7 Best Time-Tracking Tools For Employees

“Time is money.” 

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This adage that Benjamin Franklin coined has now become a management mantra that all businesses adhere to. Simply put, the amount of time your team works on a project ought to be justified by the amount of revenue brought in.

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If you constantly deal with freelancers or work with a virtual team, using an effective employee time-tracking tool is essential for you to streamline business processes and optimize productivity. 

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If you still haven’t started using timesheet software to help you track productivity, we’ve made a list of the 7 best time-tracking tools that ought to be on the toolstack of every employer or manager working with freelancers or with remote teams to help you pick one.

Why time trackers are important

Time-tracking tools help us ensure the virtual teams or freelancers we work with are actually utilizing their time judiciously. 

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They also help estimate the time and effort taken to complete a project more accurately, which can be used to plan future projects more efficiently and offer clients realistic timelines as well as budgets. 

Factors to consider when evaluating a time-tracking tool

Let’s now break down what features an efficient time-tracking tool ought to have. 

User interface

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Every time tracking software ought to have an easy-to-navigate and simple-to-use interface. The whole purpose of time tracking would be void if you were to spend too much time trying to figure out how to use the tool.

Usability

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Using a time-tracking tool should not feel like an additional chore for your team. It ought to be simple to use so that it does not take up any productive time because they need to use an extra tool.

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It ought to also be usable in real-time, meaning you or your team ought to be able to jump into it at the start of a task, pause it when they take a break, and stop it when they’re done.

Reporting

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Ideally, your time tracking tool ought to be able to generate reports about how much time a single resource or a team spent on a project on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis as well as a report on the total time spent on a project. 

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It also should be able to tell you how much time is invested into servicing different clients. 

Pricing

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Adding a time tracker to your management toolstack should not cost you too much. Keep your eyes peeled for free time trackers, or for time tracking tools with free trial periods so that you get hands-on experience before you commit to a paid subscription. 

The 7 best time tracking tools out there

Now that you know what you ought to look for in an ideal time tracker, let’s take a closer look at our top 7 picks for time tracking tools.

Prio

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They say you shouldn’t toot your own horn, but we can’t help ourselves with this one. 

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Prio’s own time tracker allows you to manage your remote teams with ease. You can send your team members links to start using the tool, control how much access they have, assign them to particular projects and specific roles within those projects, pull out analytical reports showing your productivity and profitability, and even bill your clients based on these metrics.

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Our user interface is easy to understand and navigate, while the tool itself is a breeze to use. In fact, we use it to manage teams every single day! 

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The best part is that Prio’s all-encompassing time-tracking tool is absolutely free forever! 

Monday.com

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Monday.com is another easy-to-use time tracker with some amazing additional features. It allows business owners and managers to assign specific tasks to their remote teams using the simple but highly functional dashboard, including due dates and priority tasks. 

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You can also keep an eagle eye on your team’s productivity by tracking every billable hour. Your team can even log their productivity through the smartphone app. 

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Monday.com integrates seamlessly with a lot of other apps as well, such as Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox, Gmail, Google Calendar, Github, and more.

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While Monday.com charges a subscription fee of $6 per user per month, it offers two users a 14-day free trial to help you decide. 

Harvest

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Harvest is a popular time and productivity tracker favored by agencies the world over for budgeting, invoicing, timesheets, reporting, and more.

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The tool is easy to use both on desktops and mobile devices. Other than allowing you to track the productivity of your resources based on clients and tasks assigned, Harvest also generates some powerful reports, including billable and non-billable hours for different projects and clients.

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Harvest also has budget-tracking capabilities, including invoicing, keeping track of business expenses, and more. Its sister tool, Harvest Forecast, makes resource assignment easier for businesses.

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Another reason for Harvest’s popularity is the fact it integrates with over 70 different applications, from project management tools like Basecamp, Asana, and Jira, to accounting apps like Quickbooks and Xero to a whole lot more. 

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While the fully loaded tool costs $12 per month per user, the company offers a 30-day free trial. The time tracker by itself is free to use, though.

Toggl

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If your needs are basic time tracking, then Toggl is the ideal free tool for you. 

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It allows you to track the time your team members spend on a task, sends them reminders to stay on track, and can even alert you if someone generates a suspicious looking timesheet. The tool is simple and easy to use on both mobile devices and desktops.

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However, Toggl does not support any budgeting or invoicing. It makes up for these shortcomings by integrating with Jira, Github, Basecamp, Teamweeks, and other external applications. 

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Toggl does have a paid version that costs $9 a month, but the time tracker itself is free for up to 5 users. The paid version comes with additional features, such as some reporting, a calculator for billable rates, and more.

Clockify

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Clockify is a simple time tracker with an intuitive and easy-to-use interface. The time tracker operates like a stopwatch, and you can simply turn it on when your team begins work. 

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If one of your team members forgets to start the tool, they automatically get a reminder.

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The tool’s reporting capabilities will give you an insight into which of your projects take up the most amount of time, as a result of which you can see if the revenue brought in justifies the effort, or if you need to streamline the process.

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The tool makes it easy for businesses to send their clients time rounding in reports. While it does alert team members who forget to start tracking time when they start work on a project, you as a manager or business owner could add time on their behalf as well. 

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However, you cannot make backdated changes on a timesheet, which means no one can cover up the actual time spent working. 

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Clockify has a free time tracker, while the Enterprise and Plus versions cost $9.90 a month per user. The all-access premium version costs a staggering $29.99 a month. 

Buddy Punch

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Buddy Punch is an online time tracker that is customizable and easily integrates with many payroll management software such as ADP, Gusto, and Quickbooks. 

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It allows you to easily capture the time spent on specific job codes and projects. Integrating it with a paid Zapier account will give you access to hundreds of other tools.

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Buddy Punch enables you to calculate time spent on a project, breaks taken and even overtime worked automatically. You can automate break times for your team, calculate each member’s overtime, track attendance, GPS tracking, scheduled vacations, and a lot more.

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The basic attendance and time tracker costs $25 a month, which needs to be paid annually. However, you do get a 30-day free trial to help you make up your mind.

TimeCamp

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TimeCamp is another easy-to-use and well-designed timesheet software that does a lot more. 

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In addition to manual and automatic timesheet generation, the tools also allow you to set budgets for your tasks and projects, keep a track of accruals, track attendance and vacations, generate automated invoices, and more.

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One unique feature is that TimeCamp gives you insights into what your team is actually doing when they’re online, what websites they’re on, and how they spend their time on the systems. You can also approve or reject the timesheets the tool generates.

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Another reason why TimeCamp features on this list is because it integrates with a whole host of project management tools and accounting software. 

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While it is essentially a free timekeeping software, you do have a paid version for $6 a month per user, which gives you a few additional capabilities, such as team productivity tracking, giving management special privileges on the tool, customized reports, and unlimited integrations.

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For $9 a month, you get even more features, such as SSo log-in, two-factor authentication, the ability to take screenshots, and more. 

Make your choice now

A great time-tracking tool will help you manage your time, and the way your team functions more easily. As a result, you and your team increase both productivity and revenues. 

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Now that you have an idea of some of the best time trackers in the market and what these tools are capable of, we hope making the right choice is easier now. 

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