Professional Time Tracking and Recouping System and Software

Abstract

An apparatus and a method for tracking time spent on one or more Internet sites. The tracked information may then be used to generate detailed records containing the Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) of the sites visited, the exact time spent on each site, and a record of any downloads, file transfers, or other activities performed by the user. One or more reports may be generated from the detailed records and list the activity by each user, tabulating the web site accessed and the time spent on that web site. This information may then be utilized to generate an invoice for the work performed. The reports may be generated are stored electronically, and may be accessed by an invoicing program which uses stored hourly rates in conjunction with the information in the report to generate a detailed invoice for the client. The invention may be deployed on a personal computer, and enabled by a service operator who provides the time tracking and recouping system (e.g., a software means).

Description

[0001] This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) for provisional application No. 60 / 148,491 filed on Aug. 12, 1999.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] The Internet provides a vast array of materials, which are essential for legal, scientific, medical, accounting, consulting financial, business evaluation, and insurance work. These materials include textual documents, multimedia materials, databases, and other forms of information. [0003] In the legal field, the types of information being placed online (on the Internet) include court decisions, federal, state, and local statutes, and other governmental information. Law firms make extensive use of the Internet and need to obtain this information to conduct business for their clients. Similarly, the accounting consulting firms and business consulting firms extensively perform business research and competitive intelligence analysis on the Internet. Scientists and engineers often perform scientific and technical research on...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0015] The file containing Internet usage information may be stored locally or on a server accessible via a network. The system administrator may generate, based on the Internet usage information, a variety of reports that summarize the amount of time spent by each user at each site. This information may be manually uploaded or electronically downloaded directly into the firm's time and billing software, which permits recovery of the costs from the client.

Problems solved by technology

Thus, as primary source materials migrate onto the Internet and as more and more professionals (users) use the Internet for access to these materials, the difficulty in tracking and billing for this time increases tremendously, due to the lack of appropriate systems.

This results in lost billable time and the increase of costs for manual entry of time records, for the companies and law firms using the Internet.

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