10 Best Employee Time-Tracking Apps

Guest Post by Jane Hurst

Hiring remote workers is all the rage, and it’s no wonder why. Remote workers are reportedly happier than in-house workers. FlexJobs also found that 66 percent of professionals say they would be more productive if they worked remotely as opposed to a traditional office — not to mention, productivity rates can increase up to 13 percent, according to an article in The New York Times.

While it’s no secret that remote working comes with a wide range of benefits, success doesn’t happen overnight. If you’re looking to hire remote workers, you need the right tools to help everyone stay on track. This includes productivity apps, communication tools, and, of course, employee time-tracking apps.

This article will review the 10 best employee time-tracking apps to help you find the perfect app for you and your remote workers. By the end of the article, you’ll have more information to help you make an informed decision about time tracking.

1. Time Doctor

If you’re looking for an excellent time-tracking app to monitor your team members, Time Doctor is the perfect place to start. Companies like Home Depot, Apple, Verizon, Surveymonkey, and FirehouseSubs all use Time Doctor, and have experienced excellent results.

What does Time Doctor do best? Time Doctor helps you track exactly how your remote employees are spending their time and their productivity rates. With the help of a smart dashboard and detailed reporting, you can see the total time your team members are working as well as individual pieces of information like how much time they spend on certain projects, tasks, and clients.

Special features

• Time tracking — One of the most valuable features of Time Doctor is the time-tracking element of the app. Remote employees can start a timer when they start working and name the task they are working on. Managers can quickly see how employees are spending their time and make adjustments to projects as necessary. With Time Doctor, you can rest assured you get access to efficient, error-free time management.
• Website monitoring — Interested in learning what applications and websites your team members access during work? Time Doctor is the perfect tool to provide that exact insight. Of course, Time Doctor works hard to ensure the privacy of employees when they are not working, so website tracking is only available when employees are working.
• Screen monitoring — Managers have access to screenshots of the employee’s current work activity that were taken at random intervals through screen monitoring. Again, Time Doctor provides extra privacy protection by allowing employees to delete these screenshots if they were taken on accident.
• Managing distractions — One of the most difficult challenges of hiring remote workers is not being able to see how they are spending time. Time Doctor gives you insight into when employees access any social media or entertainment website during work hours. How does it work? TimeDoctor generates a popup, asking you if you are still working. Then, weekly time usage reports are also generated for your reference.
• Detailed reporting — Don’t have time to sit and monitor screen shots all day? No one does. That’s why Time Doctor creates automated and easy-to-read reports of employee’s time usage. With a click of a button, you can access reports like Timesheet reports, Time Use reports, Attendance reports, project-based breakdowns, Web and App Usage Reports, and more. That way, you can quickly get insight into how members are spending their time without it taking up too much time.
• Pricing — Time Doctor costs $9.99 per month per user. You can even sign up for a 14-day free trial without using a credit card.

2. Toggl

Toggl is another time-tracking app that you may want to look into. This is an affordable app, so it may be a better option for small teams or even freelancers that need to report their time to clients.

Special features

• One-click timers — Toggl isn’t complicated. All you have to do is click the button and you’re ready to roll.
• Tracking reminders — Did you forget to start the timer? The Toggl Button and Toggl Desktop apps remind you when you're not tracking. Toggle will also detect idle time and you can edit that time slot later.
• Over 100 app integrations — Toggl has over 100 integrations that put Toggl Button inside your favorite online apps, allowing you to start tracking immediately.
• Profits vs. labor costs — Get quick access to important data visualization, so you'll know which projects and clients are the best.
• Team dashboard — The team dashboard shows you how much time each member is tracking and if they're taking on too much or too little work.
• Pricing — Prices start at $9 per month and go up from there. If you’re an enterprise, the best option is to contact a representative for a custom quote.

3. Harvest

Harvest is another employee time-tracking app that is worth looking into. Not only do they make it easy to track time, but they also make it easy to track expenses. This helps you identify productivity and gives you a look into how to better spend your time and budget.

Special features

• Time tracking — Harvest has start and stop times and the ability to enter your hours into a timesheet.
• Works on devices — Harvest works on your desktop as well as devices. This way, remote employees can track time on the go.
• Integrations — Like any excellent time-tracking app, Harvest provides a robust list of integrations. This makes it easy to track time without having to switch back and forth between several different applications.
• Expense tracking — Not only can you track time, but you can access critical data about your expenses. This goes a long way when you’re trying to save money and spend wisely.
• Invoicing — Need to turn those time cards into invoices? No problem. Harvest stores all information in one convenient location, making this easy.
• Pricing — Harvest has a free option if you’re a one-person show. Prices go up from there. You can also try Harvest free for 30-days with no credit card.

4. Hubstaff

Interested in spending less time tracking time and more time growing? Hubstaff might be the employee time-tracking app for you. Hubstaff comes with everything you need to help your team work smarter, not harder.

Special features

• Time tracking — Like all of the other apps listed above, Hubstaff offers a time-tracking element to their software. It works on the desktop, web, or via mobile device.
• GPS tracking — Do you work in an industry that requires a lot of travel? Hubstaff provides GPS tracking to help you see when your team is on the road.
• Online timesheets — Instead of having to keep track of time on a spreadsheet, everything is done online. This way, everyone can track time effectively.
• Detailed reporting — Need a high-level and deep dive into data? Look no further than Hubstaff. Hubstaff helps you capture data that helps you find ways to become more productive.
• Productivity monitoring — Time tracking is more than just seeing when employees are working. Hubstaff lets you track apps, URL, activity percentages, and more, so you can see how employees are spending time.
• Team scheduling — Not only can you see when people are working, but you can actually schedule when your team should work through the app.
• Pricing — Pricing for Hubstaff is anywhere for free to $20 per user per month. For more information, check out their pricing page.

5. Tick

Tick is another time-tracking app that helps you run straightforward projects, and make sure you are making the most of your time and getting the highest productivity rates out of your employees.

Special features

• Timecard — Tick’s time card works in three steps: Select your project, select the task, and enter your time. You can also enter notes, use timesheet reporting to get budget feedback, and/or dig deeper into projects as needed.
• Running timers — You can start a single timer or toggle between multiple timers as you move between tasks.
• Budget feedback — After a team member enters time to a task, you can see the project and task budgets. This lets you know how much time they have left to complete the work to help you budget your time more wisely.
• Enter time from anywhere — Tick prides itself on being the easiest time management software. Tick works on your phone, watch, tablet, desktop or browser.
• Pricing — Prices range from free to $149 per month. Learn more on their website.

6. Hours

Hours is one of the easiest time-tracking apps to use. It works on any device and will help you improve productivity rates.

Special features

• Real time tracking — Do you need to track your time on the go or in real time? Hours makes this easy by keeping running a list of times you can switch between with one tap.
• Reports — Hours uses powerful data visualizations to help you understand data easily. Use this information to improve processes and efficiencies.
• Timeline — If you like the timeline feature, Hours is a great option. The timeline feature makes it easy to account for every hour. Plus, you can make adjustments by dragging and dropping the start or end of a time block.
• Hours for teams — While Hours started out as a personal time-tracking app, it now has full capability to work for teams. Teams can use it to time track, analyze, and capture data.
• Pricing — The best way to determine pricing is to visit the Hours website and sign up.

7. Timely

Timely is another time-tracking app that helps you track time without wasting a second. No one wants to spend extra time on figuring out how much time employees spend on tasks. Timely is fully automated and easy to use.

Special features

• Time tracking — Timely records everything you work on using its Memory Tracker. All your tracked data is kept in a secure, private timeline and only you can see this information.
• Suggestions — Suggestions is a particularly cool feature of Timely. AI is hard at work to group together your recorded work and suggest time entries. This process is automated.
• Train — To help Timely get it right, you can rename suggested titles, group activities, and more.
• Improvements — Timely will learn from your edits and become more accurate as you use the software.
• Project time management — This app helps you see everything you have going on and you can see it in one, convenient location.
• Team time management — Timely shows you a live overview of all your employee’s activity.
• Pricing — Timely offers prices for individuals and groups. Individual prices start at $7 per month and group pricing starts at $99 per month. To get a better idea, visit their website.

8. Clockify

Are you looking for a truly free time-tracking app? Then, Clockify might be the time-tracking app for you and your team. You get access to unlimited users, forever.

Special features

• Timesheet — This features helps you report on a week’s worth of time in less than a minute.
• Dashboard — The dashboard shows you what your team is working on and where everyone is spending their time.
• Reports — Breakdown information to get a better idea of how to improve productivity.
• Pricing — Free

9. TSheets

TSheets makes time tracking easy. Don’t believe it? Then, ask friends and family how well it works. They have over 20,000 five-star reviews.

Special features

• Time tracking — Employees can clock in or out with just one click. They can also take a break, change job codes, or add timesheet details instantly.
• Mobile app — TSheets works across mobile devices. This way, you can track your work on the go.
• Scheduling — Need to schedule time in a place where everyone can see it? TSheets is the perfect place to do it.
• Integrations — Like many other time-tracking apps, TSheets provides integrations with other productivity software.
• Pricing — Pricing is free to $4 per month per active user plus a base fee. Find out more information on the pricing page from TSheets.

10. Everhour

Everhour is a time-tracking software for teams. You can easily track time, bill your clients, and learn how to improve future quotes and estimates.

Special features

• Time tracking — Time tracking is as easy as clicking once. You can also always log your hours manually if needed.
• Weekly timesheets — This feature helps you see what you have recorded for the entire week. You can also make edits quickly with this feature.
• Copy recent — To save time, you can also copy timesheet structure from previous days.
• Integrations — Like many other time-tracking apps, Everhour integrates with top productivity tools.
• Pricing — Pricing for solo users is $8 per month. Pricing for teams is $7 per user per month. Learn more here.

Wrap up

As you can see, there are several top-notch options for employee time-tracking apps. What you end up selecting will depend on the type of work you do, the size of your company, and your needs. Hopefully this review provides an excellent starting point to help you find the time-tracking app that works for you.

Jane Hurst is a writer, editor, and avid traveler from San Francisco. Contact her at About.me.