05 Nov Top 10 Best Time Tracking Apps for Freelancers
Top 10 Best Time Tracking Apps for Freelancers
It’s hardly a surprise why so many professionals take to tracking their time while working.
While many of them have accounting in mind, others do it to know if they’ve been managing their time efficiently enough.
Time tracking apps have surged in popularity, one of the significant driving factors being the rise of freelancing services online.
As more and more people adapt to the digital marketplace, time tracking becomes a valuable practice that can spell the difference between a day well spent and a day poorly used.
Statistics fully supports time tracking paradigms: it is estimated that you can minimise productivity leaks by as much as 80% when using a time tracking app.
This software is not just for those who bill their services on an hourly basis. 16% of all individuals who track their time are salaried professionals.
Thus, time tracking software can prove invaluable in managing your time and productivity at work.
We’ve done the hard work for you, presenting a list of the top 10 best time tracking apps you should try.
1 – Time Doctor
Time Doctor is a well-known name in the time tracking app space. The app is trusted and used by thousands of users across the world, including professionals working in big tech enterprises.
The best thing about Time Doctor is that it is highly customisable and adapts itself to suit your specific time tracking requirements with ease.
Features
Powerful Time Tracking
Time Doctor features a very versatile time tracker that can be used by companies to track the time every team member spends on a task.
It is possible to see time tracked in several views: by projects, clients, and tasks.
Time Doctor makes it wonderfully easy to identify activities that have been reducing productivity.
Reports & Analytics
The app offers highly detailed reports and data. It is possible to see the websites and apps the user ended spending the most time on as well as break time down by tasks.
Time Doctor yields useful insights not just for managers but for employees too. The latter can see daily reports of their performance and strive to improve productivity by working on their weaknesses.
Integrates Everything
Does your team use Slack? Asana? Trello? GitHub? Well, these and many other apps are all supported and will happily integrate with Time Doctor.
This makes it convenient to use the app as a part of a well-established enterprise workflow.
Pricing
Time Doctor is currently priced at around $9.99 per user per month, which makes it one of the most affordable apps boasting a rich feature set.
2 – Harvest
Harvest is perfect for freelancing professionals who need a simple way of billing their hours and tracking their expenditure.
Features
Invoicing Support
Harvest has built-in invoicing support which means it is possible to create invoices from your timesheets using an automated process. You could also create an invoice manually from scratch.
Track Invoices
Harvest lets you track all your invoices and get a bird’s eye perspective of all the work you’ve completed. The app also shows your annual revenue and enables you to share your invoices with your clients easily.
Forecast and Planning
The Forecast feature in the app allows users to map out their work schedules. Managers can use the app to see when the team is available to take on tasks and create rich visual maps.
Pricing
Harvest offers a free version for one user that supports up to two projects. The Pro version costs $12 per month.
3 – Toggl
Toggl is another popular time tracking app that will work silently without interfering much in your work endeavours. The app has an intuitive user interface and is quite minimalistic in its design.
Features
Multiple Export Options
Toggl lets you export your report files in numerous formats. This makes it easy to share insights with the team or save them for future reference.
Tracking Alerts
It’s all too easy to get caught up in work and forget starting the timer. With Toggl, you can choose to get reminders to turn the time tracker on when working.
Multi-platform Support
Toggl supports multiple platforms for tracking time. Users could use the Toggl mobile app or their favourite browser to track time every day. All data is automatically synced between every single platform.
Pricing
Toggl has a variety of pricing plans for starters and enterprise users. The plans cost upwards of $10 per user per month.
4 – Timely
Timely is an automatic time tracker app that uses AI to track and organise your time. The app continually improves its tracking and learns from the user’s edits to the timesheets.
Features
Automatic Tracking
Perhaps the most useful feature of Timely is the ability to track time automatically. The app logs the time spent by the user on several different activities and uses what it calls its ‘Memory Tracker’.
Categorisation of Tasks
Timely will observe your time usage on different tasks and categorise them for you by grouping work together. The app will automatically add tags and relevant information to the time logs without the user having to do anything.
Team Management
The app has powerful team management tools built-in. It will show you the time usage of the entire team in one place so you could examine everyone’s productivity and suggest improvements.
Pricing
Timely has both monthly and yearly packs and is priced upwards of $7 per month. There are also dedicated plans for individuals and teams.
5 – Tick
Tick is a useful time tracker app that is popular with large teams who do not wish to be billed per user. The app charges its users by the projects and supports an unlimited number of users.
Features
Runs in The Background
Timer apps can quickly become obtrusive when they keep popping up multiple screens and options, diverting the user from the actual task at hand.
Tick specifically addresses this issue and runs silently in the background while you focus on what matters.
Integrates with Project Management Tools
The app integrates well with popular project management tools and apps such as Basecamp, Asana, and Trello.
Budget Feedback
Tick also gives the user real-time budget feedback on the timecards themselves.
As and when time is logged using the app, the budget is indicated to let the user know how much time can still be recorded within project budgets.
Pricing
Tick offers a free to use plan that supports only one project but with an unlimited number of users. The paid plans start at $19 per month and support up to 10 projects.
6 – Hubstaff
Hubstaff is a well-known time tracking and invoicing app that lets you monitor time and productivity.
Features
Payroll Management
Hubstaff lets you generate accurate timecards for invoicing and processing payroll. The app enables you to establish rates for each team member and will automatically streamline payments.
GPS Tracking
The app lets users set up geofences. Attendances can then be marked, and time tracked for the team.
The time tracker is automatically started when the target enters a defined geospace and will stop when he/she exits.
Plan Schedules
The app can be used to plan schedules and shifts for employees. All information about employee work hours is shown at a glance so you can schedule shifts and create important to-dos for teams.
Pricing
Hubstaff offers a free plan that supports only one user. The paid plans start at $7 per month per user and include more features.
7 – Everhour
Everhour is a time tracker app that simplifies that process of time monitoring.
The app also integrates with the Chrome browser via an extension and will let you run the timer from your browser toolbar itself.
Features
Edit Timecards
Everhour allows users to move time slots from one ask to another. The process is easy enough and involves just a few clicks.
Detailed Comments
You could leave detailed comments using the app to provide more information for time logged in specific tasks.
This brings in greater transparency and trust in the team and the overall workflow.
Search Function
The Everhour app also features a unique search feature that can help you find things quickly and get started with time tracking seamlessly.
Pricing
Everhour offers a free app for small teams (up to 5 users). The paid versions start at $8 per month per user and $7 per user per month for teams.
8 – Clockify
Clockify is a time tracker app that maintains timesheets across multiple projects. It can be used to monitor employee attendance and productivity, as well.
Features
Rich Reports
Clockify provides rich insights via its reports that can be used to see a visual map of your team’s working hours. The reports are also customisable.
Cross-platform App
The Clockify app provides several different apps for multiple platforms, including Linux, Mac, and Windows, in addition to iOS and Android apps. You can also access the web app via your browser.
Time Audits
The app has several extra features too, which are available in the paid versions. The time audit feature lets you detect time logs that seem suspicious and are unusually long or short.
Pricing
Clockify is free to use if you do not need the advanced features offered in the paid software versions. The paid app plans start at $9.99 per month.
9 – RescueTime
RescueTime is another time management and productivity app that puts you in control. It has several customisable features that work together to help you make the most of your time.
Features
Alerts
RescueTime provides you with timely alerts to help you stay focused according to the goals you establish, whether that’s time-bound inbox monitoring or concentrate on a specific task.
Working vs Non-working Hours
RescueTime is not just about tracking your working hours. You can use the app to monitor your non-working leisure hours as well. This is a great way to see if your work is not consuming too much of your leisure time.
Block Distractions
The app has a distraction blocker built-in which will automatically prevent you from getting side-tracked when working on an important project. All distractions are blocked, which keeps you focused and productive.
Pricing
RescueTime offers a ‘Lite’ version which is free to use albeit with limited features. The paid plans start at $6 per month for individuals.
10 – TimeCamp
TimeCamp is a tracker that lets you track your time and productivity.
You will be able to use the app to identify where you ended up wasting time in the day. Users can analyse productivity and track their offline activity, as well.
Features
Invoicing
TimeCamp seamlessly enables the creation of invoices. It can help identify and track billable hours and reduce wastage on non-billable activities which can increase profitability.
Tracking Teams
The app can be used to track teams and see what every individual member is working on. TimeCamp shows rich insights about time use at a glance in the app dashboard.
Add-Ons
TimeCamp offers cross-platform support and integrates well with several popular team communication and project management apps, including Slack, Asana, Dropbox Paper, Github, and Evernote.
Pricing
TimeCamp offers a solo plan which is suitable for one user and is available free of charge. The paid plans start at $5.25 per month per user.
Summary
Time tracking apps are a valuable part of a professional workflow and can help manage time, minimising wastage on things that do not matter.
They can boost productivity significantly and also pack in other useful features such as invoice generation and scheduling.
When choosing the right app for the job at hand, consider its feature set, customer support, and pricing to ensure it will meet all your workplace requirements.
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