Below is a special blog post from our guest blogger PayTech.

Business owners know that time is a company’s most important resource. This means that being able to better manage your team’s time can have a monumental effect on your company’s overall success. It seems like a tedious task to track hours, generate reports, and make plans for improved productivity, but an employee time tracking app can help make this a seamless part of your day to day operations. Time tracking lets you understand how your employees are spending their time at the office and allow you to better manage your workforce. You’ll have a clear picture of what changes you need to make to an employee’s workload, plan out future projects, and identify any gaps between what you need accomplished and what your team is capable of handling at the present moment.

The Best Time Tracking Apps

Because time tracking has gotten so popular in recent years, there is a variety of employee time tracking apps on the market. To narrow down the list, you’ll want to consider which features are most important to your organization. Do you need a phone app for your social media specialist? Do you want an app that integrates with your existing accounting systems? Do you need to differentiate between billable and nonbillable time? Below we’ll compare a few of the best time tracking apps and help you identify how each would work for your team.

Desktime

Desktime is a popular employee time tracking app for companies small and large alike. One of the best features is that it begins tracking time from the minute you turn on your computer to the minute you turn it off. This means your employees don’t have to enter in time manually, resulting in more accurate reporting. Another helpful feature is the URL and app tracking that shows you what websites and applications your employees are using and allows you to further categorize their time as productive or nonproductive. You can also see the names of the documents they are working on when they use apps such as Microsoft Word. 

Of course, reporting is one of the major reasons to invest in employee time tracking app. Desktime allows you to set up a series of different custom reports so that you can review things like a specific employee’s productivity or the amount of time a department has spent on a specific project.

Desktime even offers a 14-day free trial so you can see how the app would work for your organization. After that, you can select a plan that matches your needs and budget.

Everhour

Everhour is another one of the best time tracking apps on the market. One of the best features of this solution is that it allows you to create estimates for a project and then shows you your progress. It also integrates with other business applications like Asana, Basecamp, Trello, and more. Everhour also has a browser extension that allows you to track time from any website you’re on with one click.

Everhour is much more than just a time tracking app however, there is also a project management component. This means you can manage tasks, set up budgets, and incorporate your billing in one platform. There is even an option to add in expense tracking so you have a complete view of your company’s financial investment in a project. Their reports are also completely customizable and include summary emails of your team’s progress that can be sent on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Everhour has pricing for freelancers or larger organizations and offers a 14-day free trial.

Hours

Hours is a great employee time tracking app for employees on the go. Their platform works on virtually any IOS device (even Apple Watch), so it’s easy for your team to track their time no matter where they are. You can even integrate the app to work with Siri. “Hey Siri, stop Hours timer for new website development.” Push notifications can also be enabled to remind you to track time. Visual reports also make this an incredibly simple tool to see the progress your team is making with certain projects. 

Hours can be easily set up for individual freelancers or small businesses. The app starts off free and then gives you an opportunity to upgrade based on your needs.

Toggl

Toggl is an employee time tracking app that makes it virtually impossible to make a mistake with your time entries. With reminders set up for starting your time and idle time detection, Toggl’s accuracy is hard to beat. It also integrates with over 100 different business applications, including your calendar. Now, you don’t have to remember to start a timer before and after your back to back meetings. 

One of our favorite features is the option to set a billable rate to different tasks in order to ensure you are fairly compensated for all your work. The premium plan also offers a report that compares your profit versus your labor cost so you can tell which clients and projects are the most profitable and which ones you need to improve on.

Get started with a free plan from Toggl, and then upgrade to take advantage of all the features the platform has to offer.

Hubstaff

Hubstaff is one of the best time tracking apps for many reasons. One of our favorites has to be their predefined solutions for industries like landscaping, accounting, real estate, design, e-commerce, and more. Their geofencing and GPS features also allow you to see where your employees are working from and can even help track the time spent driving. Further monitor employee productivity with URL tracking and optional screenshots of your employee’s work as it happens.

Hubstaff also gives you the option to manage payroll and scheduling from right within the platform. Payments can even be automated so that you never miss payday again.

Hubstaff starts off free for individual users and increases in pricing based on your needs and the size of your team.

Start Tracking Your Work Hours

Choosing the right employee time tracking app will have a positive impact on your business. It will give you visibility into how your employees are working so you can improve productivity, manage project allocation, and correctly charge your clients for the work being completed. Decide what features are most important to your organization and then test out a few different solutions. We recommend getting feedback from a few key team members on their experience so you can ensure your team loves your new employee time tracking and is ready to fully embrace the solution. Then, move forward with more clarity about your company’s most important resource: time.