Introducing BCBA Hour Tracker

When my partner began her BCBA journey, it was overwhelming. Starting school, studying, signing a supervision contract, and planning her fieldwork — all on top of her day job — was very stressful. Out of all of those things, the most confusing challenge was planning her fieldwork. Understanding all of the many requirements, weird caveats, and poor descriptions was frustrating. In the end, she had to talk to multiple people for advice just to create a plan that would allow her to finish her hours on time.

And there are so many gotchas. All of the percentage-based requirements — such as 60% unrestricted hours or 10% supervised hours for concentrated — means you have to use a calculator to figure out how many hours that is. And if you mess up that calculation, you could potentially waste hundreds of hours and delay completion for months. On top of that, you have to document everything and keep your records for seven years in case you get audited.

For months, I watched her spend hours planning and documenting her hours, and I knew there had to be a better way to do this. There were several hour trackers out there already, but none of them helped people actually plan there hours, and they did very little to keep people from making common mistakes, such as focusing too much on restricted hours. I decided that I could fix that. For the next eight months, I focused all of my free time on building this tool. I studied all of the requirements from the BACB and focused on solving all of the challenges. I hope it helps you finish your fieldwork hours on time.

Let us do the planning and calculating for you

BCBA Hour Tracker started with a simple concept. What if you just told us when you wanted to finish your fieldwork, and we created the plan for you? When you sign up for BCBA Hour Tracker, we ask you when your target finish date is, along with a couple of other questions, such as if you can do concentrated hours. Then we tell you how many hours you need to finish each month, how many of those hours need to be supervised, how many need to be unrestricted, and any other requirements so you can complete the requirements on time. We also track your restricted hours, calculate the maximum amount you can log before you are violating the 60% unrestricted requirements, and warn you when you are reaching that maximum.

Your plan is updated automatically every time you log new hours, which means if you log more or less hours a month than planned, it will automatically adjust your plan accordingly. BCBA Hour Tracker was designed to take all of the hard work out of planning and tracking your hours.

Digitally store and sign all your documents

The BACB requires BCBA candidates to store all of their fieldwork records for seven years, including a bunch of information for each hour logged as well as your monthly verification forms that have been signed by your supervisor. I watched my partner and her BCBA candidate colleagues store the physical copy of these reports in safes and filing cabinets and worry over losing them. The BACB says on their website that digital signatures are acceptable, so there is no reason that BCBA candidates should be managing physical documents that are so important.

BCBA Hour Tracker digitally stores all of your records, including the details for each hour logged and your monthly verification forms. In addition, BCBA Hour Tracker supports digital signatures for both supervisors and supervisees. When you finish your hours for the month, you click one button to automatically fill out your monthly verification form. Then you can sign it digitally and send it to your supervisor, who can log into the app and sign the form as well. This enables you to manage each monthly verification form and get them approved and signed without ever handling a piece of paper.

All of the records in BCBA Hour Tracker are stored in managed cloud infrastructure, and we hold on to them for the required seven years after completion. If you are ever audited, don't worry. All you need to do is simply go to the app and click a single button to download all of your documentation in a spreadsheet.

Supervisors can manage their supervisees for free

An important piece to the fieldwork puzzle is the supervising BCBA. While BCBA Hour Tracker was built to solve problems for BCBA candidates, part of that mission involves assisting supervisors in monitoring their supervisees' hours and signing their monthly fieldwork verification forms. Given the importance of this function to BCBA candidates, we've decided to provide access to the supervisor dashboard for free forever.

Candidates — feel free to invite your supervisors. You can do so in the timesheet logging form on the supervisee dashboard or by going to your supervisors list by clicking Other > Supervisors in the navigation bar.

Supervisors — feel free to create an account and invite your supervisees. The supervisor dashboard will give you an overview of all of your candidates' hours and enable you to digitally sign their monthly fieldwork verification form in minutes.

Thank you, and please help us get better

One last note: BCBA Hour Tracker is in beta. We've spent months building it and testing it for any bugs, but there are still many things we plan to improve. Please help us build the best solution for your needs by providing feedback. There are links to the feedback form on every page under the navigation bar, and at the bottom of the screen. Thank you for embarking on this journey with us. We will do everything in our power to help you finish your fieldwork on time.

Sign up for an account today!