5 Best Time Tracking Apps For Contractors in 2024
It is no longer news to anyone: 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 monitoring your productivity and performance in ongoing projects.
Looking for the best time tracking tool for contractors? Just found it!
“I’ve doubled my revenue thanks to Timeular and managed to halve how much I work” – Valdemar Alfred, Owner of Valdefar
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 for contractors 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 offers built-in time tracking templates and reporting dashboards that allow you to automate the calculation of billable hours for employee payroll and client billing.
What are the best time tracking apps for contractors?
We’ve put together a list of the best 5 time tracking apps for contractors:
- Timeular
- BQE Core
- Clockify
- Toggl Track
- Smartsheet
1. Timeular
Timeular stands out as the ultimate time tracking app for contractors, offering a range of compelling features. Top 5 features tailored to contractors’ needs include:
- Effortless and enjoyable time tracking
- Leave tracking
- Enterprise time tracking
- Automatic time tracking
- Team-friendly features
- A physical Tracker for building a time tracking habit
- Automated reports for streamlined insights
- Robust support in safeguarding project budgets
Timeular makes time tracking simple and fun
Smooth user experience and easy time tracking methods make Timeular the number 1 choice for contractors who want to track their time accurately in less than 1 minute per day.
With automatic time tracking, you also capture the applications, documents, and websites you’ve engaged with alongside your calendar events and effortlessly integrate them into your time tracking summary with just a single click! Rest assured, your privacy is fully safeguarded: all data remains exclusively stored on your device, making it inaccessible.
“I could never get time tracking to work effectively. That’s changed now thanks to Timeular.” Rachael, Senior Developer
It’s perfect both for teams and individuals
Timeular lets you track time and customize the time entries with notes and tags, which the whole team can share. You can track time with your team using shared folders and create individual and team reports. It works as a Windows timer app as well as a Mac time tracker.
Allows leaves tracking
Beyond work hours, Timeular allows you to effortlessly track employee overtime and all types of leaves, providing comprehensive control over your work schedule. That’s an easy method for adding and monitoring all leave requests from the whole team and grants greater flexibility and transparency in leave tracking and reporting.
It helps to build a time tracking habit
Timeular is widely known for its physical Time tracking dice that connect to the app via Bluetooth. As you can easily customize it through colorful stickers and pens, the 8-sided cube is a physical reminder on your desk.
With the Tracker you can register up to 1,000 activities. Simply leave one or more sides of your Tracker empty. Every empty side will act like a joker side. It will open Quicktrack and let you choose what you want to track
- Please note: You don’t need the Tracker to use Timeular software.
- How does it work? Assign your activities to each side of the Tracker and flip the dice to start a new time entry. If needed, edit the entry in the app afterward by adding tags and notes. It’s as simple as that!
“I am not one that finds joy in tracking my time. Thankfully, I can now simply flip the Timeular Tracker.” – Melissa, Senior Analyst in Health
Track your time with a physical Tracker
Build a time tracking habit using muscle memory and a powerful physical reminder. Track your time with a flip of a dice!
It automates your time reports
Timeular automates tracking billable hours and creating transparent time reports for your clients. The app provides a precise breakdown of your activities to ensure that each little task is tracked and added to your invoice. You can export your reports to PDF, XLSX, or CSV.
“We are much better at accurately tracking our time, which improves client billing.” – Michele C., Founder at Clementine Healthcare Marketing
It keeps budgets under control
In Timeular, you can closely monitor project budgets to monitor their progress and profitability. You can swiftly identify projects that are at risk of surpassing budgets and reallocate your team’s time to where it is most needed.
How an IT consultancy became 20% more profitable by using Timeular
Ratings
- App Store: 4.6/5
- Capterra: 4.5/5
Top features
- Physical Tracker
- QuickTrack, which allows starting new time entries with keyboard shortcuts
- Easy time tracking everywhere you go thanks to a mobile app
- Automated data visualization and insights
- Accurate billing with custom reports & data export
- Adding notes and tags to time entries
- Shared folders to track time with your team
- Automated, accurate, and great-looking reports for clients
- Mac Time tracker
- Android time tracking app
- Linux time-tracking software
- Over 3,000 apps integrated through Zapier
- Also works as an overtime and employee leave tracker
Bill 25% more billable hours with Timeular!
Capture all the little things with the most effortless time tracking app for contractors!
TIP: If you track time occasionally, try our free Time Card Calculator.
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 employees’ hours 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.
Pricing varies based on the modules you require and the number of users needing 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
Clockify, a reliable replacement for Timecamp, 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. It is considered a great productivity tool.
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.
Bill 25% more billable hours with Timeular!
Capture all the little things with the most effortless time tracking app for contractors!
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.
TIP: Read our in-depth comparison of Toggl vs Clockify.
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 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.
Curiosity: Did you know that Toggl is considered one of the best time tracking apps for designers?
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.
TIP: Visit our page if you are looking for Free timesheet templates.
Ratings:
- App Store: 4.8/5
- Capterra: 4.5/5
Top Features
- Highly customizable software
- Analytics and reporting tools
- Robust data protection and compliance
Keep your projects’ time and budgets safe with the most accurate time tracking solution
Why use 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.
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.
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.
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.
In some cases, you will notice that time tracking will increase billable hours because it’s more accurate than other methods.
Creating 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!
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, and 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.
Start tracking your time with zero effort
“Since we started using Timeular and tracking our time, we’ve never made another mistake in planning, creating accurate proposals or budgeting for clients” – AC Coppens, Founder of THE CATALYSTS
Conclusion
What makes a great time tracking tool 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 30-days trial at Timeular because we believe that time is too precious to be wasted, especially when it comes to working.
FAQ
There are a lot of apps on the market, but we can assure you that Timeular is one of the best time tracking apps.
You have many options when it comes to IOS time tracking apps, but Timeular is one of the best time tracking apps for iPhones.
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.
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.
You might be interested in: