The Best Employee Time Tracking Software for 2024

Boost your team’s productivity, revenue, and project management effortlessly. It all starts with one simple step.

Introduce the best employee time tracking software. It helps everyone see where their time goes.

Wondering how to find the best employee time tracking app? Check out the list below.

Looking for an automated and secure employee time tracking software for your team?

With Timeular you can track everything, even the little things, in <1 minute per day. The way you want.

Try Timeular for free

Best employee time tracking apps for 2024

1. Timeular
2. Clockify
3. RescueTime
4. Toggl
5. Hubstaff
6. TimeCamp
7. Timely
8. ClickUp
9. Intuit QuickBooks Time
10. Harvest

What is an employee time tracking app?

An employee time tracking app is software designed to monitor and record employees’ time spent on various tasks and projects.

It typically includes features such as project time tracking, workforce management, tracking the number of hours worked by employees, generating employee timesheets, sending timesheet reminders, and providing insights into employee work hours.

What to expect from the best employee time tracking apps?

• Automated time tracking: To ensure accurate time tracking that doesn’t require much effort.
• Project time tracking: To track project progress, project status and save time on chasing employee timesheets by project managers.
• Attendance tracking: To track all types of employee time off.
• Work hours tracking: To track work hours, overtime, and minus-hours.
• Integration with your payroll software: To send your time tracking data and streamline your payroll processes.
• Anti-surveillance policy: You should not be looking for employee monitoring software that spys on your team. Choose a time tracking app that respects privacy and doesn’t allow for screenshots or screen recording.

Methodology of choosing the best employee time tracking software

We found the best employee time tracking software by researching customer reviews and using our own experience.

Here are the key time tracking features we considered:

• Automated time tracking
• Employee productivity insights
• Work hours tracking
• Simplicity and user-friendliness
• Integrations, i.e. with payroll software

The 10 best employee time tracking software

1. Timeular

Timeular is an AI-powered employee time clock app and PTO tracker. Its unique combination of automatic time tracking and physical time tracking cube, along with advanced AI capabilities, sets it apart.

As an AI time tracker, Timeular eliminates manual timesheets and streamlines employee time tracking, leave tracking, work hours tracking, overtime tracking, productivity tracking, and project management.

With a stellar rating of 4.6 out of 5 on Capterra and over 100,000 users worldwide, it’s a reliable choice that can save users up to 90% of their time spent on tracking.

A standout feature of Timeular is…

It’s the time-tracking cube! It is a hardware time tracker, that automatically starts tracking time when flipped, capable of tracking up to 1,000 activities.

Please note: You don’t need the physical tracker to use Timeular software.

Effortless employee time tracking with a physical Tracker

Tracking employee hours can be simple! Try an employee hours tracker with a hardware time tracker and track work hours effortlessly with your entire team.

Learn how it works

Key features:

• It’s effortless and intuitive time tracking app: Easy-to-use calendar-like interface and user-friendly design make time tracking enjoyable
• Multiple simple time tracking methods: Use simple keyboard shortcuts, flip the time-tracking cube, or allow automatic time tracking to capture time.
• It supports enterprise time tracking – you can easily implement it within a large-scale company.
• Flexible setup with folders, activities, and tags to track employee time across clients and projects
• Automated time entry suggestions based on calendar events, visited websites and apps used
• Easy-to-digest, intuitive time reporting with just a few clicks
• Integrations with over 3,000 tools of your choice, incl. payroll software and other apps
• It helps to keep project budgets in control with budget notifications and non-billable and billable hours tracking;
• It comes with time tracking features such as work hours tracking, overtime tracking, and PTO tracking
• It’s GDPR compliant and secure: Your data is stored locally on your device, while it’s 100% GDPR compliant;
• 100% anti-surveillance policy: No intrusive screenshots or screen recordings

Automatically track employee time with no effort

Why spend 5-10 minutes per day entering a handful of made up time entries, if you can track everything, even the little things, in <1 minute per day?

Try Timeular for free

Timeular Pros and Cons

Reviews:

• “We have become 20% more profitable because everyone is in the habit of time tracking.” – Richard Wingfield, Head Geek at Envision Design
• “Tracking in Timeular has increased the amount of hours worked that are reported. Before some things were forgotten and missed off. Now the whole day is in Timeular and we have all of the information we need.” – Roman Haag, Partner at iAgentur
• “I’ve doubled my revenue thanks to Timeular and managed to halve how much I work. Timeular helped me understand where I needed to make changes to become more efficient and this has allowed me to cut down my time spent working.” – Valdemar Alfred, Owner of Valdefar

Rankings:

• G2: 4.6/5
• Capterra: 4.6/5

Best for:

• Consolidating all time management tasks within one app
• Effortless and automatic time tracking
• Tracking leave time
• Ensuring secure time tracking without monitoring employees
• Windows time tracking and Mac time tracking

Pricing:

• 30-day free plan
• Paid plans start at $7.50

Related article: The best time tracking apps for designers

2. Clockify

Clockify is an employee time-tracking app that allows employees to track time across various projects, create timesheets, and generate insightful reports. Its user-friendly interface and integrations with popular project management tools make it a cost-effective choice for businesses looking to improve time management.

Despite being in our best time-tracking apps list, Clockify’s users have reported encountering frequent bugs in its Android app. While the user interface remains intuitive, its mobile application experiences sluggish processing times and frequent crashes.

Additionally, the app’s functionality is significantly hindered without an internet connection, so you might not be able to track employee hours in such cases.

Given Clockify’s affordable pricing plans and range of tracking features, we can say it’s among the best free time tracking software for employees ( has a free trial of the paid PRO version).

In the end, it’s a time and attendance solution for most small businesses that don’t require a 100% foolproof tool.

Read also: Clockify vs Toggl Track: which one should you pick

Clockify – key features

Pros reported on G2 by Clockify users:

• “Clockify makes precise time and activity logging very easy. We can quickly and easily separate our hours by projects and individual tasks. With tangible and illustrative data, we may also create personalized reports and assess team productivity.”
• “Clockify has a very user-friendly interface, which is what I find most appealing.”
• “It’s simple and free, offers the basic features that should be enough for most of the businesses”

Cons reported on G2 by Clockify users:

• “I think there are now some restrictions on how flexible the reports that are created can be. More possibilities to filter and personalize the reports to my own requirements would be nice.”
• “The free version of Clockify includes several restrictions on features, and advanced capabilities might only be accessible in the subscription edition. In order to access and utilise Clockify, which is largely a cloud-based service, you must have a reliable internet connection. Your ability to correctly track time may be hampered if you live somewhere with spotty or unstable internet services.”
• “I’m not a huge fan of the UI. Feels a bit outdated to me.”

Ranking:

• G2: 4.5/5
• Capterra: 4.7/5

Clockify pricing:

• Free plan
• Paid plans start at $3.99 per user/month

Check: Best Clockify alternatives

Free eBook: How to plan your team’s time?

A step-by-step guide into the best techniques to manage your team’s time and implement a time tracking method

Download now

3. RescueTime

Known to be a great alternative to HoursTracker, RescueTime is a time-tracking tool that focuses on helping individuals and teams understand and improve their digital productivity.

RescueTime offers Focus sessions, enabling teams to monitor and optimize time usage, ensuring maximum efficiency effectively.

This feature allows businesses to selectively designate which websites contribute to productivity while identifying and managing those that hinder progress. Moreover, users can limit disruptive notifications from other applications.

The app also generates detailed reports that offer a comprehensive overview of how you spend your time, categorizing activities into productive and unproductive segments.

Note: For any business or team that wants to implement this tool, we advise full transparency with your employees. Otherwise, they may think you are “spying”/micromanaging them.

Despite of this feature, RescueTime remains one of the best attorney time-tracking software.

RescueTime pricing:

• Lite: Free trial version
• Premium: $12 per user/month (contains calendar and music integration, history reports, and warmups for Focus Sessions)

RescueTime – key features

Pros reported on G2 by RescueTime users:

• “It’s so easy, you don’t have to do anything. Just work and it will track your activity. It is 0 annoying, as they only notify you of really relevant events.”
• “I liked that I learned a lot about where my time goes. I can often get distracted when I’m researching something, and end up on a totally unrelated task. FocusTime definitely made me more aware of when I started wandering.”
• “Rescuetime is a simple to use tool. Does not have a lot of features compared to other applications in the space but more isn’t always better.”

Cons reported on G2 by RescueTime users:

• “There haven’t been much substantial product updates in the past few years, maybe by design. But I’d love to see more reports and faster loading times for longer time horizons.”
• “It collects all the data and sends storage to its server. I often worry about the data privacy issues with this software, Have to evaluate the tradeoff.”
• “Sometimes it will log you off the site and there is no work recorded”

Ranking:

• G2: 4.1/5
• Capterra: 4.6/5

RescueTime pricing:

• Lite: Free plan
• Premium: $12 per user/month (contains calendar and music integration, history reports, and warmups for Focus Sessions)

Read also: Alternatives to RescueTime

4. Toggl Track

Toggl Track is one of the best time tracking software that enables users to track time on projects and tasks or clients. It offers many features, including time tracking, project management, and reporting capabilities. 

This time-tracking app is easy to use, and its intuitive interface allows teams to create projects, add tags, and start and stop the timer with just a few clicks.

Furthermore, team members can track billable hours and generate reports on employee time and attendance.

With its one-click timers, Toggl ensures ease and efficiency in the time-tracking process, and you can run multiple timers simultaneously.

Toggl Track also offers compatibility between your computer and mobile devices, allowing you to initiate a timer in your browser and pause it on your phone. Even if it’s not one of the basic time-tracking features, having it in some cases might be good.

The reporting and analytics features are somewhat limited, resulting in restricted insights into your time-tracking data.

Toggl remains a reliable time-tracking tool for lawyers, freelancers, and project managers who need a simple time tracking app to manage their tasks.

However, while it is a good option for those looking for a primary time-tracking tool, it may not be the ideal choice for those who need a high level of accuracy, reporting, and analytics features.

Toggl Pros and Cons

Pros reported on G2 by Toggl Track users:

• “The user-friendly interface helps me to simply organize all of my work in one spot, and the reporting option allows me to see how far I’ve come on each project in a particular time frame.”
• “Toggl enables me to learn from previous projects and estimate better for future projects; I can learn from metrics and improve time estimates”
• “I like the time tracking reminders in Toggl Track; they help me estimate billable hours accurately and efficiently, while also minimising unbilled hours.”

Cons reported on G2 by Toggl Track users:

• “One thing I dislike about Toggl Track is that it does not allow me to set a timer for my activities in 5 or 15 minute intervals, thus I cannot obtain correct seconds.”
• “Setting up workspaces isn’t the nicest part since if you modify information, such as the name, it doesn’t appear to be changed.”
• “Sometimes gets tricky to update the timer.”

Ranking:

• G2: 4.6/5
• Capterra: 4.7/5

Toggl Track pricing:

• Free plan: 14-day trial
• Team: $8 per user/month paid annually
• Business: $13.35 per user/month paid annually

5. Hubstaff

Hubstaff is one of the best employee time-tracking software that offers a comprehensive suite of features designed for employee monitoring and managing time effectively.

It provides accurate time tracking and GPS tracking based on location monitoring, project management features, as well as invoicing functionalities. 

This time-tracking app is a reliable and efficient tool for managing teams and tracking time. The automatic time tracking feature eliminates the need for manual entry and ensures accurate recording of work hours, making payroll and invoicing processes smoother.

The GPS tracking feature makes Hubstaff a competitive time-tracking app for employee hours tracking on the go.

Despite being among the best time-tracking apps for employees, Hubstaff can be quite intrusive for some people and promote toxic micromanagement. 

This is a result of Hubstaff’s employees’ keyboard tracking and mouse activity by measuring the frequency of a user’s mouse and keyboard strokes with activity levels.

Hubstaff – key features

Pros reported on G2 by Hubstaff users:

• “Honestly, Hubstaff is a lifesaver if you manage remote teams or freelance yourself.”
• “I like how convenient it is to add tasks, keeps track of my employee’s log times, allows me to see what tasks are being worked on and at what percentage of productivity, and enables screen recording to ensure they are working on what they are supposed to be.”
• “Hubstaff offers an intuitive interface that simplifies time tracking, with robust reporting features that provide valuable insights into productivity. The seamless integration with other project management tools enhances workflow and efficiency”

Cons reported on G2 by Hubstaff users:

• “It can feel like Big Brother is watching, especially if your work doesn’t require constant computer use. Plus, if you manage a team based on trust, it might send the wrong message that you don’t trust your employees.”
• “Initially, it can be a little much to understand, but after a day of usage, it is very seemless and flawless.”
• “Husbtaff integrates with severeal work management systems incuding Monday.com. However the intergration is not great. Most tasks/boards don’t sync. The idea is that employees should be able to track the projects they are working on, which would give the management great data. However, it doesn’t really work.”

Ranking:

• G2: 4.3/5
• Capterra: 4.6/5

Hubstaff pricing:

• Free trial (14-day)
• Starter: $4.99 per user/month
• Grow: $7.5 per user/month
• Team: $10 per user/month
• Enterprise: $25 per user/month

6. TimeCamp

TimeCamp is an employee time-tracking app designed to enhance overall team productivity, allowing team members to log their time entries with ease.

This platform enables you to identify areas of high and low productivity within your team while allowing for employee monitoring and tracking billable and non-billable hours.

All plans provide ample time-tracking functions like time entries, GPS tracking, automatic time tracking, idle time tracking, and keeping track of daily and weekly timesheets.

Paid plans offer additional features, including productivity and time-budget reports, billing and invoicing capabilities, unlimited third-party integrations, and user role assignments.

TimeCamp’s mobile app allows you to accurately track time for your projects, whether you’re on your commute to the office or back home.

This software has a rating of 3.7 stars on the Google Play Store, with some users pointing out bugs that make the experience less pleasant.

TimeCamp – key features

7. Timely

Timely is one of the best time tracking software for employees. It promises to provide precise daily records of all the time you spend in documents, meetings, emails, websites, and video calls with ease of use.

Timely’s most unique feature is the Memory Tracker. This feature allows users to switch between tasks, apps, and meetings while quietly operating in the background, eliminating the need for manual entry.

The Memory Tracker automatically records employees’ activities across different apps and devices. Afterward, it creates comprehensive timelines and provides detailed insights into time allocation.

Note: Memory Tracker is an independent app that you’ll need to install on your computer, besides Timely, which causes friction in the user experience.

Regarding data security, Timely doesn’t support employee screenshots, keystroke monitoring, or other aggressive employee monitoring tactics.

Timely – key features

Pros reported on G2 by Timely users:

• “The daily calendar display shows me what documents, meetings, web pages, etc. I’ve accessed and for how long. This allows me to then record billable time against multiple clients in a single day.”
• “Timely has revolutionized the way I approach time management. Its intuitive interface allows me to effortlessly track my hours, ensuring that every minute of work is accounted for.”
• “It allows me to review how I spend my time, so when I look at which projects I spend the most hours on on, it allows me to better allocate it in the future.”

Cons reported on G2 by Timely users:

• “Sometimes it doesn’t synchronize 100 % across platforms.”
• “Of course, Timely is not perfect, it utilizes AI and it needs to be trained and sometimes retrained according to your purposes. Sometimes you also have to resync your calendars to show the correct and up-to-date data, and I find it easier to work in the browser instead of the app provided.”
• “While its automation feature is a standout, it requires a bit of learning for those not tech-savvy. I would prefer more customization options in terms of reporting and data visualization to tailor the app more closely to their specific needs.”

Ranking:

• G2: 4.7/5
• Capterra: 4.8/5

Timely pricing:

• Free trial (14-day)
• Starter: $9/user per month
• Premium: $16/user per month
• Unlimited:$22/user per month ( includes unlimited users)

Read also: The best Timely alternatives

8. ClickUp

Though included in a best time tracking apps list, ClickUp is, in essence, a project management tool that also includes a time-tracking functionality.

This project management software covers features like timers, timesheets, and reporting; ClickUp allows users to track time spent on specific tasks, projects, and other activities.

Additionally, ClickUp offers integrations with popular time-tracking apps, allowing teams to sync data between ClickUp and external time-tracking apps if desired.

Its flexibility lets users choose the time-tracking solution that best fits their needs while leveraging ClickUp’s comprehensive project management features.

ClickUp is one of the best project management tools that allows time tracking. For this reason, it may be overwhelming for teams looking only for an easy-to-use time-tracking solution.

ClickUp – key features

Pros reported on G2 by ClickUp users:

• “Whether it’s coordinating daily tasks, tracking project progress, or conducting operational meetings, ClickUp proves invaluable in maintaining efficiency and ensuring everyone is on the same page.”
• “From task assignments and due dates to subtasks, dependencies, and time tracking, ClickUp caters to diverse needs, ensuring all aspects of a project are efficiently managed within one platform.”
• “Its a comprehensive platform that has helped for my project workflow. It has helped me for time tracking and due dates. ClickUp has everything for me to keep my projects on track and my team aligned.”

Cons reported on G2 by ClickUp users:

• “While ClickUp’s interface is generally intuitive, I find the initial learning curve steep, especially if they are transitioning from another project management tool. The abundance of features and customization options can be overwhelming for new users, requiring time and effort to grasp fully.”
• “The mobile app is okay but could be better.”
• “I have to manage a lot of data so sometimes it takes time to load and stops working without any notification. It would be great if this can work flawlessly or if we can get some notification for the same.”

Ranking:

• G2: 4.7/5
• Capterra: 4.7/5

Clickup pricing:

• Free Forever
• Unlimited: $7/user per month
• Business: $12/user per month
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing

Read also: ClickUp Time Tracking Integration

9. Intuit QuickBooks Time

QuickBooks Time is known to be a reliable replacement for the Time Doctor app. It is a time-tracking and employee scheduling software designed to help businesses efficiently manage and track employee hours.

With QuickBooks Time, users can create employee work schedules, track and manage employee hours for payroll purposes, and invoice clients based on billable hours. It also features GPS tracking to oversee and coordinate mobile teams and geofencing tracking as a reminder for employees to clock in or out upon entering or leaving a job site.

Real-time reports provide live-time monitoring of employees currently on the job, while the inclusion of overtime alerts helps you avoid exceeding your budgeted hours. Furthermore, you can easily track and approve an employee’s time entries through the convenience of a mobile or desktop app.

QuickBooks Time offers various plans, each comprising a monthly base fee along with a monthly per-user fee. 

QuickBooks – key features

Pros reported on G2 by QuickBooks Time users:

• “Quickbooks time is helpful for tracking the number of hours of work done by people. The upsides of using Quickbooks Time is that the information easily imports into Quickbooks accounting software.”
• “I like that is great for organizing your time and is very user-friendly. Also, it has mobile access and that it integrates with QuickBooks so you can manage all in one.”
• “QB Time is a relatively robust time-tracking system that we integrate with QuickBooks. I like the flexibility to create specific jobs/projects and can assign groups of employees to that project.”

Cons reported on G2 by QuickBooks Time users:

• “Quickbooks has fixed options about stuff you can add so I would like if the application had more flexibility or if you could add your own options and the customer support is not that great.”
• “The minimum interval is 15 minutes, requiring individuals to clock out 6 minutes later than their finish times to ‘equate’ to the correct working hours.”
• “What I dislike about Quickbooks Time is the frequent cellphone app updates mean that I need to help the crew periodically update the app on their cellphone.”

Ranking:

• G2: 4.4/5
• Capterra: 4.5/5

Intuit QuickBooks pricing:

• Simple start: $15 per user/month
• Essentials: $30 per user/month
• Plus: $45 per user/month
• Advanced: $100 per user/month

10. Harvest

To conclude our list of the best time tracking tools for employees, let’s take a look at Harvest.

Harvest is one of the best employee time tracking apps that offer a range of features to streamline time management. Besides making time tracking easier, Harvest also helps users automate invoicing and reporting. 

Harvest has quite a long list of integrations, such as analytics & reporting apps, productivity, and finance tools.

This software is accessible through various platforms, including an online version, desktop software, and a dedicated mobile app.

Realistically, Harvest doesn’t present anything groundbreaking but works for those needing a simple app.

Harvest has recently received criticism for the latest updates that, according to users, have made the app slow and difficult to use.

If this app doesn’t suit your needs, you might be interested in our post on time tracker alternatives to Harvest.

Harvest – key features

Pros reported on G2 by Harvest users:

• “It works very well and is very intuitive. It facilitates time tracking for users who need to work on sending invoices to clients and track multiple projects, from multiple devices, complementing several applications.”
• “It’s super simple to use and takes the hassle out of tracking time. It helps us get a high-level view of how our team is spending time against projects and clients.”
• “I like how you can access from anywhere, mobile app, desktop app, website, many easy options for quickly tracking time spent on projects.”

Cons reported on G2 by Harvest users:

• “The UI might occasionally get a little cluttered when managing numerous users and assigning particular tasks while working on large projects with various collaborators.”
• “Some reporting functionalities are somewhat limited in customization compared to more robust project management tools and software out there.”
• “I find the process of finding projects to be one of the most frustrating aspects of Harvest. With over fifty projects active at any given time, it can take the same amount of time to type keywords into the search bar to find what I’m looking for without having to manually scroll through all the open projects. This often results in a lengthy and tedious experience that slows down my workflow significantly.”

Ranking:

• G2: 4.3/5
• Capterra: 4.6/5

Harvest pricing:

• Free plan
• Paid plans starting at $12 per user/month

Conclusion

Implementing an effective employee time tracker can significantly improve team performance, streamline workflows, and optimize resource allocation within your organization. 

By considering the features, user-friendliness, integration capabilities, and scalability of different time-tracking tools, you can select the best solution that aligns with your specific business needs.

• TIP: If you want to calculate work hours occasionally, check out the free Time Card Calculator.

FAQ

What is a time tracking app?

Time-tracking apps are software applications designed to help individuals and organizations monitor and record the amount of time dedicated to various tasks, projects, or activities. 

What is the best way to track time for employees?

The best way to track how many hours employees spend on specific task is to use dedicated employee time tracking apps. An employee time tracking app offers features such as automated time capture, timers, and detailed reporting, enabling accurate tracking of working hours.

How does time tracking software work?

Time-tracking software operates by capturing, recording, and analyzing data related to employees’ work activities. This can be achieved through manual input, automated tracking based on app usage or computer activity, or integration with other tools. 

How do employee time tracking apps benefit remote teams?

Employee time tracking apps, essential for remote teams, offer precise time tracking for employees, aiding in remote team management. Particularly beneficial for small businesses, these apps facilitate specific task tracking, ensuring efficient allocation of resources and improved productivity within the team.

How secure are employee time tracking apps?

Employee time tracking apps prioritize security by adhering to regulations like GDPR. With data stored locally, these apps ensure confidentiality and compliance. Whether it’s through an employee time clock app or employee time tracking software itself, sensitive information like tracked time remains protected.

Can employee time tracking apps track billable hours for clients?

Yes, employee time tracking apps can effectively track billable hours for clients. The best time tracking software tools offer features specifically designed for billable hours tracking, allowing users to input billable rates and track the time spent on client-related tasks. This enables accurate invoicing based on the hours worked, ensuring transparency and efficiency in client billing processes, while effectively tracking employee time.