5 Best Time Tracking Apps on the Market

Are you the kind of decision-maker who spends hours comparing the ingredients in dog food before switching your pooch to a new diet? Or maybe you’re more of a what’s-on-sale kibble buyer. Regardless of your pet food practices, when it comes to any business software purchase, researching, evaluating, and deciding on a solution is usually a long and complicated process.

In fact, the average time spent researching business software products is about 20 hours, and the average number of people involved in making the decision is between five and seven. Whether your business is looking for an initial time and expense tracking solution or you need to replace your existing one, read on for a comparison of five of the best apps on the market.

Best Overall Time Tracking on Projects for Billing & Payroll

1. Journyx + Acumen = Total Time Accounting

Business time tracking and metrics veteran Journyx was the first web-based platform of its kind on the market. As a provider of fully customizable business solutions, from detailed time and expense tracking to project solutions to resource management, Journyx’s newest claim to fame is their acquisition of Acumen Data Systems. The merger has resulted in an advanced solution for time tracking with integrated payroll.

Journyx’s total time accounting system offers desktop and mobile access to time and expense tracking, custom rules engine enforcement with data validation, and state-of-the-art time clocks—including biometric, badge, mobile, geofencing, and more. Journyx also offers other powerful features such as smart timesheet suggestions, employee leave tracking and PTO accrual calculator, automated approval workflows, and much more to make your payroll, accounting, and billing processes easier than you ever imagined.

Ideal for enterprise businesses, Journyx serves clients like Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Crate & Barrel, and hundreds more over a variety of industries.

Best Free Timesheet App

2. Clockify

Time tracking tool Clockify is used by many freelancers for time tracking, reporting, project management, and even team management. Clocify offers a free version of its application with limited functionality, as well as plans at varying levels to increase functionality and access to paid features like time reminders, custom fields, and detailed reporting.

Both desktop and mobile versions of the software are available, along with project templates and accounting features like time rounding and auditing. Note that some of Clockify’s ease-of-use features, such as apps monitoring, are available only on Mac.

Robust Time Tracking System with Free Trial

3. Harvest

One of the primary benefits of Harvest is that it integrates with a number of different apps, so you can merge your time and attendance tracking with project management software such as Asana or Trello. This makes Harvest an ideal application for employees who need to track time by the project, and for managers who need to oversee multiple teams and projects simultaneously.

Harvest offers expense logging, auto-invoice generation, and a timesheet approval system. Its time tracking is considered one of the cleaner designs on the market, with fairly intuitive functionality. However, it is less customizable than some of the other top solutions on the market.

Simple Time Tracking for Freelancers

4. Toggl

Ideal for freelancers and microbusinesses because of its generous free functionality, Toggl Track (formerly Toggl) is a good go-to when time tracking is all you need at a free—or low—price.

Often appreciated for its timer feature, Toggl offers a great free option if all you need to do is click start and stop. Other basic functions include auto-tracking, the ability to edit tracked time, and weekly time reports. With free or basic plans, though, you won’t get calendar integration, tasks, billable rates, time rounding, or project templates, which can be helpful for larger or more collaborative team environments.

Users who upgrade to the Business plan, which runs about $15 per month per user, get access to priority email support, data export, and certain integrations that can be set up for workspace admins. The Business tier prevents users from having to track their time in different spaces.

Best Time Tracking Integrations

5. Hubstaff

Hubstaff is one of the more powerful systems on the market. Often aimed at developers and other creative teams, Hubstaff’s mobile GPS tracking and keystroke activity recording join the more-common apps monitoring feature to make Hubstaff a solid “you’ll never know I was here” tracker—at least for IT end users.

These features, of course, are part of the premium plan subscriptions, but even the basic plan offers a solid time tracking system (albeit with fairly limited features, which include random screenshots of workspaces). For the most part, Hubstaff’s prime features are celebrated by teams who are fully remote and/or global but need a unified system to document workflow and accountability.

How to Choose the Right Time Tracking App for Your Needs

When selecting a time tracking app for your organization, you should consider how you intend to use the software. Sure, you know you need to start (or optimize) employee time tracking in order to reap the benefits.

You will also want to consider why you are time tracking in the first place. How will you leverage your workforce data to reveal crucial insights into your business and drive meaningful action? How will you accomplish all this—and make it easy on your employees?

Journyx’s highly configurable software systems use complex algorithms designed to comprehensively fit your needs, but you would never guess how complex just by using the app. That’s because we’ve made it our goal to deliver a product that is simple and seamless to incorporate into your business—integrating with your existing ERP, accounting, or HR systems—so you can move on to the next part of your to-do list without missing a beat.

To find out more about how Journyx can support your business with time tracking, contact us today to speak with a representative and schedule a customized demo.