Since the invention of the clock, almost every industry and profession has measured the value of work in shifts, hours, and minutes. Timesheets allow these measurements.
Timesheets began to be used in the 19th century as time books. To record time in a more automated way time-tracking software may be used in order to eliminate the need for manual timesheets.
Monitoring hours in timesheet can give a clear insight into which employee is working efficiently, how workflow can be made easier and organized, or which department needs more manpower.
From Traditional Timesheet to Modern Apps
One of the traditional methods for recording working hours is through Excel’s working time form that each employee fills in, resulting in errors, missed deadlines, and lost productivity.
So automation is the key to overcoming traditional chaotic timesheet management.
With the help of the right employee timesheet app, you can get more accurate data. This means you can quickly adjust resource strategies to better serve your customers and increase project profitability.
If you’re looking for a more convenient way to document your work hours, here’s a list of 15 timesheet apps that suit various needs.
The Ultimate List of Timesheets Apps for Employees
Product name | Best Features | Pricing Range |
Time Analytics |
| $4.99 - $6.99 |
Monday |
| $24 - $48 |
Paymo |
| $5.95 - $24.95 |
Buddy Punch |
| $2.9 - $3.99 |
Homebase |
| $20 - $80 |
Click time |
| $10 - $24 |
Scoro |
| $28 - $71 |
Connecteam |
| $29 - $99 |
Avaza |
| $11.95 - $47.95 |
WeWorked |
| $15 - $100 |
Tick |
| $19 - $149 |
Tmesheets |
| $4.40 - $5.50 |
Harvest |
| $10.80 - $12 |
Time Doctor |
| $10 - $20 |
Hubstaff |
| $5.83 - 8.33 |
1. Time Analytics
Best for consultants, agencies, lawyers, and others service processionals.
Time Analytics is a timesheet management software that helps companies grow overall profitability.
This employee timesheet app easily tracks everything with comprehensive timesheets.
The comprehensive, powerful hours timesheets don’t just track billable time but also make it easy to analyze how you can work smarter.
With detailed timesheet analytics, you can discover who your most valuable clients are, what your time utilization rate is for employees, and more.
Best for
For small businesses, lawyers, agencies, accountants, freelancers, and consultants.
Main Features
- Comprehensive timesheets
- Employee’s timesheet tracking
- Cost tracking per projects
- User-friendly solution
- Invoicing assistant
- Performance management
- Clients monitoring
- Improve the efficiency
- Productivity management
Pricing Overview
- Starter: $4.99 per user, per month (billed annually) or $5.99 (billed monthly)
- Optimum: $6.99 per user, per month (billed annually) or $8.45 (billed monthly)
- Free trial: 14 days
- Credit cart requirement during trial: No
Time Analytics quick demo
2. Monday.com
Best for enterprises and big teams.
Monday.com is a project management tool that helps teams manage their work, to boost their productivity.
With this tool, you can know exactly how much time is spent on each project and task and create flexible reports.
With a variety of productivity features such as automated notifications, kanban board, dependencies, calendar integration, multiple views, and workflow automation, teams can achieve better and faster results for each milestone of the project.
Best for
For small and big teams, and cross-functional, in a variety of industries worldwide.
Main Features
- Real-time data insights
- Integrations
- Gantt charts
- Customizable automation
- Kanban board
Free trial
14-day
Pricing Overview
Individual $0
Up to 2 seats
Basic $8 seat /month
Total $24 / month / billed annually
Standard $10 seat / month
Total $30 / month —billed annually
Pro $16 seat /month
Total $48 / month — billed annually
Monday.com quick demo
3. Paymo
Best for creative businesses.
Paymo is a modern and intuitive work and project management timesheet app for small and medium client-based businesses.
It allows customizing the timesheet the way you work.
Its project management features enable you to add tasks with multiple assignees, create projects and save them as a template for later use.
Best for
For creative agencies, marketing, and social media, web design and development, business consultants, and universities.
Main Features
- Time Tracking
- Kanban board
- Team Scheduling
- Gantt Chart
- Task Management
- Team Collaboration
- Leave Planner
- Invoicing and Estimates
Free trial
15-day
Pricing Overview
Free — $0 / user / month
10 user limit
Small Office — $9.95 / user / month
No user limit
Business — $15.79 / user / month
No user limit
Paymo quick demo
4. Buddy Punch
Best for mid-sized times
Buddy Punch is an online time clock that includes time tracking options, overtime calculating, overtime calculating, GPS tracking, and reports ready for payroll.
You can enter timesheets at the click of a button and timesheet approval takes minutes instead of hours with this simple system.
Best for
For businesses of all sizes.
Main Features
- Time Card Calculator
- PTO Tracking
- Geofences
- Punch Limiting
- Job Codes
- Reports
- Facial Recognition
- SSO
Free trial
14-day
Pricing Overview
Time and Attendance
Monthly — $29.99/month
Annual $25.99/month
Time and Attendance + Scheduling
Monthly — $39.99 /month
Annual — $35.99 per user/month
Enterprise
Monthly — $49.99 /month
Annual — $45.99 per user/month
Buddy Pucnh demo
5. Homebase
Best for retail shops, restaurants and cafes, salons
Homebase is a cloud-based time tracking solution with automated timesheets.
With this timesheet tool, you can easily calculate hours, overtime, breaks, and wages. You can build schedules using a drag-and-drop interface.
Homebase also offers automatic error reporting and various data export options.
Best for
For small businesses: retail shops, restaurants and cafes, salons, home and repair businesses, medical teams, and more
Main Features
- Time tracking and time clocks
- Team messaging and employee app
- POS and payroll integrations
- Scheduling and availability
- Hiring
- Live support: phone, email, chat
Free trial
14-day
Pricing Overview
Essentials
Annual plan: $14 per location*
Monthly plan: $19.95 per location*
Plus
Annual plan: $35 per location*
Monthly plan: $49.95 per location*
All in one
Annual plan: $70 per location*
Monthly plan: $99.95 per location*
*You get unlimited employees per location. That means as your business grows, your price doesn’t change.
Homebase Demo
6. ClickTime
Best for IT businesses, developers, remote workers
Clicktime is a user-friendly timesheet solution preferred by small businesses.
This timesheet software helps you plan and manage employee time and increase project visibility.
Best for
For IT, consultants, nonprofit organizations, and agencies.
Main Features
- Easy for everyone
- Management tools
- 80+ pre-built reports
- Real-time reporting
- Notifications
- 30+ integrations
Free trial
14-day
Pricing Overview
Team Plan — $ 16 user / per month
ClickTime Nonprofit— $8per user / per month
7. Scoro
Best for teams in big corporations
Scoro’s software solution not only shows you what your team is spending their time on but also shows you what that time is worth.
Scoro allows users to manage and sync multiple quotes, calendars, tasks, and projects in a single interface. It allows you to control your entire workflow in one place.
Integrations include Microsoft Dynamics, Dropbox, Microsoft Outlook, and MailChimp.
Best for
For small to medium companies in advertising, IT, consulting, and other industries.
Main Features
- Time Management
- Sales and CRM
- Reporting and Dashboards
- Project Management
- Finances
- Integrations
Free trial
14-day
Pricing Overview
Plus — $22 per user/month
Premium — $33 per user/month
Ultimate — $55 per user/month
8. ConnectTeam
Best for construction team
With Connecteam’s all-in-one employee application you can operate, communicate, and train your non-desk employees.
Companies can create and personalize their own application for employees using Connecteam’s product.
Features of the dashboard include employee performance, productivity tracking, asset management, and real-time workforce insights.
Best for
For the following industries: retail, construction, services, HVAC field service, healthcare, and any other industries that have a need to manage their staff.
Main Features
- Employee Time Clock
- Digital Forms and Checklists
- Employee Scheduling
- Task Management
Free trial
14-day
Pricing Overview
Expert —$ 191USD /month
Advanced— $ 95USD/month
Basic—$ 47USD /month
Free— $ 0 USD
9. Avaza
Best for freelancers and hybrid teams
Avaza is a productive timesheet app that employees use to collaborate on a project, track time, and manage costs, and invoice customers
Its management system provides all-in-one software to run your business.
You can get done faster with discussions, file sharing, collaboration, activity feeds, and more.
Best for
For businesses of all sizes
Main Features
- Project Management
- Team Chat
- Expense Management
- Recurring Invoicing
- Business Reporting
- Project Resource Scheduling
- Online Timesheets
- Online Invoicing
- Quotes and Estimates
- Integrations
Free trial
14-day
Pricing Overview
Free $ 0 USD/month
Startup $9.95 USD/month
Basic $19.95 USD/month
Business $39.95 USD/month
10.WeWorked
Best for small teams
WeWorked is an employee timesheet app that provides timesheet approval, billable project calculation, leave balances tracking, and user searching tool.
Employee time tracking is ideal for retail, remote teams in service, manufacturing, and more.
It integrates easily with accounting software, such as Xero and QuickBooks online.
Best for
For small to large businesses.
Main Features
- Timesheets online or time clock on location
- Detailed reports
- Calculating billable projects
- Project templates
- Timesheet approvals
- Tracking leave balances
- Project templates
- Professional invoices
Free trial
30-day
Pricing Overview
$9.99/month (Includes 3 users)
$19.99/month (Includes 10 users)
$39.99/month (Includes 25 users)
$79.99/month (Includes 100 users and more)
11. Tick
Best for companies looking for a simple time tracking application
Tick offers a minimalist application that tracks the duration of certain activities and gives you an insight into how much time is spent on each task.
This Straightforward time tracker help your team run more profitable projects.
You can also export your time entries to Freshbooks and Quickbox.
Best for
For professionals and companies looking for a simple time tracking application.
Main Features
- The timecard
- Detailed and personalizes reports
- Timesheet Management
- Employee Database
- Running Timers
- Integration
Free trial
30-day
Pricing Overview
One project — free
Ten project — $19/month
30 projects — $49/month
60 project — $79/month
Unlimited projects — $149/month
12. Timesheets.com
Best for CPAs, accounting and tax business
Timesheets.com is a simple timesheet for employees in the office or working from home.
It has flexible billing options and an easy-to-use vacation calendar that employees can use to reduce conflicts in their absence.
Timesheets can be used to calculate billing or payroll with GPS tracking and other security options.
Reports can be integrated with several software platforms, including QuickBooks.
Best for
For legal, finance, accountants, insurance agents, nonprofits, and other organizations.
Main Features
- Time Tracking
- Mileage and Expense
- Human Resources
- Time Off and PTO
- Mobile
- Reporting
Free trial
15-day
Pricing Overview
Freelancer: free
Standard: $4.50/user
Nonprofit: $3.60/user
13. Harvest
Best for project time tracking
Harvest is modern time tracking software that helps you get the insight you need to evaluate future projects and ensure your business’s profitability.
You can start and stop timers while you work or fill in your timesheet at the end of the day. It’s easy to learn and use, and gives you immediate and actionable insight.
Best for
From consultancies to internal departments, and across industries.
Main Features
- Timesheets
- Invoicing and billing solution
- Reporting
- Alerts
- Support
- Integrations
Free trial
30-day
Pricing Overview
Free $ 0 USD– limited to one user and two projects
Pro – 12 USD per user, per month, unlimited users and projects
14. TimeDoctor
Best for employee monitoring and screen recoding based timesheets.
Time Doctor is a timesheet productivity software that is used by businesses and SMBs, including organizations with outsourced or offshore teams.
The time tracking data is accurate, so you can see exactly where the time is being spent.
It integrates with 60+ tools.
Best for
For individuals and teams.
Main Features
- Time Tracking and Employee Monitoring
- Project Management and Budgeting
- Distraction Alerts
- Offline tracking
- Online Timesheets and Payroll
- Productivity Measuring and Summary Reports
- Screenshots and Activity Levels
- Client login access
Free trial
14-day
Pricing Overview
Basic
Monthly — $7 per user/month
Annual — $6 per user/month
Standard
Monthly — $10 per user/month
Annual — $9 per user/month
Premium
Monthly — $20 per user/month
Annual — $17 per user/month
15. ProofHub
Best for team collaboration and project management
Time tracking is done either manually or via a time clock. The app lets you download and export the timesheets effortlessly. The app’s reports offer an informative insight into the team’s activities.
Main Features
- Time tracking – create time logs directly in the timesheets or use an automatic timer
- Workflows – plan entire projects and make sure you’re on track
- Reports – understand how your team is utilizing time and how productive everyone is
Free trial
14-day
Pricing Overview
- Essential – $50 per month (unlimited users, 40 projects, 15 GB storage)
- Ultimate control – $99 per month (unlimited projects and users, 100 GB storage)
How Can a Work Timesheet App Help Your Business?
Forget about Excel Timesheets and Paper Timesheets
Paper timesheets and Excel templates used to be the most reliable way to track time in many offices. Yet, if you are running a business and want to improve overall productivity, these techniques are simply not enough. That is why many business owners have implemented an employee timesheet app.
The versatility of an automated timesheet is its biggest advantage compared to the old methods of tracking time. A work timesheet app tracks time, but it also calculates and presents all important metrics per client, employee, task, and project. Additionally, the software solutions usually only cost a few dollars per user per month, which makes them a great investment.
An automated timesheet is extremely efficient as well, due to the high level of customization it offers. your employees will be able to fill their timesheets in a matter of minutes, and still give the software all necessary data. Then the employee timesheet app allocates all logged time to different projects and clients.
Lastly, you can relax and be sure your employees will deliver their tasks and timesheets in time. Namely, the work timesheet app will remind them after they’ve been inactive for a week.
Why Is a Simple Solution Better?
The market is full of different time tracking apps, as they became a necessity of any serious organization. There are many different solutions besides automated timesheets. Naturally, you may be wondering if this is the best time tracking method for you.
You should keep your employees in mind. Different time tracking apps greatly vary in complexity and data they require. A simple automated timesheet is a great solution if you don’t want to spend too much time and energy on employee training.
It also offers much more freedom for the employees themselves. Other time tracking solutions include different monitoring options. The most common monitoring features include
- Taking screenshots of employee devices
- Monitoring hardware activity – mouse movement and keystrokes
- Monitoring internet activity
- Monitoring documents and programs employees interact with
These methods rely on micromanagement. They also show distrust even if that isn’t what you’re trying to convey.
That is to say, a simple employee timesheet app shows you trust your employees to be honest.
Make Sure Your Company Stays Reputable with Accurate Invoices and Payroll
Any business owner understands the importance of reputation. It is crucial for a company to remain reputable with its employees and clients. Otherwise, the business may stagnate or lose profit. A work timesheet app keeps a business reputation stay high with itemized payroll and invoices.
Payroll transparency should be a priority. Firstly, some countries have made employee timesheets a mandatory addition to all payroll slips. This way all employees can see how they spent their time and how it affects their pay.
Secondly, this transparency will benefit you as a business owner as well. You will be able to measure employee productivity and notice the warning signs of burnout quickly. If an employee shows significantly lower results than usually, you should see whether they’re overwhelmed or need some help.
On the other hand, adding an itemized list of activities related to a project is a great way to make sure your clients don’t doubt your business practices. Unfortunately, many businesses and individuals try to reduce the price and cut corners wherever they can. Hence, it is important to show them exactly what they’re paying for.
Understand Your Profitability with Automated Timesheets
A work timesheet app won’t only inform you about your employees’ activities. Many of these solutions also offer project profitability reports. These reports can pinpoint your most profitable clients.
You will be able to see each client’s profit margin through these reports. You will also receive reports on different key performance indicators. You can use KPIs to identify low-performing clients. Then you’ll be able to identify whether you can improve contract terms to be more favorable. Also, you’ll see if a client is constantly costing you money and terminate collaboration with them.
As you can see, these steps will increase both billable time and overall profitability.
Hours Structure Optimization through a Work Timesheet App
Every manager and business owner should understand the hours structure in their company. This is done by calculating the ratio of billable and non-billable hours within total hours worked. Optimizing this structure means reducing the number of non-billable hours. This means analyzing employee activity and finding a way to automate repetitive tasks and avoid time-wasting activities, such as daily meetings.
By reducing the number of non-billable activities, you will give your team more time to focus on projects with better hourly billing rates. In other words, you will reduce the number and frequency of less important tasks.
Improve Personal Productivity
Even though timesheet apps have the primary goal of helping businesses, they can be very useful for the employees as well. Through tracking and analyzing their own hours, the workers can see how they spend their time, as well as their biggest distractors. They will also be able to measure productivity.
This way they will be able to change their routines and use their natural productive periods to tackle the tasks that demand a lot of attention. On the other hand, once fatigue kicks in, they can switch to an easier or shorter task, or take a needed break to energize.
Regulatory Compliance
Most countries have some form of labor laws. They often include time tracking regulations as well. So, before you choose a time tracking platform, it is important to get all necessary information on these regulations. The app should follow them completely.
Let’s take the Fair Labor Standards Acts (also known as FLSA) for an example. This act requires accurate records of working hours from all businesses. However, the method of collecting these records is up to the individual company. A work timesheet app will store all data necessary for a government audit without the need for separate documents.
Stop Buddy Punching
Buddy punching is a very common method of time theft. It means that one employee will sign in instead of their coworker who hasn’t arrived to work in time.
Even though a single buddy punch doesn’t cost a lot (after all, most employees are only 10-20 minutes late), the practice can spread throughout a business. In that case, the minutes can stack up to quite a sum of unearned money a business owner has to pay.
React to Overtime
Overtime isn’t an unusual occurrence in many workplaces. The nature of many jobs requires employees to stay after their official working hours from time to time. That is why a lot of countries have overtime regulations as well. However, some employees will regularly give themselves overtime hours without needing them. Abusing the company’s overtime policy means either staying at work longer without needing to, or simply logging extra hours without even being in the company.
An employee timesheet app will show the results of every employee’s work. This will allow the management to see whether someone has actually worked overtime or simply used the opportunity to get paid more.
On the other hand, tracking overtime will also show whether an employee needs additional help. In that case, you may need to delegate the tasks differently. Either way, you will need a sure way to calculate overtime to be able to pay everyone fairly.
Prevent Time Theft
There are many ways employees ‘’steal” company time. What these methods have in common is the fact that they force employers to pay their workers for the time they haven’t spent on any tasks. Time theft costs US employers $11 billion on the yearly level. The most common time theft methods include
- Buddy punching
- Inaccurate numbers
- Leaving work early
- Long breaks
- Using company time to work on personal matters
- Talking to coworkers for prolonged periods
- Online distractions
As you can see, there are many ways to steal company time. A lot of the times the theft isn’t purposeful either. Many employees don’t even realize the way they are harming the company. They simply lose track of time (online distractions and chatting with coworkers are great examples). Hence, it is important to make sure every employee is aware of their time.
An automated timesheet will allow employees to conduct a time audit and find out exactly how they steal or waste their time. the employees will be able to reduce that time, while the employers will see which employees are not utilizing their time as efficiently as their coworkers.
Track Time Off
Each business should aim to be as accurate as possible when tracking time off and attendance. Firms that work in multiple shifts have to be especially aware of time off, as they could easily remain understaffed. You can prevent this through an employee timesheet app, you will be notified of their absences, so you are never lacking employees or creating clashing schedules.
Track and Assess Expenses
Efficient cost management is a great benefit of time tracking software. A work timesheet app will draw the total price of a work hour. In other words, it will add direct and overhead expenses. As employees log their hours working on specific projects, the software will allocate expenses to clients accordingly.
Having an automated way to calculate your fees simplifies the billing process. Now you can use the time it would take to do that for other activities. This will, again, increase overall productivity of your organization.
Automated Timesheets FAQ
How Does an Employee Timesheet App Work?
The tracking process isn’t difficult. Your employees log the time they spend on a task or project. The app can even allow employees to label their time as billable or non-billable.
You can create a tracking template that will account for all criteria you need to track. Then, your employees won’t have to manually set their timesheets every day. Additionally, you can set templates for different reoccurring tasks as well.
Different time tracking options of tracking time either automatically or manually. Automatic tracking usually includes one or several stopwatches.
Finally, the app will take all the entered data and create reports, allocate expenses and resources, and give you most valuable KPIs.
Privacy Concerns
It is understandable to go through an initial period of reluctance when starting to use an employee timesheet app. Many employees will feel like you’re not respecting their privacy. Especially so if you use any monitoring features like taking screenshots.
Hence, it is important for your employees to understand no one is spying on them. In other words, you will have to make sure every member of your team understands the importance of time tracking and the reason to implement this practice. You will need to explain no one is going to be punished for their timesheets.
If you decide to use monitoring software, you are going to reduce employee morale, as their privacy concerns will be somewhat right. Even though you are taking the monitoring measures to analyze your business, some employees will find this concerning.
On the other hand, a work timesheet app is completely trust-based. It signals that you trust your team. This way you will also avoid micromanaging.
Security Concerns
Similar to the employees not wanting their privacy invaded, business owners can be concerned about their company’s valuable data. After all, timesheets ask for details about clients, projects, budgets, etc. It isn’t unreasonable to expect the best security measures.
Our platform understands all concerns regarding data security. That is why we have taken technical, administrative and other measures to make sure your business is secure. You can view our Privacy Policy to learn more about our security systems. Time Analytics also guarantees your data will not be used for any other purpose except analyses and tracking. Finally, we will never sell your data.
Can Both Small and Large Businesses Benefit from Time Tracking?
Keeping an eye on the way your employees spend their time is beneficial for any company. The size of your team doesn’t matter if the employee timesheet app is accurate and gives you crucial reports. Other benefits include
- Knowing the ins and outs of your organization’s time utilization
- Discovering employees who are starting to struggle under their workload
- Defining underlying problems that aren’t as obvious
- Creating payroll slips and invoices
- Keeping your documentation in order
- Understanding personal work rhythms
Should Our Business Use a Free Automated Timesheet?
The answer to this question depends entirely on your business. You can find many free timesheet solutions. However, their quality and customization options may not be what you expect. Additionally, the size and scope of your organization will determine whether you need to invest into a paid timesheet solution or not.
The good news is that many companies offer a free trial or even a free version of their timesheet apps. You can test out the possibilities of the program and decide whether you’ll be using it further or not.
The Price of an Employee Timesheet App
Most timesheet apps aren’t very costly. Of course, there are some more expensive options, but you will usually only have to pay a couple of dollars per employee to use one of these apps.
However, the affordability of these plans is relative and depends on the size of your company. We recognize this, and have special discounts for large teams. You can find more information on the Time Analytics pricing page.
