We are a distributed team of fractional CTOs, CPOs, and hands-on builders.
We share a dislike for traditional time and billing software solutions like Harvest, Toggl, and Excel. These solutions require manual entry of work activities and client assignments, often leading to inaccurate records. The effort to maintain accuracy distracts from actual tasks.
We realized that these disconnected solutions were ineffective. So, we sought better ways to track time. We noticed that consultants with multiple clients spend time in their calendars. Calendars provide context that is visually understandable and helpful for identifying gaps or unrecorded work.
Context is crucial. It is not just a nice-to-have feature but a critical requirement for capturing work details. During the day, we switch contexts between clients, and without careful tracking, much work goes unrecorded and unbilled.
A calendar is like a street map. When work is visualized and reviewed in context, accuracy improves. A calendar entry has a start and end time, and a duration. We needed a better way to assign entries to clients. If a meeting with a billable client runs long, we can adjust the calendar entry to reflect the time accurately.
This insight eliminated the need for end-of-day entries and third-party solutions. It sparked further innovations. By removing the need to reconcile work with a time entry system, we could simplify the process even more.
We decided to use a simple prefix for meeting summaries to link calendar entries to clients. Using “W/” followed by a two or three-letter shortcode works. There is no need to define these ahead of time or leave the calendar.
Our system auto-creates a client if it detects a new shortcode. Our first proof of concept ran locally and worked so well that it became our time-tracking solution.
This low-touch, minimalist, and intuitive approach to timekeeping can also be used for reporting and invoicing. This is how we broke our long-standing rule: “No Tool Making”
Our guiding principles:
So we built Fractional.
Our Ideal Customer Profile is us: working fractional professionals. Setting an ICP of one, or a small group, allowed us to focus on our business needs.
If you manage multiple clients, at varying bill rates, and need to keep all the plates spinning, then Fractional is for you. You are our ICP too.
We do not have a mobile version and will never have one. But we do have a Google Calendar Add-on in their marketplace (…or we will soon). Our goal is to keep you focused on getting utility from your calendar.
You will get access to our Beta Add-on Feature, which will be part of the free tier. Just find us on LinkedIn; like a post or comment.
Hint: Soon you will be able to chat with our Fractional AI, making it your fractional AI. Your fCFO.
Be selfish with your time. Look for tools that fit into the background, not tools that demand work and context switching to provide value.