For most businesses, the highest cost is the labor, i.e., the money you spend on the employees or consultants. Therefore, to make your business profitable, you need to keep your labor pool productive and happy.
To achieve that goal, you, as a business owner need to measure your employees time, create time-bound projects, measure progress, and match employee productivity with profitability.
The first step in this process is accurately measuring their time in various jobs. There are multiple ways of doing it:
- Using shared notes or emails to the manager
- Using templates, spreadsheet that your employee fills up every week
- Implementing a time tracking software.
Although notes, emails, or spreadsheets are past things, soon they become unstructured monsters. The only viable solution is implementing time tracking software for your employees.
If you search in Google, you will find hundreds of employee time tracking software. This article attempts to provide a structured way to select the software considering your requirements.
What do you look for in an employee time tracking software?
Project Management:
Project management is a vital part of timesheet software. It helps complete the project within a deadline and on an estimated budget.
It should have the ability to assign projects to team members and track their progress. Project management allows your employees to record time for each project accurately.
Task Management:
Your new timesheet system should have the ability to record time for multiple tasks. It allows your system to track the tasks employees are spending time on. Examples of task categories may be Development, Marketing, Documentation, etc.
Reporting system:
To analyze employee productivity, budget, and efficiency over time, you can use reports.
Additionally, look for the following report feature while selecting a system to track time:
- At the minimum, is the reporting system able to categorize:
- Customers
- Projects
- Tasks
- Payroll
- Custom parameters that you may need, e.g., location
- Can we restrict access for some confidential reports?
- Can the reports be scheduled at regular intervals for the managers to view?
Tracking Time:
While selecting the time tracking software think whether:
- You want your employees to enter hours manually?
- You need a check-in check-out system with timer?
- Do you require work details?
- Decide on the billable and non-billable tasks.
Workflow Process:
Getting timesheets approved for payroll purposes is a crucial step. First, you need to check the workflow process of the software. Will the employee be able to submit and get the timesheet approved quickly? Will the managers or supervisors be able to view the timesheet and work details, if they need to check the project status?
Integrations:
Having third-party integrations with a timesheet software has become an integral part today. You need to find out what kind of integrations the software is providing. Will you be able to export timesheets in CSV format?
Billing and invoicing:
Find a tool that will make billing and invoicing easy for you and from within the same module. You don’t need to rely on other software.
Notifications:
What if the employee forgets to fill up the timesheet. What should be the process? Will they receive a notification to fill up the timesheet, or can they fill it up the next day?
System flexibility:
Some vital factors you need to consider are –
- Whether the system is easy to use?
- Do your employees need training for that?
- Is there any documentation or demo available for the software?
- Further if there are any issues, will customer support be available?
- Is the installation process easy?
Delivery (SAAS or Private Cloud):
Are you comfortable using the cloud system, or do you want to install it on your premises? For the pros and cons, refer to this article: How to choose a Software suite?
Pricing:
When it comes to pricing, consider your budget while buying the software and check:
- If there is a free version available?
- What will be the basic pricing per user?
- Are there any discounts available?
- Any discounts if payment is made annually?
The best way to calculate pricing is to find the ROI (Return on Investment). First, quantify the benefits and then try to determine the time it will take to recoup your purchase cost.
Apart from these points you can also check for features like kanban boarding, DCAA compliance, mobile app, and leave management depending upon your business requirements
You need to consider the points mentioned above and decide your requirements.
We have created a guide of best employee time tracking software after reviewing a few options. List down the features you need, and you will find the best software for your business. In addition, you can also use our Decision matrix Template to reach to the final conclusion.
List of Software:
OfficeClip:
OfficeClip is a complete solution to track Time, manage Expenses and track Time Off for employees.
It will provide you with all the data to evaluate project status, work details, and employee performance. This analysis, in turn, will help to take corrective actions towards profitability.
This employee time tracking software will streamline the work in your organization and accelerate the work process.
Features:
- Project and Task management
- Customer Portal
- Report sharing
- In/Out timesheet
- DCAA compliance
- Manages currency
- Proxy data entry
- Captures employee time-off
- Integration with Quickbooks and ADP payroll system
- Mobile access
Pricing:
- The pricing for the Professional online edition starts from $3/user/month.
- The Installed version(install on your computer or cloud) Professional edition begins for $24/user.
- If your organization does not need most of the features, we have a Free timesheet for unlimited users and time.
nTask:
nTask is an incredible project management, time tracking, and task management application, that allows you to manage all of your remote teams easily from any part of the world.
The application is equipped with an impressive arsenal of features for your team members, and the best part is that they can get used to the software in a matter of hours and continue their productivity streak as if nothing has changed.
Features:
- Task management
- Time tracking
- Risk management
- Project management
- Meeting management
- Kanban boarding
- Gantt charting
- Document management
- Team management
Pricing:
- They have a14-days Free trial.
- Their Premium edition starts from $3/month which is billed yearly.
- The Business edition starts from $8/month which is billed yearly.
- Talk to sales for a custom subscription in the Enterprise edition according to your needs and requirements.
ActiTime:
ActiTime time tracker captures time manually or automatically in the browser. In addition, their application comes with Project and Task management that helps to identify time spent by the teams.
Their reports will provide an insight into employee performance, project costs, and profit and losses all in one place.
Features:
- Deadlines and billing rates for daily tasks
- Project Tracking
- Team management
- Track time with a timer for the weekly timesheet
- Powerful reporting
- Invoicing
- Integration with Quickbooks
- Mobile app available
Pricing:
- They have a Free version for 1-3 users with limited functionality.
- For 1-40 users, pricing starts from $6/user/month which is billed yearly.
- For 41-200 users, pricing begins from $5/user/month which is billed yearly.
Toggl:
Toggle is a time tracking software for individuals and organizations. Their project management will help you capture and schedule tasks by dragging and dropping them on the timeline.
With their project tracking, businesses will be able to visualize and balance the team’s workload, so that no one is over or underworked. In addition, the task manager will provide all information in one place and streamline communication with your team.
Features:
- Time tracking across all the devices
- Pomodoro timer, Idle detection, and tracking reminders
- Drag and drop tasks on the Timeline
- Export reports in PDF and CSV format
- Unlimited projects & clients
- Integration with Google calendar, Basecamp, and Github
- 100+ integrations with the Toggl track browser plugin
Pricing:
- Available free for up to 5 users.
- Starter edition for small teams for $10/user/month.
- They not only provide a tailored solution but also custom pricing for large organizations.
TMetric:
TMetric provides a detailed overview of the time utilization on every task. In addition, their software tracks zero activity and notify you of break time.
Their project management will help analyze expenses and income and see your team’s progress for tasks assigned to them.
Features:
- Track time with a timer
- Add time manually or with a timer
- Idle detection
- Offline mode
- Website and apps usage tracking
- Detailed reports
- Export in PDF and CSV
- Project permissions
- Mobile app
Pricing:
- They have a free version with limited features.
- The professional edition starts from $5/user/month.
- The business edition starts from $7/user/month.
ClickUp:
With ClickUp you can plan, track and manage any work with project management with highly customizable views. You can chat with your team in real-time, assign comments on action items and receive notifications.
You can track teams’ progress in real-time by connecting tasks to goals. They have 20+ real-time views to track tasks, update workflows on a board, drag and drop due dates on Calendar, and much more.
Features:
- Time tracking
- Integromat
- 50+ native integrations
- Zapier
- Custom exporting
- Gantt charts
- Dashboards
- Custom view
- Custom fields
- Notifications
Pricing:
- They have a Free version.
- Their unlimited edition for small teams begins from $5/user/month.
- Business edition for mid-sized teams starts from $12/user/month.
- Business plus edition for multiple teams starts from $19/user/month.
Paymo:
Paymo will manage your projects and tasks, track time, and bill your clients from the same platform. In addition, Paymo offers built-in collaboration tools, workflows, transparent time tracking, and file proofing.
Their project management tools will keep your team on track. Reports will help analyze time spent on projects and gain insights to improve performance.
Features:
- Project templates
- Convert project to estimates
- Automatic time tracking
- Native in-app time tracking
- Bulk time entries
- Desktop and mobile app
- Timesheet reports
- Invoicing
- Integrations
- Expense tracking
- Task Kanban boards
- Task due date and priorities alerts
Pricing:
- They have a free version for one user.
- The Starter edition for freelancers starts from $4.95/user/month.
- Small Office for small teams and departments starts from $9.95/user/month.
- Business edition for medium and large teams starts from $20.79/user/month.
Quick Overview:
| COMPANY | FREE VERSION | PRICING STARTS FROM | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
OfficeClip | Free forever with unlimited users | $3/user/month |
 |
NTask | Free forever available for upto 5 users | $4/user/month |
 |
ActiTime | Free version available for upto 3 users | $6/user/month |
 |
Toggl | Free version available for upto 5 users | $10/user/month |
 |
TMetric | Free version available for upto 5 users | $5/user/month |
 |
ClickUp | Available Free forever | $9/user/month |
 |
Paymo | 15-days free trial period for 1 user | $4.95/user/month |
Alternatively, if you still feel, you are not ready to use a timesheet software, but you need to track time for your employees, then we have a simple solution for you. We have Free Timesheet templates in various formats. You can print, download and customize these templates and start tracking time.
There are a lot of employee time tracking software available in the market today. Carefully review all the features, compare them, and find the best that suits your needs.
Deepa Kapoor is an online writer for small businesses. She loves to write on the advancements of new technologies and how it affects our lives. She always explores ways to make small businesses more profitable. When not writing, she enjoys reading books and cooking exotic traditional food.