As most small businesses grow, they find themselves in need of more tools and technology to handle tasks that are often initially done by hand. At JobFLEX, we know a lot of contractors wind up using us after they realize our app makes billing and estimating so much easier. Time tracking is another task that falls into this bucket. Many contractors may have only a handful of employees at first, which makes pencil and paper time tracking sheets seem like a viable solution. Over time, however, outdated pencil and paper and spreadsheet models show their flaws. One lost slip of paper or forgetting to save a file can cost you hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars.
Fortunately, there are several free and reasonably priced time tracking solutions that take the time, effort, and stress out of managing your business’s time tracking. Here are a few of the better options currently available.
Harvest
Harvest has a few pricing options that can expand with your business. If you’re a single contractor, pricing starts at $12 per month. The Basic package is $49 per month, and the full Business offering is $99 month. While this may seem a bit pricey, it is a very full featured solution and integrates with project management software like Basecamp. If you have a bigger business that’s managing a lot of projects simultaneously, Harvest can be an excellent option as it creates visual reporting from your time sheet data to give you actionable insights about where your team’s time is going and whether projects are coming in under budget.
Learn more about Harvest.
TopTracker
If you’re in search of a free time tracking solution than TopTracker might be a great option for you. While this was more designed for technology freelancers (it provides screenshot tracking for office workers) but it’s general time tracking features still work well for contractors as TopTracker allows you to create projects, assign users and keep track of everything with centralized project reporting.
Learn more about TopTracker.
Tsheets
One of the better known names in time tracking software, Tsheets offers some unique features to employees such as GPS tracking and timesheet modification all for a reasonable price. For a single user, Tsheets offers a free option. For more than one employee, you pay a base fee of $16 per month and then $4 per employee. Once you hit 100 employees, the base fee jumps to $80.
Tsheets offers desktop and mobile versions, making it easy for most contracting businesses to integrate into their day to day operations.
Learn more about Tsheets.
Toggl
Toggl boasts extremely strong reviews on software websites and gets great feedback for its simple, intuitive design and features. Toggl is also very flexible, as it works on nearly every operating system and browser. If your team has a mobile device, they can easily begin using Toggl once you’ve gotten it set up. Your team can track their time by turning the app on while they work or it also offers the option of inputting time after the fact. Reporting is simple and easy to use for owners and managers, even those that aren’t particularly tech savvy. Pricing is based on the number of users and the service level you choose. The starter package costs $9 per month/per user and has the basic features most small businesses need, while the premium and enterprise packages pack on extra features for $18 and $49 per month/per user.
Learn more about Toggl.
Trigger
For smaller contracting businesses, the free version of Trigger might be all you need and then some. Designed more as a competitor to Trello, it offers many key features that popular tool does not, one of them being time tracking. Set target hours, due dates, assign activities as billable or non-billable and tag projects for easy searching later. Ease of use is a focus point of Trigger and it succeeds in this area, offering some very handy features like project templates for common jobs, which is very helpful for contractors who do a lot of similar projects. Trigger is free for up to three team members and five active projects, and if you go over that then pricing is still reasonable with upgrades starting at just $11 per month.
Learn more about Trigger.
Do you have a favorite time tracking software or app?
While we recognize these as some of the better options on the market, we’re also aware that there are almost limitless options for time tracking. If you’ve got a favorite feel free to let us know.
