The Best Time Tracking Software for Freelancers
As a freelancer, finding the best time tracking software is important. You might be paid hourly and need to track your hours. But you can learn a lot from tracking time even if you’re not tracking hours. You might learn that you can be more efficient with your work, or that you’re wasting a lot of your valuable time on certain tasks. Here are five of the best tools for time tracking, whether you need something simple or if you need something that can be an all-in-one tool for project management.
Why Time Tracking Software is Important
Time tracking isn’t just about billing more accurately. It’s important to track your time because it lets you make better decisions about how to do projects and how you schedule your tasks. Imagine you’re billing a project by milestone, but it turns out you were charging at well below your normal hourly rate. You would want to know how much money you’re potentially losing on those jobs, and adjust accordingly!
Without time tracking, you might not know that your business is unprofitable. Or at least you wouldn’t know what areas of the business are becoming a problem. It’s not just about charging your clients the right amount, but also making sure you or your employees aren’t pricing completely wrong.
1. Clock App
Whether you want to track your time on a desktop or a mobile device, you probably have access to a free and basic clock application that has a stopwatch feature. Not all jobs or tasks call for complicated time tracking software that integrates with other billing tools. Sometimes you just need to start a timer while you work and note that down in another billing application or invoice. For many freelancers, this might be all you need! Don’t overcomplicate things if it’s not necessary.
2. Toggl
Toggl is a time tracking tool that lets you track accurately, identify missing billable hours, and keep tabs on deadlines. It is available as a website, a browser extension, a desktop app, or a mobile app, making it very versatile regardless of your use case. The tool can be used for free, but paid plans offer tools like adding billable rates, project time estimates, tasks within projects, and features useful for teams. If you’re a solo freelancer, the free plan is probably ideal.
3. Harvest
Harvest is a good software option for freelancers who work for a variety of clients and want an all-in-one solution to handle that. It can bill across multiple clients and rates, then bill and take payments. Automatic invoice creation is probably one of the most useful features for freelancers who don’t want to spend time on the paperwork. You can also get warnings about projects that are in danger of going over budget or are taking too much of your time. Harvest’s free plan supports only 2 projects, so if you have a variety of clients you’ll need to pay $12 per month for the unlimited plan.
4. TimeCamp
TimeCamp has a free plan with unlimited users and projects, which makes it a very attractive option! You can of course track time, both billable and non-billable, as well as setting different rates for each project. The tracking system can differentiate between work time, idle time, time offline, and specific activities. The app may be simple, but it can integrate with a wide variety of project management tools. No matter what you clients use, you should be able to make TimeCamp work.
5. RescueTime
RescueTime includes time management and distraction blocking – two important features for productivity! But of course it also does time tracking. The web-based tool tracks your computer usage so you can learn about your habits and how you can be more efficient with your time. You can block distracting websites while working. It’s a popular application because of this, but its productivity features definitely shine more than its time tracking. There are no special billing or invoicing features. There is a free version with the basic automatic time tracking, but upgrading will cost $6.50 per month. This plan includes distraction blocking features.
