Custom time tracking software

What time tracking software has to get right

Hours are money twice over: once when you pay people and again when you bill clients or cost a job. Time that is entered late, against the wrong job, or not at all leaks money in both directions. A good time tracking app makes entering time easier than skipping it, and makes the numbers trustworthy enough to bill from.

The biggest factor is adoption. If logging a job takes six taps and a search, people batch it up on Friday from memory, and the numbers drift. The best systems put the current job one tap away, remind people who have not logged time, and let managers fix entries before they are approved rather than after they are billed.

• Timers and manual entries on web and phone, against client, project, job, task or work order.
• Clock in and out with optional GPS or job-site checks for field staff.
• Billable and non-billable time, with different rates per person, role, client or task.
• Timesheet approval by a manager before hours go to payroll or invoicing.
• Overtime, breaks and rounding rules applied the same way every time.
• Expense tracking alongside time: mileage, materials, receipts photographed on the phone.
• Budgets and alerts when a job or retainer is close to its hours.
• Exports or live connections to payroll, invoicing and accounting.

When an off-the-shelf time tracking app is enough

Toggl Track, Harvest and Clockify are solid for agencies and consultants logging hours against projects. QuickBooks Time is a common choice for crews already on QuickBooks, and Expensify is widely used for receipts and expense reports. If your team logs hours against a short list of projects and your billing is straightforward, one of these will do the job for less effort than building anything.

Custom time tracking makes sense when time is part of a bigger workflow. Typical cases:

• Time has to attach to records in your own system, such as work orders, cases, matters or patient visits.
• Rates depend on rules a generic tool cannot express, like prevailing wage, union scales, after-hours multipliers or per-client rate cards.
• Hours need to flow straight into invoices, job costing and payroll without someone reconciling three exports.
• Field staff need to log time, materials and photos for a job in one place.
• Clients need to see or approve hours in a portal before you bill them.

What we build

• A web app and a mobile app for entering time, with timers, offline entry and quick picks for recent jobs.
• Your rate rules, overtime rules and approval chain built in, so payroll and invoices come out right the first time.
• Expense capture with receipt photos, mileage and categories mapped to your chart of accounts.
• Job costing views that compare hours and expenses against the estimate or budget.
• A client portal for reviewing and approving timesheets, where clients need that.
• Integrations with payroll and accounting tools such as QuickBooks, Xero, Gusto or ADP.
• Reports on utilization, billable ratio, overruns and unbilled time.

How a time tracking project works

1. Follow the hoursWe trace how time moves today, from entry to approval to payroll and invoice, and note every rule and hand-off.
2. Design the entry screensYou try the phone and web screens before code, because if entering time is slow, people will not do it.
3. Build in roundsTime entry and approval first, then rates, expenses, reports and integrations, each round reviewed with you.
4. Connect payroll and billingWe wire up your accounting and payroll tools and check a full pay period of numbers against the old way.
5. Launch and adjustYour team goes live with training, and we keep refining as rules and rates change.

Industries that lean on time tracking

Professional firms that bill by the hour, such as accounting firms and law firms, need time that ties to clients and matters. Construction and electrical contractors need time and materials against jobs for costing and certified payroll. Staffing agencies need approved timesheets that drive both pay and bill rates. In each case the hours matter less than where they go next, and that is where a custom build pays off.