7 TSheets Alternatives for Time Tracking in 2023 (In-Depth Post)
TSheets (recently rebranded to QuickBooks Time) is a great employee time tracking software. It can help small businesses and enterprises alike streamline payroll, track their employee’s time, and keep them accountable without sacrificing privacy, all from one platform.
However, if you’re looking for an alternative to TSheets, we’ve put together a comprehensive list that compares the features, pricing, and online reviews of 7 alternative employee time tracking solutions.
Best TSheets Alternatives for Time Tracking
Note: We list Buddy Punch first because it is our own product. We’re proud of what we’ve built, and it includes features we ourselves would have loved when struggling to manage time for over twenty employees across three business locations. Click here if you’d like to learn more about how it works, and sign up for a free trial.
1. Buddy Punch
Without the right tool, tracking time for employees can be both frustrating and time-consuming. At the same time, it’s a struggle you have to surmount if you want to maximize profitability. That’s why, at Buddy Punch, we’ve concentrated our efforts on building a solution that is intuitive and easy-to-use, and with features that allow you to:
- Keep your staff accountable (Geofences, GPS tracking, facial recognition on punch, and more.)
To cap it all off, we made it a priority from day one to have customer support we could be proud of, so no matter what challenge you face when tracking time for your employees, someone from our team will be there to help you through it.
We’ll look at each in detail below.
What Makes Buddy Punch Unique?
1. Intuitive and Easy to Use Interface for Employees
An interface that was both intuitive and easy-to-use was one of our top priorities when we set out to build Buddy Punch.
To make this a reality, we focused on designing a time tracking tool that non-tech-savvy employees would have no problem using on any platform (iOS, Android, tablet, or web.)
The image below illustrates this clearly:
When your staff logs in to the Buddy Punch platform, we present them with the minimal amount of options necessary, and color code them for their ease.
We’ve eliminated unwanted distractions, and simply present them with three options: they can either ‘Punch In’, ‘Punch Out’, or view their current time card.
We’re proud to say that our users have noticed this effort and we’re grateful that they showed their appreciation through multiple reviews in Capterra (a popular software review site) highlighting Buddy Punch’s simplicity and ease-of-use:
All of that said, Buddy Punch isn’t limited to a simple interface. We’ve simply hidden all unnecessary distractions for every-day use.
Your employees are still able to submit claims to correct punch-in mistakes, request time off (paid or unpaid), submit their time cards for approval, and much more — all within the same platform.
2. Customer Support We Can Be Proud Of
When building Buddy Punch, it was important for us to achieve a standard of continual excellence in our customer support by centralizing all communications through our live chat feature (found both on the web and the app.) We’re proud to say our efforts resulted in a median first response time of 54 seconds during business hours.
And a fast response time isn’t the only thing that makes Buddy Punch’s customer support stand out. We’ve also made it so that all of our live chat representatives know the Buddy Punch platform inside and out, and have been trained to deal with all sorts of challenges, no matter how complex.
At some companies, this isn’t always the case. Depending on the complexity of the problem, you might need to talk with multiple representatives with varying levels of access to be able to solve it. At Buddy Punch, one person can walk you through a solution to your challenge, period.
As some of our customers wrote in Capterra:
A Detailed Look at Buddy Punch’s Features
1. Keep Your Team Accountable with Buddy Punch
Dealing with a lack of accountability from your team leads to wasted time and money. This is one of the biggest frustrations with employee time tracking that we’ve experienced ourselves, and heard from the 10,000+ businesses we’ve worked with.
To solve this problem, Buddy Punch offers the following features:
Geofencing
Buddy Punch’s geofencing fuctionality allows you to decide on the radius inside which your staff can punch in and out of work.
All you have to do is choose a specific radius, and if your employees attempt to punch outside of it, Buddy Punch will present them with an error message.
You can also create multiple geofences that work in tandem at any given time, and assign each a unique job code to differentiate them from each other.
IP Address Locking
This feature lets you determine from which IP Address your staff can punch in and out of work.
All you have to do is designate your desired IP Address (as pictured above), and your employees will only be able to punch in and out if connected to that IP Address.
GPS Tracking
Our GPS technology tracks your staff’s location whenever they punch in and out and records that location in the time card itself. You can then use our platform to review all your employee’s locations at the same time and make sure everyone punched where they were supposed to.
This feature is especially helpful for businesses whose employees are constantly out in the field, working multiple sites any given week (such as construction.)
Facial Recognition
Buddy Punch’s Facial Recognition feature adds another layer of accountability to your staff’s punches. If you choose to activate this feature (for all your employees, or on a per-employee basis), Buddy Punch will prompt your staff to scan their faces and verify it’s them before they can clock in and clock out of work.
Photos on Punch
Similar to our Facial Recognition functionality, Buddy Punch’s Photos on Punch feature prompts your staff to take pictures of themselves when punching in and out of work.
Although these photos won’t scan and verify your employees’ faces, they will be recorded on their time cards. You can then access our timesheet app, review all photos at once, and verify yourself if your employees punched in and out themselves, or had someone else do it for them.
2. How Buddy Punch Helps You Streamline Payroll
With Buddy Punch, there’s no need to waste time and money dealing with the inaccuracies of manually running payroll, thanks to the following easy-to-use features:
Integrations with Payroll Providers
Buddy Punch integrates with all of the above payroll providers and Zapier, which means you can automate almost any, if not all, of your payroll processing workflow. This makes payroll processing faster and more accurate.
To view a full list of all Buddy Punch’s integrations, click here.
Payroll Reports on Demand
Buddy Punch’s Payroll Reports on Demand functionality allows you to automatically calculate all you need to run payroll, and export that data in the form of an Excel or CSV payroll report, as you can see in the screenshot above.
This is faster and less error-prone than traditional time tracking methods such as manual time clocks and paper timesheets — no need to manually review, input, verify and analyze your staff’s timesheets every time a pay period comes knocking.
Time Off Tracking
Our Time off Tracking functionality makes it so you can track all your staff’s time off (paid and unpaid).
You can track time off for all your employees at once, or on a per-employee basis, and then export reports with the relevant information for you to review and approve.
Project Tracking
With Buddy Punch’s Project Tracking functionality, you can set up pay rates specifically tailored to different pay scales and jobs. This then allows you to easily calculate potential costs, craft accurate budgets, and export project reports for you to review — all in just a few clicks!
Accruals
Last but not least, Buddy Punch offers an Accruals feature, which means you can create time off accrual rules, and base them on the number of hours worked or a specified pay period.
Alternatively, Buddy Punch also allows you to set up annual time off accrual.
3. Additional Features
So far, we’ve covered Buddy Punch’s essential features when it comes to employee accountability and payroll.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Buddy Punch offers a whole suite of other powerful features, ranging from employee scheduling to overtime calculations — you can use some, or all, depending on your specific business needs.
Some of those additional features include:
- Scheduling
- Alerts & Notifications
- Adding, Editing or Deleting Punches
- Multiple Punch and Login Options
- Time Card Approvals
- Job Codes / Project Tracking
- Overtime Calculations
- PTO Accrual
- PTO Tracking
For a complete list of all of Buddy Punch’s features, click here.
Buddy Punch Pricing
At Buddy Punch, we set up our pricing to match your specific business needs by offering three different plans:
- Our ‘Standard’ plan is $2.99 per user/month when billed annually (or $3.49 if billed monthly) and there’s a $19 base fee per month. This plan includes time-tracking features, but does not include scheduling.
- Our ‘Pro’ plan is $3.99 per user/month when billed annually (or $4.49 if billed monthly) and there’s a $19 base fee per month. This plan includes all features in the ‘Standard’ plan plus all our scheduling features.
- Our ‘Enterprise’ plan can be customized to your business needs — contact us to learn more.
An important thing to note about Buddy Punch is that we charge per user and not per location.
No need to worry about added costs if your employees want to use their phone and the web.
Your employees can use as many devices (we support mobile, tablet and web) as they want to punch-in and out of work, or look at their previous timecards, correct punch-in mistakes, and more.
Additionally, with Buddy Punch, all administrator accounts are free. You can have as many administrators as you want without worrying about added costs.
Note: For more detailed information on our pricing, click here.
Interested in Learning More?
If you’d like a more in-depth look at all Buddy Punch has to offer, we’ve recorded a full demo that goes through our key features, which you can watch below:
If you’d like to see Buddy Punch in action, in real-time, you can request a demo here — we’ll show you how to best use Buddy Punch to serve your specific time tracking needs, and answer any questions you might have about our platform.
You can also learn more and sign up for a free trial here to see it in action for yourself!
2. Hubstaff
Hubstaff is another popular alternative to TSheets and is fairly popular with businesses of all sizes. It has a user-friendly interface and allows you to monitor remote team management.
Their mobile app provides you with GPS location tracking. They integrate with several apps, including Asana and PayPal, so you can better manage your business.
Core Features
- Screenshot frequency customization
- Manage multiple remote teams
- Online & offline indicator
- Idle time customization
- Budget & time limitation
- Tracking time offline
- API access
- Toggle activity levels
- Screenshot blurring
- Automatic payroll
- Monitor GPS & locations
- Monitor URL & application usage
Pros
- Risk-free 14 day trial
- Employee monitoring system
- Productivity percentage reports
- Thorough payment and billing options with option to do bulk checkouts
- Various reporting available on activities and time usage
- Activity tracking of keyboard and mouse
- User-friendly app for desktops and phones
Cons
- Average time sheets
- Mediocre reporting options
- Exporting files are limited
- No IP address monitoring or blocking
- Mediocre project management tracking
- No auto task switching
- Limited payment options available
- Generated invoices are not detailed; there’s no option to add payee details or company logos
At the time of writing, Hubstaff has:
- 1124 reviews
- Average of 4.6 out of 5 stars
Click here to read all of Hubstaff’s Capterra reviews.
Pricing
- Free: 1 User
- Basic: $7 per user per month (Starts at $14 and includes 2 users)
- Premium: $10 per user per month (Starts at $20 and includes 2 users)
- Enterprise: $20 per user per month (Starts at $40 and includes 2 users)
3. Time Doctor
Time Doctor is a web-based time tracking solution that includes features such as work session monitoring, invoicing, screenshot recording, and more.
It offers integration with over 30 productivity and project management tools, allowing you to better capture how much time was spent on different tasks.
Core Features
- Tracking time
- Avoiding Distractions
- Monitoring Website & Application
- Third-party Integrations
- Screenshot Recording
- Client Logins
- Setup Payroll
- Access API
- Private and Secure
- Email Reports
Pros
- User-friendly time tracking and employee monitoring
- Premium 14 day demo available
- Advanced employee monitoring including screenshots, keyboard, and mouse movement per minute
- Built in billing and invoicing features
- Useful time management features
- Reporting on poor time usage
Cons
- Poor reporting feature
- Outdated UI and mobile interface
- Project management feature is lacking
- Doesn’t track activity in mobile interface
- No automatic task switching
- Complicated billing and invoicing
- Additional cost
At the time of writing, Time Doctor has:
- 328 reviews
- Average of 4.5 out of 5 stars
Click here to read all of Time Doctor’s Capterra reviews.
Pricing
- Free Plan Available
- Solo Plan: $5 per month
- Time Doctor Plan: $9.99 per user per month
4. TimeCamp
TimeCamp is another cloud-based time tracking system. It allows you to track billable work hours and tasks, along with monitor project status.
You can easily track employee’s computer usage and productivity through their automated time tracking feature.
TimeCamp integrates with a number of project management solutions for added functionality.
Core Features
- One-click time tracking
- Mobile & Desktop Apps
- Automated time tracking
- Subtasks & Notes
- Income Calculation
- Powerful Reporting
- Invoices Notifications
- Filtering Reports
- Analyzing Productivity
- Computer Usage Tracking
- Timesheet Approvals
- Third-party Integrations
Pros
- User-friendly time tracking
- Free 30-day trial
- Good employee monitoring features
- Detailed attendance and time reports
- Salary and billing calculator
- Project management features
- Vast amounts of integrations available
- Employees can automatically switch tasks
- Provides insight into your businesses work efficiency
Cons
- Complicated reporting feature
- Sub par time sheet section
- Manual task switching is needed sometimes
- Doesn’t have keyboard monitoring or mouse tracking
- Mediocre payroll features
- Too many different reports available
- Time sheet section needs UI overhaul
- Only supports PayPal payment option
At the time of writing, TimeCamp has:
- 524 reviews
- Average of 4.7 out of 5 stars
Click here to read all of TimeCamp’s Capterra reviews.
Pricing
- Free: 1 User
- Basic: $5.25 per user per month ($7 per month when billed monthly)
- Pro: $7.50 per user per month ($10 per month when billed monthly)
- Enterprise: Available for 100+ users
5. DeskTime
DeskTime is an all-in-onetime tracking software that works on both desktop and mobile devices (Android & iPhone).
It allows employers to ensure their employees are remaining productive while on the clock.
DeskTime can help lower labor costs by ensuring that employees are making good use of their time — whether through app tracking, website tracking or their offline tracker.
Core Features
- Find wasted time
- Eliminate wasted time
- Employee time visualization
- Client billing
- Automatic data entries
- Mobile applications
- Mobile viewing
- Automatic time tracking
- Company based reporting
- Project tracking
- Productivity analysis
Pros
- Friendly UI that offers full automation
- Free 14 day trial
- Automatic time tracking
- Track used apps and URL
- Categorizes used apps and URLs based on productivity
- Employee monitoring feature with screenshots and usage tracking
- Several integrations available
- Generates productivity and efficiency data
Cons
- No keyboard monitoring and can’t track words typed
- No mouse movement monitoring available
- No automatic alerting processes in place
- Reporting is very limited and needs more detailed information
- No automated billing or invoice generation
At the time of writing, DeskTime has:
- 136 reviews
- Average of 4.4 out of 5 stars
Click here to read all of DeskTime’s Capterra reviews.
Pricing
- DeskTime Lite: Free for 1 User
- DeskTime Pro: Starts at $7 per user per month
6. Time Tracker by eBillity
Time Tracker by eBillity ranks 6th in our list of best TSheets alternatives.
Time Tracker helps improve employee efficiency and productivity. With its user-friendly interface, your employees can easily track time.
Payroll processing is a breeze with eBillity, which allows you to track project costs, paid breaks, overtime, and more.
It also integrates with payroll providers such as Gust and QuickBooks for a more seamless payroll process.
Core Features
- Reminders & team messages
- Monitor employee time
- Web-based & mobile available
- Detailed reporting
- Offline & online timer
- Multiple payment options
- Customized invoices
- Mobile Expense Tracking
- Web-based expense tracking
- Uploading & share files
- Pay invoices
Pros
- User-friendly UI
- Easy and detailed configuration
- Several integrations available
- Automatic time sheet calculations along with detailed reporting
- Quality invoicing features and multiple payment gateways
- Several exportable report formats available
- Great project management and follow up system
Cons
- No employee monitoring system
- No screenshot features or away time counter
- Overpersonalization can make it difficult for new users
- No keystroke or mouse activity monitoring available
- No data for productivity or efficiency of employees
- No alert system for inactivity, long breaks, and so on
- UI is outdated
At the time of writing, Time Tracker by eBillity has:
- 2401 reviews
- Average of 4.3 out of 5 stars
Click here to read all of Time Tracker by eBillity’s Capterra reviews.
Pricing
- Time Tracking: $4 per user and an $8 base fee per month
- Billing: $8 per user and a $16 base fee per month
- Legal: $12 per user and a $16 base fee per month
7. RescueTime
RescueTime is a solution that measures productivity by monitoring computer usage. It can easily track active windows, websites visited, computer activities and programs that have been used to understand how employees spend their day.
It offers more advanced features such as monitoring breaks, making phone calls, and even allows for meetings.
To help ensure employees stay on track, RescueTime has on-screen reminders as well as a website blocking feature.
Core Features
- Detailed reporting
- Detailed filtering
- Setup daily goals
- Productivity score
- Block time-wasting sites
- Track offline activity
- Create alerts & notifications
- Daily highlights
- Fast data processing
- Reports histories
- Weekly email reports
Pros
- Simplistic time tracking with little setup
- Good employee monitoring features
- Detailed app and URL monitoring
- Browser extension available to view reporting
- Productivity and usage reports have detailed data
- Focus time feature to avoid distractions and block distracting websites
- Ability to create goals and alerts
Cons
- Only good for everyday app monitoring
- No timesheets available
- No attendance reports available
- No project management feature
- Does not capture screenshots
- No billing or payment option
- No team management feature and Admins can’t view reports for individual employees
- Fairly expensive given the lack of features
At the time of writing, RescueTime has:
- 116 reviews
- Average of 4.6 out of 5 stars
Click here to read all of RescueTime’s Capterra reviews.
Pricing
- RescueTime Lite: Free
- RescueTime Premium: Starts at $6 per month
- RescueTime for Orgs: Starts at $6 per month per team member
Note: At Buddy Punch, We’re proud of what we’ve built, and it includes features we ourselves would have loved when struggling to manage time for over twenty employees across three business locations. Click here if you’d like to learn more about how it works, and sign up for a free trial.
