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"Nobody likes bureaucracy, right? If I tell a group of engineers, ‘I know you have a million things to do, but now I want you to use this complicated, outdated system,’ they wouldn’t be happy about it."
That’s the exact challenge Patricia Godel, Head of Grant Financing at Skeleton Technologies, faced when she realized time tracking was becoming a major bottleneck for the company.
As a growing company specializing in energy storage solutions, Skeleton Technologies relies heavily on grants to fund research and expansion.
“Accurate time tracking is critical for grant-funded projects. Grant agencies need to quickly verify if the reported hours match actual work. They don’t have time to decode complicated spreadsheets. And if the numbers don’t add up, you lose money — or risk legal issues."
According to Godel, tracking individual work hours can sound simple but is actually surprisingly difficult for a large team. The result? A massive dataset, exported in messy, hard-to-read reports that only make sense to someone deeply familiar with them.
The time tracking system they had in place wasn’t helping — it was making everything harder.
Results with Toggl Track
| Metric | Before Toggl Track | After Toggl Track |
|---|---|---|
| Time spent on timesheet corrections | 80 hours per quarter | <1 hour per quarter |
| Number of employees tracking hours | 60 | 120+ |
| Audit compliance risk | High | Fully compliant |
| Employee frustration | High | Minimal – simple, intuitive system |
| Data export efficiency | Slow, manual formatting | Automated, ready-to-use reports |
| Time tracking use case | Tracking time for grants compliance | Tracking time for grants compliance, spotting overtime, optimizing internal processes (e.g. reducing meetings) |
The Problem: An Outdated System That Wasted Time
Skeleton Technologies relied on Nova Time for record-keeping, but the system lacked accurate time tracking, flexibility for a growing team with diverse tracking needs, and reliable compliance record-keeping. The biggest headaches?
- Extracting data was painfully slow – “If someone needed to get data out of the system, nobody else could use it. And it took ages.”
- Timesheets were a formatting nightmare – “The system exported data in a weird format and didn't output exactly what we needed for the specific grant, so we had to do a lot of manual fixes in Excel.”
- It took two weeks every quarter just to fix time logs – "I had to give up a smart person from my team who could have done something else. Instead, she spent two weeks every quarter fixing timesheets."
- The system automatically cut off overtime hours – “The system would stop tracking the moment someone exceeded the official 8.5-hour workday. So if someone worked overtime, we would not know about this and would not be able to report accurate data.”
To make matters worse, engineers and lab workers — who were already juggling complex projects — resented the extra admin work.
"They already had a million things to do. Adding an outdated time-tracking system to the mix wasn’t going to help."
Godel needed a solution that streamlined time tracking, ensuring it was effortless, precise, and fully compliant.
The Solution: One-Click Time Tracking with Toggl Track
Godel and her team made the switch to Toggl Track, and it immediately transformed the way they handled time tracking and compliance.
- One-click time tracking. The team adoption rate to Toggl Track was high because they just had to press start and stop — that’s it. “It was very easy for everyone to start, use the browser extension or an app. It helped people track time consistently."
- Project tagging for grant compliance. Work hours are easily categorized based on specific grant-funded projects. “Toggl Track immediately made it very clear how much time was spent for specific projects, and for anything else.”
- Automated reports. Instead of manually formatting data for grant agencies, Godel’s team now exports detailed reports in just a few clicks.
- Time tracking reminders. Employees are prompted to log hours, ensuring accurate record keeping without constant follow-ups.
"We went from spending two weeks correcting timesheets to just printing them out. It takes a few clicks, and the printer does the rest."
Want to simplify time tracking and compliance?
Beyond Grants: Improving Internal Processes
Skeleton Technologies quickly realized time tracking wasn’t just useful for grants.
Managers can now see the overall hour distribution for other projects, and quickly spot who works overtime.
"Seeing where people are spending their time helped make some important decisions," Godel said.
“Managers can alert our colleagues from HR to say that someone might need to take time off, and also comply with German laws which are very strict regarding overtime.”
Another improvement – reducing time spent in meetings.
"Some managers decided, ‘No one on my team is doing more than eight hours of meetings per week.’ That freed up time for real work instead of spending time in meetings that are not necessary. We all know those meetings…,” Godel said.
“Toggl Track helped us do that without being an overburdened hardcore bureaucratic system where you have to log every second of every workday.”
How Toggl Track Adapted to Each Internal Team
Every team at Skeleton Technologies has different workflows, so time tracking needed to be adaptable Here’s how they set it up with Toggl Track:
- 📌 Engineers & Lab workers: Use the browser extension or desktop app to track work in real-time while running experiments.
- 📌 Factory & Production workers: Log time via the mobile app when they start and end their shifts.
- 📌 Sales & Customer teams: Track time on the go with the mobile app, ensuring meetings and travel time are recorded accurately.
- 📌 Finance & Grant teams: Use exportable reports for quick, audit-friendly reporting.
"It’s flexible enough to work for everyone," Godel says.
Why Toggl Track Just Works
For Godel, the biggest win when switching to Toggl Track was simplicity.
"It’s super easy to use — employees won’t groan about tracking their time."
By eliminating unnecessary admin work, her team can focus on securing funding, driving innovation, and growing the company — instead of fixing timesheets.
