The Best 5 Time Tracking Apps For Contractors in 2023
It is no longer news to anyone anymore: time tracking is key to understanding how you spend your time. It is key to productivity, insight, and a healthy workflow.
As a contractor, it is no different. Tracking your hours as a contractor or tracking the hours of your contractors is key to monitor your productivity and performance in ongoing projects.
However, if you’re tracking time manually, you may end up spending hours doing complicated calculations on your own and will probably get some math wrong. By using an online time tracking tool instead, you’ll be able to log staff work hours faster and a lot more accurately. And that’s when we get into action! Many software offer built-in time tracking templates and reporting dashboards that allow you to automate the calculation of billable hours for employee payroll and client billing.
We’ve put together a list of the best 5 time tracking apps for contractors that will help you move forward and be the best contractor you can be.
1. Timeular
The Timeular app is the best time tracking apps for contractors to track their time.
Besides making it easy for the individual, the Timeular app lets you track time and customize the time entries with notes and tags, which can be shared by the whole team. You can create both types of reports: individual and team reports. Get your and your team’s time records, customize them and export your data.
With Timeular, you can get many essential features, such as billable tracking, time sheets and capturing time with keyboard shortcuts, getting actionable insights to increase productivity, and billing accurately with custom reports and data export. With detailed reports, you can filter and visualize all your time entries and customize and export to PDF, XLSX, or CSV.
Besides, this time tracking app stands out from the others because it has something special: an accurate physical time tracker. Timeular’s patented 8-sided Bluetooth Tracker allows you to track time simply by flipping it.
Assign a project to any side, flip it, and right away time starts counting on your computer or mobile. Take it anywhere with you – it’s super easy and super comfortable for everyday use.
However, you can also track your time on devices such as Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, or any browser. Timeular got you covered and updates you across all platforms in real-time! You can also set reminders on your phone to make sure you don’t forget any entries.
The Timeular app comes with different pricing plans for you and your business, starting from €7.50/month. You can also profit from a 14-day free trial, no credit card is needed.
Ratings
Top Features
- Automated data visualization and insights.
- Accurate billing with custom reports & data export.
- Add notes and tags to time entries.
- Shared soace to track time with your team.
- Accurate and great-looking reports for clients.
- Over 3000 apps integrations with Zapier.
- Easy time tracking everywhere you go.
- Design your own tracker, a physical remote control for the app.
2. BQE Core
The BQE Core is a good time tracking app for contractors because it’s an accounting and invoicing software tool that offers integrated time management features such as web and mobile time tracking, billable hours calculation, employee database management, and scheduling.
This time tracking tool lets you capture the hours employees spend on projects and any overtime or time off. It provides ready-to-use timesheet templates where you can log the dates and work hours for all employees.
Besides time tracking, the software offers an expense management feature to let you record project costs, such as the money spent on fuel or food by employees traveling to meet a client or visiting a job site, making it great for contractors. Your employees can even upload and submit expense receipts from their smartphones for approval! Super easy and convenient for daily use.
As for pricing, their website does not have much information. Pricing varies based on the modules you require and the number of users who will need to have access. So, if you submit a pricing request, a member of their team will follow up to provide you with an exact quote.
Ratings
- App Store: 3.5/5
- Capterra: 4.5/5
Top Features
- Send payroll and invoicing with smart timecards and pre-populated timesheets that include customizable date ranges.
- Track time and expenses from anywhere via the web and BQE CORE mobile app.
- Track and link all travel expenses and receipts to their respective projects for streamlined accounting and billing.
- Photo-upload receipts easily to create a digital expense record that includes tax and expense type.
- Accurately track time for projects, overhead, and time off.
3. Clockify
The Clockify app is a well-developed software for independent contractors and freelancers. The app is well-suited for people who work hourly: track productivity, attendance, and billable hours with a simple time tracker and timesheet.
With Clockify you can work across devices and track time from anywhere, as all data is synced online: Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Android, IOS, and more.
Their reporting system will help you better organize and prioritize your workload to meet the desired results. Also, it will give you information about the financial status of every employee, project, and client.
The reports can be used for payrolls, to track project profitability, and to generate accurate invoices. By creating invoices automatically, you will save time and accelerate the payment process, which is very convenient.
As for pricing, Clockify is free forever for unlimited users, projects, and tracking. You can opt for a 7-day free trial to try advanced features (the most desired ones).
Ratings
Top Features
- Time tracking from anywhere on any device, such as a desktop, browser extension, or mobile app.
- Wide range of third-party integrations such as Google Calendar, ClickUp, etc.
- ROI tracking and live updates of project progression.
- Assessment of the user’s productivity level.
- Setting hourly rates and calculating the billable amount.
4. Toggl Track
The Toggl Track app has over 100+ integrations, from Asana to Zapier, Jira, Salesforce, and many others. This way, you can easily integrate it with tools your team already uses in your business.
With Toggl Track, you can track time across the web app, desktop app, mobile app, or browser extension with just one click, and all your entries will sync automatically. Another extra useful feature is idle detection, where the app detects when you aren’t using the app for a long period of time and offers to correct your timeline. This comes in extremely handy when working with a time tracking app.
For pricing, you have three available plans. You have the starter plan for $9 per user per month, the premium plan for $18 per user per month, and finally the Enterprise plan with custom pricing and unlimited users. No credit card is required. All plans come with a free, 30-day trial of our Premium features.
Ratings
- App Store: 3.1/5
- Capterra: 4.7/5
Top Features
- Time tracking features include a tracker, manual customization, timeline and reminders
- Basic project management features.
- Primary team management features.
- Over 100+ third-party integrations in the paid plan.
- Available for mobile (iOS & Android), desktop (Windows/Mac/Linux), and Chrome
Ensure you also read this article: Toggl vs. Timeular
5. Smartsheet
Smartsheet is a project management app with time management features such as online time tracking, prebuilt timesheet templates, and billable hours calculation.
Get customizable timesheet templates that you can use to capture the work hours of employees: enter the type of work performed, who performed it, the labour or materials used, the total time spent on the job, and the hourly rate. Once you’ve entered all the details, the template automatically calculates the total billable amount.
Smartsheet also has a separate module, known as 10,000ft, that offers more granular time tracking capabilities, including automatic time capture and employee scheduling.
For pricing, you have three available plans: Pro, Business, and Enterprise. For Pro, it’s 6€ per user/month, billed yearly with a max of 10 users, and unlimited viewers. For Business, it’s 22€ per user/month, billed yearly and a min 3 users, and unlimited editors. For Enterprise you must ask for a special quote.
Ratings:
- App Store: 4.8/5
- Capterra: 4.5/5
Top Features
- Highly customizable software
- Analytics and reporting tools
- Robust data protection and compliance
Why using a time tracking app for contractors?
Choosing the best time tracking tool as a contractor is crucial to working smarter, not harder. Managing time for every project or task you work on is the most important thing. Otherwise, there is a chance of going out off the track.
The list we gave you above has some of the top time tracking software for contractors, but how can you know which features are the most important for your everyday?
Let’s take a look at the most important reasons why you should use a time tracking app as a contractor to help you understand which ones may be a better fit for you.
1. Keeping track of work
As an independent contractor or freelancer, it’s essential to keep track of your work. It becomes challenging to keep track once you work on multiple projects or tasks.
With deadlines to meet and the demands of clients, you need to have everything organized. Time tracking will help you keep track of your work and progress. You can track your tasks both individually and in a project.
2. Calculating Timesheets
Timesheets can help you remain updated about your everyday tasks.
By using a timesheet app, you can easily calculate the amount of time you have worked in a day and the time you have spent on different tasks. This allows you to better organize your workdays, for you and your whole team.
3. Calculating payments and billable hours
Besides using timesheet templates, it’s also essential to calculate the payments accurately. Remember, you are not working for free, and every effort counts. If you work hourly with your client, you need to calculate the payment and billable hours.
You can get this data automatically by adding your hourly pay rate and tracking it with a billable hours tracker. This makes the whole process a lot easier for you, as you don’t have to spend extra money on companies to do that kind of job for you.
4. Create invoices
Once your task is finished and done with the payment calculation, it’s time to send the invoice to your client. A time tracking app allows you to generate invoices automatically. Super convenient and easy!
5. Generating detailed reports and measuring performance
Reports are important to measure your own performance and the measures to be taken for further improvement.
A time tracking software can help you generate daily, weekly, monthly, custom reports based on the timesheets, projects, and tasks.
You can send the report to your client as well or share it with your team. It allows progress in the long run.
Hopefully, by understanding the importance and benefits of having a time tracking tool as a contractor, you’ll be able to find the perfect match for you and your business.
FAQs
What is the best time tracker app?
There are a lot of apps on the market, but we can assure you that Timeular is one of the best time tracking apps.
What is the best iOS app for tracking work hours?
You have many options when it comes to IOS time tracking apps, but Timeular is definitely one of the best time tracking apps for iPhones.
What is the best time tracking app for Android??
You have many options when it comes to Android time tracking apps, and Timeular is definitely one of the top time tracking apps for Android.
What is the most accurate tracking app?
The most accurate time tracking app will be the one that fits your needs to a tee. The perfect time tracking for any business depends on what you’re looking for and your primary purpose in having a time tracker. But we can assure you that Timeular’s tracker is super reliable.
Conclusion
What makes a great time tracking app for contractors varies from person to person. Some people prioritize budget, while others may prefer a richness of features or ease of use. Whatever your preference, we hope this list helped you find the perfect tool for your work.
If you still haven’t made up your mind, we strongly suggest you make a run for the free 14-days trial at Timeular because we believe that time is too precious to be wasted, especially when it comes to working.
You might be interested in: