The Best Time-Tracking Apps for Small Businesses in 2024
Tracking time is essential for the success of any business. However, in the case of a small business, it’s even more critical. In a small team with scarce resources, there is simply no time to be wasted.
Unfortunately, time tracking can be a daunting task that requires a lot of manual work – and – time. It’s one of the main reasons why employees don’t do it regularly. They tend to wait until the end of the month to put in rough time estimations only when the team leader asks for their timesheets.
Just found it! Track time with your team with zero effort
However, if time is not tracked immediately, it’s not tracked correctly (It’s directly related to the Time Monkey Effect).
This is why, to get accurate data, small business owners need to pick the right time-tracking software that simplifies the time-tracking process as much as possible. Using a dedicated tool rather than manual spreadsheets will make all the difference.
In this article, you will learn how to manage time tracking in a small company to align with your timekeeping policy. Below, you will find a list of the best time tracking software for small business that will encourage your team members to track their time accurately.
The 10 best time tracking apps for small businesses
1. Timeular
Timeular stands out as the best team time tracking software, offering a range of compelling features for small businesses. The top 8 features tailored to teams include:
- Effortless and enjoyable time tracking
- Automatic time tracking
- Overtime and leave tracking
- A physical tracker for building a time tracking habit
- It provides accurate and detailed time tracking data
- It doesn’t support employee monitoring features
- It automates your time reports
- It helps to track all types of leaves
- It keeps budgets under control
Did you know that Timeular is one of the best small business tools?
Find the most effective apps that will support your business growth
Time tracking is simple and fun
Timeular is a robust yet simple time tracking software and one of the best attendance tracker apps. Smooth user experience and easy time tracking methods make Timeular the number 1 choice for small businesses and teams that want to track their time accurately with just a few clicks per day.
“I could never get time tracking to work effectively. That’s changed now, thanks to Timeular.” Rachael, Senior Developer
Automatic time tracking for zero-effort time reports
Unlike basic time tracking tools, Timeular offers an automatic time tracking feature that assists you with filling in your timesheets. It tracks time spent on apps, docs, and websites, even if you forget to activate the timer. It’s up to you to decide what turns into an automatic time entry and is reported to managers or customers.
Finally, you can say goodbye to guesswork and enjoy accurate time reports with 100% secured privacy!
It helps to build a time tracking habit
Timeular is widely known for its physical time management cube that connects to the app via Bluetooth. As you can easily customize it through colorful stickers and pens, the 8-sided dice serves as a physical reminder that sits on your desk.
- 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
Help your team to build a time tracking habit with the Timeular Tracker
It provides accurate and detailed time tracking data
Thanks to a wide array of intelligent features of this project time tracking app, tracking your time is simple. It’s so smooth that employees enjoy it! This, in turn, directly translates into accurate time-tracking data collected immediately, not at the end of the month.
It’s not employee monitoring software
Your employees will only track time accurately if they don’t feel micromanaged or monitored in real time. This is why Timeular has a delay for time entries to appear on the manager’s side.
It automates your time reports
With Timeular you can track work hours and decide which activities should be billed to your clients. Label your tasks as “billable” or “non-billable” and track billable hours automatically.
The app will provide 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 helps to track work hours and all types of leaves
In Timeular you can track billable hours, work hours, and any types of leaves. Employees can request time off with just a few clicks, and team leaders can easily manage their requests.
Learn more about leave tracking.
It keeps budgets under control
In Timeular, you can closely monitor project budgets to monitor their progress and profitability. You can swiftly identify projects at risk of surpassing budgets and reallocate your team’s time to where it is most needed.
- Read the success story: How an IT consultancy became 20% more profitable by using Timeular
Top features for small businesses:
- Physical Tracker
- Quicktrack, which allows to start new time entries with keyboard shortcuts
- Automated time tracking
- Billable hours tracker
- Leave tracker
- Payroll tracker
- Mobile apps for iOS and Android
- Automatic data visualization and insights
- You can create custom reports
- Adding notes and tags to time entries
- Shared folders to track time with your team
- Automated, accurate, and great-looking reports for clients
- Over 3,000 integrations with project management tools, task management solutions, or payroll software
- Mac time tracking and a Windows time tracking
Ratings
- App Store: 4.6/5
- Capterra: 4.6/5
Pricing:
- Free plan: 30-day free trial
- Paid plans: Starting from $7.50/ month if billed annually
PLEASE NOTE: Did you know Timeular is considered a top AI tool for small businesses?
Automatically track 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
2. Timeneye
Timeneye is another user-friendly time tracking app for small businesses with project management features. It mainly focuses on project time tracking – you can track time spent on a specific task and assign it to a project, phase, and client.
As a team leader, you can also monitor work hours by receiving a weekly recap of your team’s work and checking the latest tasks someone has been working on. This helps to keep employee productivity in check.
Like many others, Timeneye fully integrates with various tools, including accounting software or project management tools. You can also time track anywhere on the web with the browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.
Top features for small businesses:
- Mobile apps available for Android or iOS
- 100% online timesheets
- Fully integrated with a variety of software and services
- Weekly email recaps
Ratings:
- Capterra: 4.8/5
Pricing:
- Free plan: There is no free plan
- Paid plans: $6 per team member per month, billed annually
Read: How do lawyers keep track of billable hours?
3. Toggl Track
Launched in 2006, Toggl Track has evolved into a robust time tracking software with a simple yet efficient design. It caters to individual users, teams, and businesses of all sizes.
Toggl Track is one of the best time trackers for Android. It has over 100+ integrations, from Asana to Zapier, Jira, Salesforce, and many others, making it easy to integrate with tools your team is already using.
Toggl Track allows users to log their time entries effortlessly, offering in-depth visibility into their daily work efficiency. Its emphasis on user-friendly design and seamless integration with a wide range of third-party applications has made Toggl Track a favored option among those who value time tracking.
It’s a simple and versatile time-tracking software for small businesses. You can add information on your client’s projects with just one click. It also provides features like idle detection and email reminders.
You can add it as a browser extension and use it on a desktop or a mobile app, depending on your device.
Curiosity: Did you know that Toggl is one of the greatest time tracking software for designers?
Top features for small businesses:
- Get the data you need without disrupting your team’s workflow.
- One-click time tracking syncs across multiple platforms.
- Get employee buy-in with a tool designed to empower teams with the knowledge, not micromanage them.
Timeular vs Toggl: Get to know which is the best app for your business.
Ratings:
- Capterra: 4.7/5
Pricing:
- Free plan: Free for up to 5 users
- Paid plans: $9 per team member per month if billed annually
Timeular vs Toggl: Get to know which is the best app for your business.
4. Beebole
Beebole is one of the best time trackers for small businesses and teams because you can track time and attendance or time spent on your projects, tasks, and clients.
As small business owners or managers, you can track the time your employees and contractors spend while controlling project costs. Also, get custom reports and KPI dashboards with intuitive drag-and-drop.
If you work remotely with people worldwide, this time tracker supports multiple currencies and is available in 11 languages.
As for pricing, Beebole’s features are all available for one flat rate. For 6.99€/user/month, you can access all the features. There is no free plan.
Top features for small businesses:
- Good reporting with valuable data for unlimited projects, clients, and activities.
- GDPR compliant
- Mobile app
- Available in 11 different languages
- Billable hours
Ratings:
- Capterra: 4.6/5
Pricing:
- Free plan: No free plan
- Paid plans: Just one paid plan: $ 6.99 per user per month if billed annually
Read also: AI tools to boost productivity
5. Harvest
A reliable alternative to Timely, Harvest is an effective time-tracker for small businesses, allowing users to send invoices directly.
Apart from time tracking, you can also get budget and expense tracking and the possibility to create and send invoices.
Once a specific task is done, you can send invoices to your clients straight from the app, avoiding getting accounting software. And, if a client ever forgets to pay on time, Harvest will automatically remind you. These are some reasons why Harvest is one of the best time-tracking apps for iPhone.
With Harvest, you can see summaries, detailed reports of users’ time, and approving timesheets if you’re the account admin.
Track time on your desktop, via mobile app, or by integrating Harvest with your favorite app – via Zapier, their native integrations, and browser extension.
Top features for small businesses:
- Automatically create invoices and receive payments from clients
- You can send reminders to clients about invoices to be paid
- Visual reports
Ratings:
- Capterra: 4.6/5
Pricing:
- Free plan: For 1 user and 2 projects
- Paid plans: $10.80 per user per month (if billed annually)
Read: Harvest vs. Toggl
6. Tick
Tick is a simple time tracking software with many budget-related features. Besides being easy to use, Tick is well-designed and offers insightful information regarding your budget management, which can be very important for a small business.
This tracking software for small businesses diverges from the competition in its pricing system: Tick has plans with a fixed fee, not user-based. Moreover, due to its simplicity, this time tracker only allows you to have a few projects per plan and has few features or integrations.
With this app, you can profit from a 30-day trial, and pricing starts from $19/month for 10 projects.
Top features:
- Intuitive and straightforward software for employee time tracking
- Available for iOS, Android, the Apple Watch, or desktop app
- Budget related features
Ratings:
- Capterra: 4.5/5
Pricing:
- Free plan: 1 project
- Paid plans: Starting with $19 / month for unlimited users
7. Float
Float is one of the best time trackers for small businesses because it’s made for users that require simple scheduling and time tracking.
You can easily plan and track employee time on the Kanban board by dragging and dropping tasks, users, and projects. The same applies when you want to analyze your team’s performance.
With the collected data from the app, you can create reports showing you everything you want to know, as well as your clients or managers.
It also integrates with some of the most used project management tools, such as Jira, Asana, Trello, as well as with Slack, and Zapier.
As for pricing, with Float you pay only for the people you schedule, with limitless projects and accesses, starting from $6 /person/ month.
Top features:
- Straightforward scheduling and tacking with a great UI
- Visual team availability planning and performance analysis
- Pre-filled timesheets based on your scheduled apps
- Invoices based on actual worked hours
Rating:
- Capterra: 4.5/5
Pricing:
- Free plan: No free plans, 30-day trial period
- Paid plans: $6 per person, per month (if billed annually)
8. Everhour
Everhour is a time tracker that helps managers of small businesses stay on top of important workflows such as invoicing, payroll, and budgeting.
With this time tracker, you can get simple and flexible project billing, set budgets to track project status in real time, receive timely notifications, and much more.
This software integrates with many apps, such as Asana, ClickUp, Monday, Basecamp, Jira, and Notion.
Everhour also comes with essential features that can be helpful for your small business, such as receiving notifications about long-running timers and reminders to track time, tracking paid time off, vacations, sick days, and leave types.
Top features:
- Set billing and budgeting with timely notifications
- Timecard calculator
- Invoicing and reporting
- Weekly timesheet template
Rating:
- Capterra: 4.7/5
Pricing:
- Free plan: Free for up to 5 users
- Paid plans: Starting from $5 per team member per month if paid annually
9. Avaza
Avaza has features ranging from project and expense management to scheduling, chat, resource scheduling, and more if you’re into more complex things.
You can create detailed reports and drill deep into your data. However, the size and features of this time tracker may be a little too much for some users because it has everything in one place. Therefore, even the most basic settings can be too complicated for some.
The tool allows you to configure everything and can be adapted to almost every need. It’s an all-in-one time tracking software. Apart from time tracking, Avaza provides team chat and resource scheduling options.
Top features:
- All in one app, with everything you could need
- A lot of settings for you to configure
- Flexible project budgeting & billing methods
- Email conversion to tasks
- Visualise, filter & group tasks both within & across projects
Rating:
- Capterra: 4.6/5
Pricing:
- Free plan: Available
- Paid plans: Starting from $11.95 per month if paid annually
10. Paymo
Paymo has developed many project management functionalities around time tracking over the years to better assist small businesses and freelancers.
This time management software is an excellent solution if you need to collaborate, manage a team, and bill clients. This software allows you to manage expenses, create invoices, and automate payments.
Paymo has strong time tracking capabilities thanks to its built-in stopwatch, desktop widget, mobile app, and automatic time tracker, thus making logging time a seamless experience.
As for pricing, you can start for free with a maximum of just one user and only basic tools; you don’t need a card. The paid plans start from $ 4.95/user/month.
Top features:
- Strong time-tracking capabilities
- Online invoicing
- Gantt charts
- Team scheduler
Rating:
- Capterra: 4.7/5
Pricing:
- Free plan: A free plan available for 1 user
- Paid plans: Starting from $4.95 per month if paid annually (1 team member)
Make time tracking effective with these time tracking tips.
How to choose the best time tracker for small businesses
Is a simple time tracking app enough to accommodate your small business needs?
Will free time tracking software comply with your privacy requirements?
Ask yourself many questions before choosing the right time tracking software.
We have compiled a list of features your time tracking software should provide to ensure smooth work and accurate data. Remember that each small business is different, and you won’t need all the features enlisted below.
Understand your small business needs
Simplicity can be key when choosing the best time tracking software for your small business. The first question is whether a straightforward time tracking app will suffice for your needs.
Depending on the size and complexity of your business, a simple solution might be all you require to manage your time tracking tasks efficiently.
Balance privacy with cost
Another vital consideration is privacy. Free time tracking software may seem appealing, but you should evaluate whether it complies with your privacy requirements.
Privacy is paramount, especially when dealing with sensitive business data. It’s essential to strike a balance between cost and data security when making your selection.
Ask yourself the right questions
Before making a decision, take the time to ask yourself a series of pertinent questions. The world of time tracking software is vast, and your specific needs will dictate the best choice for your business.
Consider factors such as the number of users, projects, and integrations you require, as well as your preference for manual or automatic tracking.
Read also: How do you implement automation in the workplace?
Must-have features
To ensure smooth operations and accurate data, your chosen time tracking software should offer specific features. While every small business is unique, here are some fundamental features to look for:
- It should track billable hours.
- Time tracking should be user-friendly and efficient.
- It should be possible to work with unlimited users and unlimited projects.
- Project progress tracking should be available.
- You should be able to set automated reminders for time tracking.
- It should also track leaves, work hours, and project status.
- Google Calendar integration, as well as integrations with accounting software or task management tools
- The ability to create custom reports
- The ability to generate reports directly from the app can enhance your analytics.
Avoid micromanagement
Employees need to feel trusted to track time accurately. It means the time tracking software that allows screenshots or screen recordings won’t earn their buy-in.
While choosing your time tracking software make sure that it doesn’t encourage micromanagement and provides features that help your employees feel more comfortable. An example of such a feature is a 24h delay of time entries to be visible on the manager’s side.
Last but not least, ensure ease of use!
Lastly, when selecting your time tracking software, consider the user experience. Tracking time should happen without effort, with just a few clicks, under 1 minute daily. And all your team members should enjoy it.
Ensure that your tracking software is available for mobile devices (provides a mobile app for both iOS and Android) and has a desktop app.
Additionally, check if each team member has their workspace and whether the software supports collaborative work on projects. It should also allow users to edit hours manually and offer automatic time tracking without compromising GDPR compliance.
You can confidently choose the best time tracking software for your small business by carefully weighing these factors.
Conclusion
Time tracking apps help small businesses track employee productivity, increase billable hours, and grow revenue. Suppose you want to capture billable hours with automatic time tracking and generate reports about how employees spend their time. In that case, you need proper time tracking software – not a manual spreadsheet.
Choosing the best time tracking software for a small team takes work. With all the time tracking apps available on the market, you might get lost or feel tempted to choose the most popular options. However, the best time tracking software for your small business might differ from the optimal choice among bigger companies.
Time tracking solutions for enterprises would focus more on bigger teams, with higher budgets. On the other hand, small businesses still need more than basic time tracking features that allow for employee time tracking. Keep in mind: Software for small businesses needs to be both simple and robust.
Hopefully, this article’s list of time tracking apps helped you make the right choice.
FAQ
Time tracking is recording time against assigned tasks and planned activities to have accurate information about your working habits. By learning how much time you spend doing your daily tasks, you can conclude and set action plans to become as productive and efficient as possible.
If you are looking for a simple yet robust employee time tracking software that your team will enjoy, try Timeular. As the ultimate software for small businesses, Timeular supports teamwork and helps team managers track time and project management.
Simple time tracking tool usually provides the following time tracking functionality:
– Tracking time of hourly employees
– Tracking employee productivity
– Tracking time on mobile devices
– GPS time tracking (not always)
– Integrations with project management apps and payroll software
There’s no set price for time tracking software. It ultimately depends on what kind of time tracking tool you’re looking for. There are multiple free options available. However, they usually work for up to three users. Paid team plans start with 4-5 USD per month per user.
No, Google itself does not have a specific time tracker. However, many time-tracking apps, such as Timeular, have a browser extension you can easily add and access. If you’re looking for a solution for your smartphone, you can check the best time trackers for Android and the best time tracking apps for iPhone.
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