How to Simplify Billable Time Tracking

April 26, 2007 ·

Do you have projects or clients you bill by the hour? Or maybe you want to get a better handle on how you’re spending your time in the office? Here are four programs to help you get the job done:

TraxTime is a little PC program that opens a small window on your screen. You can designate a project, punch yourself in and out of time on that project, and run quick reports that summarize the time spent in a day, week, month, quarter, year or since the start. You can try it out for free and purchase for $39 US.

TheDailyGrind is a free dashboard widget for the Mac. Not meant as a full-fledged time tracking system, the widget distills the necessities down to adding a task, starting/pausing/resetting timers, assigning color labels for priorities or types of projects, and drag and drop re-ordering of tasks.

Have a Mac and want something more robust than TheDailyGrind? Take a look at EasyTime, a time-billing, case and document management program built for small law offices. You can try it out for free and the purchase price is $99 US.

Time Tracker is a free online tracker with about as simple an interface as you can find. No bells and whistles, just really simple tracking. If you have an “always on” Internet connection (DSL, for instance), then this may be a very good option for you and because it lives on the web instead of your computer, you can use with PC or Mac. Time Tracker allows you to create multiple projects, create categories or sub-tasks, start and stop a task’s timer, and export the tracked items to .csv and other files.

What do you use and like for billable time tracking? Share your experiences by leaving a comment!
Tammy
Copyright © 2007 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.

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7 Responses to “How to Simplify Billable Time Tracking”

Nicu Cismaru on April 27th, 2007 10:22 am

Hi Tammy,

I would also like to suggest Fanurio (http://www.fanuriotimetracking.com) which does both time tracking and invoicing (I’m one of the people involved in this project).

We have designed Fanurio to help freelancers manage their work and be paid for it. It can do basic project management, time tracking and invoicing in order to have all the functionality in one place.

Thanks,
Nicu
Dr. Tammy Lenski on April 27th, 2007 11:28 am

Thanks for making us aware of Fanurio, Nicu. Readers, it’s a Windows application that you can try out for free and buy for $39 US.

Nicu, the invoice template appears to require some knowledge of html for personalizing. Have I understood that correctly or can someone personalize the look of their invoice with wysiwyg (readers, that’s what you see is what you get)? Many Mediator Tech readers are not familiar with html or coding. I see you offer to help with personalizing invoices…is that a free service with the purchase of the software?

Thanks,
Tammy
Vickie on April 27th, 2007 3:02 pm

I’m going to lose all my techie credentials right now. I could make sense of Time Tracker & was very excited about the prospect of having it work for me. It’s just a blank page w/ my first “job” listing. Help doesn’t help. Help?
Nicu Cismaru on April 27th, 2007 4:32 pm

Hi Tammy,

Thank you for the follow-up.

The invoice templates can only be created by hand (you have to know basic html). A visual designer would indeed make things easier but it would take too long to implement it. We want to add other important features first and then maybe deal with this problem.

We make invoice templates free of charge. You can request a customized template even if you don’t buy the product.
Just send us a sample invoice (html, text, pdf, image, etc).

P.S. We are also planning a Mac version.

Thanks,
Nicu
Dr. Tammy Lenski on April 27th, 2007 8:31 pm

Hey there, Vickie. I’m not positive I’m understanding the problem you’re experiencing, but let me try this: When you click on your project name (your job listing), you should get a drop-down menu with a timer start and other options. Can you see that?

Tammy
Dave Olson on April 27th, 2007 8:52 pm

Tammy,

I use Billings 2.0 (Mac only) by Market Circle. I’ve had it for about 4 months and I think it is the best billing/tracking/invoicing piece of software on the market for any platform. It easily allows you to track multiple projects and tasks. Invoicing is a breeze and the graphics are great. It’s easy to design an invoice and that’s probably the hardest part of the program. Anyway, enough of its praises. There is a demo version on the website.
Dr. Tammy Lenski on April 27th, 2007 10:19 pm

Thanks for the contribution, Dave. I’ve played around a bit with Billings but not gotten into it much, so your information is really helpful. Have a groovy weekend!