Who is RelayMine for?

RelayMine is designed for companies building software who want to build a more accurate picture of how their team members spend their time in a non-intrusive, automated way. The data collected can help companies with accounting compliance (e.g., capitalization of software expenses) as well as insights to help measure and improve team performance.

RelayMine is not just for tech companies though. Recent accounting changes can also require non-tech companies engaging in research activities to capitalize additional expenses. More generally, we're here to provide a solution for any company that finds it valuable to collect information from their team members in a more organized and automated way. Please contact us to see how we can help!

What are the recent Section 174 tax changes? How do they impact my company?

Starting in 2022, changes to Section 174 require U.S. software companies to capitalize expenses related to building new software or enhancing existing features. This includes not only software engineering but also activities like design, research, testing, and planning that involve product managers, designers, and other team members. Other software activities, such as bug fixes, routine maintenance, tech debt reduction, and admin activities such as training, are not capitalizable and can be expensed like previously.

For example, a company spending $1,000,000 in salaries and benefits entirely on new software development would need to capitalize this cost, deducting only $200,000 per year (if U.S.-based) or $66,667 per year (if based outside the U.S.) rather than expensing the full amount in the current year. However, for real-world companies this example isn't realistic as team members will likely spend significant time on non-capitalizable activities like bug fixes, maintenance, and training. So accurately tracking time spent across different activities is essential. This way, salaries and benefits can be properly capitalized or expensed according to the new guidelines.

To learn more, consult your CFO or accountant, explore additional news on the topic, or dig deeper into accounting commentary on capitalizable activities. This significant change could significantly impact your company's finances, and, as these rules are relatively new, many companies and accounting firms are still behind in compliance and preparation.

RelayMine was designed to help organizations gather the information from your team needed to accurately calculate and estimate software capitalization.

How can individual team members benefit from RelayMine?

RelayMine can serve as a valuable tool for organization and career tracking. It provides an easy, structured way for individuals to summarize their work weekly and monitor how their time allocation across different categories changes over time. Many senior engineers have already written about the benefits of keeping similar work logs. Individuals can use the information that RelayMine collects to aid in professional development, support self-reviews, and help advocate for promotions.

What's the philosophy behind RelayMine's approach to tracking team time breakdowns?

We understand that building software is a complex, cross-functional effort involving engineers, designers, product managers, and more. Tools like issue trackers, kanban boards, and planning software provide an incomplete and often inaccurate view of how team members actually spend their time. For example, estimating the time spent on bug fixes versus new features based on just issue counts or lines of code is often unreliable - issues may not be logged or a few lines of code may have taken hours of research and testing.

Given this complexity, we believe the most accurate way to understand how team members allocate their time — and to gather insights or quantify capitalizable expenses — is to go directly to the source. RelayMine enables this by asking team members directly in a lightweight, recurring, and automated way, ensuring accuracy without being intrusive.

Tracking via traditional hourly time-tracking sheets or apps, designed for consultants and agencies, are also overly cumbersome for most teams. By default, RelayMine asks for a percentage-based breakdown of time from users, making it simpler for team members and often resulting in more accurate responses.

What are some best practices for creating reports?

RelayMine is designed for flexibility, allowing you to customize reports for your team members. Here are some best practices to help you get the best results:

1. Keep reports concise: Focus on the most valuable questions, keeping reports short and relevant. The goal isn't to capture every detail of a team member's work week but to get a reliable estimate of major work categories. For instance, engineers can usually accurately estimate the percentage of time spent on bug fixes over the past week. However, asking them to break down that time into categories like "React bugs", "Internal API bugs", "External API bugs", etc. can be overwhelming and may reduce accuracy. Our existing templates can be a good starting point, as they are already thoughtfully designed to be concise and effective.
2. Find the right frequency: While every team is different, we generally recommend sending reports at about a weekly cadence. Requiring reports daily may be manageable for some teams but can feel excessive for others, while waiting, say three weeks, could reduce both data accuracy and timeliness.
3. Prepare your team: RelayMine works best when team members understand its purpose and see how it benefits both them and the team. Explain how frequently they should expect to see reports and that reports are meant to aid in accounting and tracking overall team health, not to evaluate individual performance. Providing this context helps encourage accurate and engaged responses.

Who has access to the response data?

Responses from all team members are accessible only to admins on the analysis pages. Non-admin team members can view only their own responses. If your team has specific access needs, please contact us!

I'm a non-admin team member, what can I expect from Relay Mine?

Welcome to RelayMine! You can learn more about what RelayMine is and what to expect as an individual team member here.

How much does RelayMine cost?

Please reach out to us! We likely have a plan that can work for your organization.

Still have questions, feedback, or suggestions?

We're here to help! Our team has spent their careers in engineering, product, and finance roles and cares deeply about making it easier for companies to navigate software capitalization and gather insights to make teams more effective. We look forward to working with you, so please contact us with any questions you have.