.com’s website and open an account, a process that takes less than five minutes. All account information is password-protected and encrypted on servers maintained by TimeBills.com. Once time and expenses are recorded, creating an invoice is a matter of clicking a button. Users can then e-mail the invoice, print and mail it themselves, or sign up for the EZ Invoice service, where TimeBills.com prints and mails invoices.
Paul Paez, president of Narrative Group Interactive (http://www.narrativegroup.com), a Campell, Calif.-based marketing consultancy, uses TimeBills to record time and expenses billed to his clients. Paez also uses the application to create and e-mail invoices to clients, a process he says is much more streamlined than it was when he used office suite software.
“I record all my time in my Outlook calendar, upload that into the TimeBills application online and create individual bills with one click,” Paez says. As for the time saved by simplifying the billing process, Paez estimates he now has five more hours available each week to spend on billable tasks rather than administrative ones.
Despite the significant time savings, it is intangibles that Paez values most. As a subscriber to EZ Invoice, Paez believes professionally printed and mailed invoices gives his company a more polished image. In addition, the one-click invoice preparation allows him to get invoices out on time and track accounts receivables quickly. “This definitely helps my cash flow,” he says.
Charlotte Coats Siercks, a solo attorney from Garden Grove, Calif., uses TimeBills to track billing and manage cases. Siercks especially likes the ease of use of TimeBills. The web-based aspect of the service means she doesn’t have to consume any hard drive space for billing applications. As an attorney with multiple clients and cases, Siercks gets a lot of use from the service’s reporting feature. “It gives me an overview of my time, so I can see on a monthly basis where and when I’m spending it,” Siercks says.
TimeBills.com has just introduced TravelExpenses, a service aimed at small offices with 20 or so employees. The web-based application allows employees to create and submit expense reports from anywhere they have access to the internet. Managers can review and approve the reports online as well as analyze expenses by employee, client and project.
TimeBills.com offers its services on a subscription basis. Both TimeBills and TravelExpenses are free for up to five employees at one company; each additional user costs $3.95 per month for each service or $6.95 for both services. Subscribers to EZ Invoice pay $3.95 for every three invoices printed and mailed. According to TimeBills.com’s Hunt, the company hopes to generate revenues as solo practitioners grow into small companies and add paying subscribers.
TimeBills.com partners with a several companies that offer web-based services to the individual and small-company market. Among the partners are Inc.com, an online community affiliated with Inc. magazine, WebOnTap, a provider of web-based applications to small companies, and Niku, an aggregator of business services available on the internet. TimeBills.com also has an affiliate program: by linking to TimeBills.com’s site and signing up subscribers to its services, other sites can earn commissions of $5 for every person who signs up and an additional $10 for every person who signs up and becomes an active user.
As of December 1999, TimeBills.com had 23 employees, 10,000 subscribers and had just completed its second round of financing from private investors and institutions. Marketing VP Jeff Hunt believes this is just the beginning of the beginning: TimeBills.com is now making its first serious approach the venture community.
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