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Time, budgets & capacity
Track Hours Worked by Your Offshore Team
You can't manage what you can't see — and most firms can't see how offshore hours are actually spent
Built by a practising Chartered Accountant · Unlimited users · Free for 60 days
Quick answer
Tracking hours worked by an offshore team means recording, by employee and by task, how long each piece of work actually takes — not just relying on a monthly invoice from the provider. This is done through service time analysis attached to individual tasks, so hours can be compared by employee, client and service type rather than taken on trust from a single total.
Why does hours tracking matter more with an offshore team than an in-house one?
With an in-house team, a manager sitting nearby has some natural sense of how busy someone is. With an offshore team working remotely and often invoiced by the hour, that visibility disappears unless hours are tracked against specific work.
Many outsourcing arrangements are billed by the hour, with the provider submitting a monthly total. Without a breakdown by task and employee, that total is essentially unverifiable — you're trusting the invoice rather than checking it against the work actually done.
Tracking hours by employee and task also protects the provider, giving them a clear record to justify their time rather than a dispute over a lump-sum invoice at month end.
What goes wrong without hours tracking on outsourced work
A firm receives a monthly invoice from its offshore provider showing total hours worked, split loosely by client but with no task-level detail. When the invoice jumps 20% one month, there's no way to see which jobs drove the increase.
The firm asks the provider for a breakdown, but because hours were never tracked against individual tasks on either side, the answer is a rough reconstruction rather than a real record. Neither party can say with confidence where the extra time went.
Over several months, this pattern repeats, and the firm starts questioning the relationship generally — not because the provider is necessarily doing anything wrong, but because nobody can actually verify how time is being spent.
Signs you've lost control
- You receive a monthly hours invoice with no task-level breakdown
- Nobody can say how long a specific job actually took, only the total for the month
- An invoice jump prompts a dispute rather than a quick look at the data
- Hours are tracked, if at all, by the provider only — not visible to the UK firm
- Different employees on the offshore team log time inconsistently or not at all
- There's no way to compare time spent on the same job type across different clients
How to track offshore team hours properly
- 1
Track time at the task level, not just the client level
A client-level total tells you far less than knowing how long each individual job took.
- 2
Make tracking visible to both the UK office and the provider
If only the provider can see the data, the UK firm is still relying on trust rather than verification.
- 3
Record which employee worked on which task
This shows whether time is spread across the team evenly or concentrated on one or two people.
- 4
Review hours by service type across the team
Compare time spent by service and person using service time analysis, so patterns across clients become visible.
- 5
Reconcile tracked hours against invoices monthly
Check the invoice matches the recorded time before it's approved, rather than after a dispute arises.
- 6
Flag employees who are consistently over or under expected time
This can indicate training needs, unclear scope, or unrealistic estimates — worth investigating either way.
Who owns each step of an outsourced job?
1. Assign
UK office
The UK office assigns the task to a named offshore team member, with an estimated time attached.
2. Prepare
Offshore team
The offshore team works the task, with time recorded against it as work happens.
3. Review
UK reviewer
A UK reviewer checks the finished work and can see the time recorded against it as part of that review.
4. Approve
UK partner
A UK partner reviews any jobs with significant time variance before sign-off.
5. Send
UK office
The UK office sends the completed work, with the time record kept for reconciling any provider invoice.
How does Remindoo track offshore team hours in practice?
Remindoo's service time analysis by employee records time against individual tasks and subtasks, so you can see exactly how long each job took and who did it — not just a lump total for the month. Employee reporting and the employee task breakdown show workload and time spent across the whole team, so you can spot whether one person is consistently taking longer than others on the same type of job. The work and utilisation dashboard gives a wider view of capacity across your UK and offshore teams together, useful when you're trying to reconcile a provider's invoice against what was actually recorded. Because Remindoo charges per client rather than per user, you can add every member of the offshore team as a named user rather than sharing logins, which is what makes task-level, per-person tracking possible in the first place. It's free for 60 days.
Service time analysis by employee
Compare time spent by service and person.
See featureEmployee reporting
Capacity, productivity and deadline performance.
See featureEmployee task breakdown
Balance work before deadlines bunch up.
See featureWork and utilisation
Spot over-capacity weeks early.
See featureUnlimited users
Add every team member with no per-user charge.
See featureWhat changes when you move off email and WhatsApp?
| Area | Email, WhatsApp and spreadsheets | Remindoo |
|---|---|---|
| Hours visibility | Monthly lump total from the provider | Task-level time recorded on both sides |
| Invoice reconciliation | Taken on trust | Checked against recorded time before approval |
| Employee-level detail | Not visible to the UK firm | Time recorded per named employee |
| Spotting patterns | Only noticed after a dispute | Visible through regular service time analysis |
| User access | Shared logins to save cost | Every offshore team member has their own account |
| Capacity view | UK and offshore tracked separately, if at all | One dashboard across both teams |
See your offshore set-up working
A 30-minute walkthrough of teams, roles, time budgets and review steps.
Does hours tracking matter differently depending on how the provider bills?
Yes — hourly billing needs task-level tracking to verify invoices, while fixed-fee arrangements still benefit from tracking to check the fee remains sustainable for both sides.
| Billing model | Why tracking matters | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly | Directly verifies what you're invoiced for | Unexplained jumps month to month |
| Fixed fee per client | Confirms the fee still reflects actual effort | Jobs quietly taking much longer than priced for |
| Fixed fee per FTE | Confirms capacity is being used as expected | Under-utilised time not flagged by either side |
Frequently asked questions
Should hours be tracked even on fixed-fee outsourcing arrangements?
Yes — tracking still shows whether the fee reflects actual effort and helps you spot jobs that are taking far longer than either side expected.
How granular should time tracking be?
Task level is usually the right balance — granular enough to see patterns by job type and employee, without creating so much admin that people stop logging it accurately.
What if the offshore provider resists detailed time tracking?
Resistance is worth exploring directly — legitimate providers generally welcome transparent tracking, since it protects them from disputes over invoices too.
Can time tracking data feed back into future estimates?
Yes — compare estimated time with hours tracked in service time analysis regularly, and use consistent patterns to adjust your estimates for similar future jobs.
Does per-user pricing usually get in the way of proper tracking?
It can — if adding named users costs extra, firms are tempted to share logins, which then makes it impossible to track time by individual. Per-client pricing with unlimited users avoids this trade-off.
How often should hours data be reviewed with the provider?
Monthly, alongside invoice reconciliation, with a deeper quarterly review of patterns across services and employees.
Ready to run a calmer practice?
See Remindoo with your own clients, or start free for 60 days with unlimited users.
Sources
Last updated: . General guidance.
Why knowing what each employee is working on matters
In a growing practice, the partner can no longer hold every job in their head. Clear ownership and visible workload are what stop deadlines slipping when someone is on leave, busy or new.
Clear ownership
Every client and task has a named person, so nothing sits unassigned and clients get consistent answers.
Balanced workload
Seeing tasks per person helps managers move work before one person is overloaded and another is waiting.
Cover for absence
When work, notes and history live in one system, a colleague can pick up a job without starting from scratch.
Controlled access
Roles and permissions keep sensitive client and AML data visible only to people who need it.
Practical tips from UK practice
- Group people into teams around services or client portfolios, and name a Team Lead for each.
- Review the employee task breakdown weekly, not only when a deadline is missed.
- Give new starters a limited role first, then widen access as they are trained.
- Use bulk reassignment when someone leaves or goes on holiday, rather than moving tasks one by one.
Related Remindoo features
Written and reviewed by Waqas Sagar ACA FCCA FMAAT, Chartered Accountant with 18+ years in practice. Founder and MD of Accotax, an ICAEW, ACCA and AAT regulated London practice that has served over 5,000 clients, and founder of Remindoo. Guidance is general; check current GOV.UK and professional body guidance for your firm.
What UK practices say about Remindoo
Read all reviews on Trustpilot“With Remindoo, everything from the first enquiry to onboarding and ongoing client management is tracked in one place… It saves us hours and gives me, as a practice owner, complete visibility of where the firm stands.”
“The biggest benefit is having clients, tasks, deadlines, workflows, proposals and communication all organised in one place.”
“During my trial, the team were absolutely amazing. They helped onboard my clients, set up my settings and made sure everything was ready for me to use… they made the whole process completely stress-free.”
“It brings client information, tasks, recurring deadlines, workflows and reminders together in one place, giving us much better visibility across the team.”
