The 8 Best Clock-In Clock-Out Apps for Small Businesses

Clock-in clock-out apps help companies track employee hours effortlessly and run payroll quickly. But with hundreds of apps on the market, choosing the right one for your small business can be difficult. To help, I’ve compiled this list of the eight best clock-in clock-out apps for small businesses.

Comparison of the best clock-in clock-out apps

Platform	Highlights	Features Included	Pricing
Buddy Punch	Best for affordability and ease of use	– GPS tracking – Geofencing – Facial recognition – Job costing	– Free trial available – $4.49/user
Hubstaff	Best for productivity tracking	– Automatic screenshots – Idle time detection – URL tracking	– Free trial available – $4.99/user
QuickBooks Time	Best for mileage tracking	– Automatic time tracking – Robust API – Clock in/out reminders	– No free trial – $8/user
Jibble	Best free plan	– Offline time tracking – Automatic screenshots – Slack integration	– Free plan available – $2.49/user
Clockify	Best for solopreneurs	– Pomodoro timer – Desktop apps – Project management integrations	– Free plan available – $3.99/user
Connecteam	Best for small businesses	– Team chat – Quizzes and courses – Internal help center	– Free plan available – $29/month
Homebase	Best for retail and service businesses	– POS system integrations – Tip manager – Employee scheduling	– Free plan available – $20/location
Toggl Track	Best for automatic time tracking	– Activity timelines – Privacy-first tracking – Desktop apps	– Free plan available – $9/user

What is a clock-in clock-out app?

A clock-in clock-out app is a tool that employees use to record their work hours so employers can easily track time and attendance. All recorded hours are compiled into digital timesheets with totals automatically calculated, which speeds up the process of running payroll and reduces the likelihood of errors.

Other common terms used to describe clock-in and out apps are “time clock apps,” “time tracking apps,” “timesheet apps,” “punch clock apps,” and “time card apps.”

What are the different types of clock-in clock-out apps?

There are hundreds of different time clock apps on the market that can be used to create a system for employees to clock in and out, but not all of the options are right for every employer.

The right app for your team will have features catered to 1) how your employees work, 2) the systems you want to streamline and automate, and 3) the data you care most about collecting.

As you’re doing your research, you may run into different ways people refer to the different time clock apps (e.g., cloud-based time clock, web-based time clock, mobile time clock, kiosk time clock). The thing to understand is that most time clock apps are all of these things.

All time clock apps will have a web-based component that allows you to access the app via a URL and stores your data on the cloud. Some may have offline applications that let you track hours when there’s no internet access, but ultimately that data is synced to the cloud when internet access is available again.

Additionally, nearly all time clock apps have downloadable mobile apps that let you access the system on Android or iOS smartphones, and generally, those apps can also be downloaded onto an Android or iOS tablet to create a stationary or portable time clock kiosk.

Here are the main types of time clock apps.

Location-tracking apps

Time clock apps with location-tracking features are great for businesses with traveling employees and/or field workers who may or may not come into the office at the beginning and end of their shifts. Employees can use an app on their mobile phones to clock in and out of work from anywhere.

Additionally, location-tracking apps come with features like GPS tracking and geofencing that let you ensure employees are at the right job sites when they clock in and out. Some also include real-time GPS tracking that will track employees’ locations over the entire day and show you all employees’ locations at any time on a map.

Productivity-tracking apps

Time clock apps with productivity-tracking features are designed for businesses with employees who do most or all of their work on computers.

In addition to tracking time, these apps have features that monitor what employees are doing on their computers over the course of a shift so you can identify who’s spending time on non-work activities.

Some of the features included in productivity-tracking apps include:

• Screenshots: Capture pictures of employees’ computer screens at random intervals.
• App and website tracking: See how much time employees spend on specific work- or non-work-related websites and apps.
• Idle detection: Track how much time employees spend logging time but not moving their mouse or using their keyboard to do any work.

Biometric time clocks

Biometric time clock apps come with features like facial recognition, fingerprint scanning, and/or voice recognition that prevent employees from either clocking in and out or accessing a work area when the system can’t validate their identities.

There are three main use cases for biometric time clock apps:

• When buddy punching is a major problem: Biometric identification ensures that employees can never clock in and out for one another.
• When you want to speed up clocking in and out at a kiosk: Employees having to enter usernames and passwords at a kiosk can create long lines for clocking in and out. Using biometrics speeds up this process significantly.
• When you want to combine time tracking and work area security: Some physical time clocks can function as a combined time tracking and employee access system where you validate employees’ identities to both clock them in/out and give them access to a building or work area.

Industry-specific apps

Some time clocks are designed to only be used by companies in specific industries. They have features that wouldn’t be useful to companies in other industries, such as DCAA compliance for government contractors, equipment tracking for construction companies, or LEDES invoice formats for lawyers.

If time tracking is more complex in your industry and you’re finding that the more general time clock apps are missing the features you need, looking for an option that caters solely to your industry may solve the problems you’re running into.

Time, task, and project tracking apps

Some apps function as a combined time clock and project management system. In addition to tracking employees’ hours overall, these apps can track hours spent on specific tasks or projects — and on billable and non-billable activities.

These apps may integrate with popular project management systems, or they may bring project management and time-tracking into one consolidated system, offering features like:

• Project planning, budgeting, and tracking
• Team collaboration features like commenting and assigning
• Gantt charts, Kanban boards, to-do lists, etc.

Additionally, many of these apps offer invoicing services, allowing you to create client invoices quickly and easily using your time-tracking data.

Time tracking and payroll software

All time clock apps will let you download reports that you can send to an existing payroll provider. Most also offer integrations with existing payroll providers where you can connect the two systems to pass timesheet reports to payroll either automatically or manually.

However, some time clocks offer both time tracking and payroll services, eliminating the need to pass data between two systems. Instead, you track employee hours and run payroll using the same application, saving you the extra step of transferring time data to your payroll provider.

HR systems with time tracking

For businesses looking to run all of their HR functions through the same system, you may want to look for a human capital management (HCM) system — also commonly referred to as human resources information system (HRIS) or human resources management system (HRMS).

These systems bring all HR functions under one roof. In addition to time tracking, you’ll get access to features that help you hire and onboard new employees, run payroll, document policies and procedures, offboard employees, manage performance reviews, run employee surveys, manage benefits, and more.

These systems are generally significantly more expensive than time clock software but can be worth the added expense if it helps you consolidate multiple software subscriptions into one.

Time tracking and team communication apps

While these are the least common time clock apps on the market, there are a few systems that combine time tracking and team communication features.

This allows you to use the system to track employees’ hours, communicate with your team, and enable communication between your team members (think time tracking plus Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Chat, WhatsApp, or Discord).

In addition to time-tracking, most time clock apps come with complementary features that help teams consolidate multiple processes into one system, such as employee scheduling, PTO tracking and accruals, and attendance tracking.

The benefits of using a clock-in clock-out app

Using a clock-in clock-out app for employee time tracking has many benefits:

• Automate time tracking and payroll: Clock-in clock-out apps automatically track employees’ hours, calculate those hours, identify overtime, and calculate total pay. This speeds up running payroll since all of the calculations are done for you.
• Reduce payroll errors: Because clock-in clock-out apps calculate employee hours and pay for you, you’re much less likely to have the types of payroll errors that are caused by manually calculating time and pay.
• Reduce time theft: Many clock-in clock-out apps come with features that reduce or eliminate time theft, such as GPS tracking, geofencing, and facial recognition. This keeps employees from clocking in off-site or engaging in buddy punching.
• Reduce labor costs: Many time clock apps come with features that protect businesses from unexpected labor expenses. They may prevent employees from clocking in before they’re scheduled, automatically clock them out at the end of their shift, or send you an alert when an employee is nearing overtime.
• Invoice accurately: Most clock-in clock-out apps let you create job codes or project codes that enable you to track time spent on specific projects, which ensures that you are invoicing clients/customers for every minute spent on their projects.
• Improve productivity: Automating time tracking and payroll saves administrators, accounting teams, and business owners a ton of time. Plus, many time clock apps have employee productivity tracking features that can help you ensure you’re employees are working while they’re on the clock.
• Track time from anywhere: Most clock-in clock-out apps can be accessed from anywhere on computers or mobile devices, so field and remote employees can clock in and out from wherever they’re working.

Key features of clock-in clock-out apps

The features you’ll want to look for in a clock-in clock-out app will depend on your business’s specific needs and goals. For basic time tracking, you’ll want to make sure the app has features like:

• Desktop, mobile, and kiosk apps: Make sure the app you choose has features that allow employees to clock in and out no matter where they’re working. You may need to look for options with desktop apps for computer workers, mobile apps for field workers, a kiosk feature for in-person workers, or offline access if your team works in rural areas.
• Ease of use: If your organization is going to be using a time tracking app for the first time, you’ll want to make sure the app is intuitive and easy to use even for less tech-savvy employees. The easier the app is to use, the easier it will be to get employees to use it for clocking in and out.
• Automatic timesheets: The best time clocks automatically calculate employees’ regular and overtime hours, compiling all clock in and out data into timesheets. This makes running payroll faster and easier — no more error-prone manual calculations and spreadsheets.
• Reports: The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires employers to keep time tracking records for three payroll years. Being able to download timesheet reports help you stay in compliance with this law. Additionally, reports can be helpful for job costing and billing clients.
• Payroll integrations: To simplify running payroll, you’ll want to look for an app that either offers an integration with your existing payroll provider or, if you don’t have an existing payroll provider, offers its own built-in payroll services.
• Data security: Time clock apps may contain private employee data like pay rates, locations, social security numbers, and addresses. To keep your team’s data secure, look for apps with role-based access controls, data encryption, and multi-factor authentication.

Beyond these basics, you may also want to consider a few more advanced features:

• Employee accountability features: Features like GPS tracking, geofencing, facial recognition, automatic screenshots, URL tracking, and idle detection ensure that employees are actually doing work when they’re billing time to your company.
• Project tracking features: Features that let you attach hours worked to specific customers, jobs, projects, or tasks make invoicing easier, allow you to evaluate a project’s profitability, and ensure you get paid for all of the time you worked on a project.
• Additional HR features: It’s often helpful to consolidate processes into one tool so you’re not paying for multiple software subscriptions. Time clock apps with features like employee scheduling, PTO tracking, and communication features can help you reduce your expenses.

The 8 best clock-in clock-out apps for small businesses

The eight best clock-in clock-out apps for small businesses are Buddy Punch, Hubstaff, QuickBooks Time, Jibble, Clockify, Connecteam, Homebase, and Toggl Track. Below, you’ll find my detailed reviews of each app, including information on their features, pricing, and what types of businesses they’re best for.

1. Buddy Punch

Best overall clock-in clock-out app.

In my previous business, I managed 20 employees who worked across three different locations. I was using manual punch clocks for time tracking, but running payroll was an extremely time-consuming, error-prone process.

To solve the issues I was running into, I started looking into time clock apps, but none of the options on the market did exactly what I wanted them to do. So I paired up with my cofounder to build the app we needed, and Buddy Punch was born.

We’ve built Buddy Punch to solve all of the issues that business owners run into with time tracking, and we constantly make the app better by listening to our customers’ requests. Here’s one of my favorite customer reviews:

“The software is a good value, easy to use, and the support team is very receptive to suggested changes or add-ons. We’ve seen several suggestions become a reality, which is uncommon when dealing with other software companies.”

Clocking in and out

When your staff logs into the app, they’re presented with the option to punch in, punch out, or view their current time card. This makes it easy to get your team up and running using the system — no training is required.

Buddy Punch is a web-based tool, which means you and your team can use it on any internet-connected device. Access Buddy Punch on a computer that uses any operating system, or download its apps that are available for iOS, Android, and ChromeOS.

This makes the app work for you no matter where or how your employees spend their working hours:

• If all employees work in the same location, you can download the app onto a tablet and use it as a central time clock kiosk. Employees can clock in/out using a username and password, 4-digit PIN, facial recognition, or QR code.
• If your employees work in the field, they can download the app on their mobile phones to clock in and out. And if they can’t download the app, they can clock in and out by sending a text message.
• If your employees work in different offices or from home, they can log into the app on their computers to clock in at the start of their day and clock out at the end.

It’s also worth noting that Buddy Punch is one of the few time clock apps on the market that doesn’t require your employees to have unique email addresses for you to create accounts for them in the system. This is a huge benefit for employers who don’t assign every employee a company email address.

Setting up the app

For administrators, setting Buddy Punch up is also as easy as possible. You can add employees manually if you have a small team, or you can simply send us a spreadsheet that includes employee names and pay rates to have us onboard your entire team for you.

If you do run into issues, we’re here to help with excellent live chat customer support. Our support is rated 4.8 out of 5 stars on Capterra, with customers citing quick response times and personalized support.

“The customer support team is super responsive, thorough, and effective. Their team is knowledgeable about my organization and the way that we use the platform. We have had very few issues but have always received immediate resolutions when anything has come up.”

Prevent time theft

If time theft is a problem for your business — or if you suspect it might be — Buddy Punch has lots of features that prevent it and keep your employees accountable:

• GPS on punch: If your employees work in the field, you can capture their locations when they clock in and out to make sure they are on the job site.
• Real-time GPS: If your employees travel as part of their work, you can use real-time GPS to monitor their movements over the course of the workday.
• Geofencing: If you want to make sure employees are on-site when they clock in/out, you can set up geofences that prevent them from clocking in or out when they’re not on location. This works best for field workers working at specific job sites.
• IP address locks: You can also prevent employees from clocking in and out when they’re not on your office’s Wi-Fi. This is best for office workers who clock in and out from their computers on your business’s network.
• Photo clock-ins: Require employees to take a picture of themselves when clocking in and out. You can review those photos on their time cards to make sure that the person clocking in was the person who was billing those hours.
• Facial recognition: If you want to make things even more secure, you can combine the app with FaceID to prevent punching unless employees pass a facial recognition validation step.

Reduce labor costs

Beyond saving you costs by preventing time theft, Buddy Punch also has features that will help you prevent unexpected labor expenses:

• Overtime alerts: If you want to prevent unexpected overtime costs, you can set up alerts that notify you when employees are getting close to overtime hours.
• Punch limiting: Block employees from clocking in before they’re scheduled to work.
• Automatic clock-outs: Automatically clock employees out at the end of their shifts.
• Timesheet approvals: Have supervisors or managers review and approve their employees’ timesheets before you run payroll.

Key features

• GPS tracking and geofencing
• Overtime management and alerts
• Photo clock-ins and facial recognition
• Project tracking and job costing
• Timesheet editing and approvals
• View all features

Pros

• One of the lowest-cost apps for the range of features available
• All employee accountability features are optional and can be turned on or off for everyone or only for specific employees
• In addition to time tracking, the app offers features for employee scheduling, PTO tracking, and a built-in payroll service

Cons

• No free plan
• No productivity tracking features for computer-based workers

Pricing

Buddy Punch offers a free 14-day trial, or you can get a demo of the tool if you prefer. It’s one of the lowest-cost apps on this list given its breadth of features, with pricing starting at $4.49/user per month plus a $19 base fee. Administrator users are free.

2. Hubstaff

Best time clock app with productivity tracking.

In addition to time tracking, Hubstaff has great productivity monitoring features for computer-based employees. With idle detection, you can see when employees are logging time but not actually doing anything on their computers. With screenshots, you can take random screen captures of employees’ computers to monitor what they’re doing.

It also has URL monitoring that lets you see exactly how much time employees are spending on time-wasting activities like scrolling through social media sites, reading the news, or watching videos on YouTube. And with its Insights feature/add-on, you can categorize specific URLs and apps into “productive” and “unproductive” buckets by role to gather data on how much time is being wasted across your team.

“Overall, we are very satisfied with Hubstaff. I was worried that it would make remote employees uncomfortable. However, it has worked well, and productivity has been much higher. Highly recommend.”

Finally, if employees forgetting to clock in and out is a problem, you can use the app’s automatic time-tracking feature to trigger clocking in and out based on computer usage. When an employee starts using their computer, it clocks them in, and when they stop using it, it clocks them out.

Key features

• Idle detection
• App and URL tracking
• Automatic screenshots
• Productivity benchmark reports
• Suspicious activity detection

Pros

• Incredibly robust set of features that cater to every type of company imaginable
• One of the few time clock apps on the market that offers HIPAA compliance
• Great for making sure that remote knowledge workers are actually working when they’re on the clock

Cons

• Pricing is confusing: lower-cost plans have pretty heavy limitations, and many features are only available as add-on products
• The level of computer monitoring the app offers may be off-putting to employees who feel it’s an invasion of privacy or an extreme level of micromanagement

Pricing

Hubstaff offers a free 14-day trial. Its basic plans start at $4.99/seat per month with a two-seat minimum and include time tracking and limited productivity tracking.

Want to learn more about Hubstaff? Read our detailed Hubstaff review.

3. QuickBooks Time

Best clock-in clock-out app with mileage tracking.

QuickBooks Time is a great option if your organization relies heavily on other Intuit products like QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Payroll. The app lets you easily share data between Intuit applications — no separate integration is required.

“Overall, QuickBooks Time makes it easy to track employee hours and manage time with its straightforward app. It works well with QuickBooks to simplify payroll and invoicing, which saves a lot of time.”

While a lot of the apps on this list offer real-time GPS tracking, that feature is typically used to monitor employees’ locations only. QuickBooks Time’s GPS tracking feature also calculates the miles employees travel while they’re on the clock.

This is a must-have feature if you have traveling employees who are reimbursed for mileage. It lets you collect that data automatically — no odometer checking is required.

Another helpful feature you’ll find in the app is automatic clock-ins and outs based on an employee’s location. If you set up geofences, you can have the system automatically clock an employee in when they get inside of the geofence and automatically clock them out when they leave the geofence, preventing missed punches.

If you don’t want to automatically clock employees in and out, you can also use geofences to send employees reminders to clock in and out when entering and exiting the geofence.

Another great feature of the app is its API, which allows you to make quick, bulk changes to your data — adding or deleting employees, geofences, locations, job codes, and more. This is a great benefit for large companies with technical resources who can help automate payroll via the API.

Key features

• Mileage tracking
• Robust API
• Automatic time tracking
• Clock in and out reminders
• Team activity feed for sharing progress

Pros

• Integrates seamlessly with other Intuit products like QuickBooks Online and Payroll
• Track employee drive times and work times separately, which can be helpful for home service businesses where clients are only billed for time spent on-site

Cons

• In order to subscribe to QuickBooks Time, you also have to be subscribed to QuickBooks Online
• One of the most expensive apps on this list

Pricing

QuickBooks Time does not offer free trials or demos. For the first three months of your subscription, QuickBooks Time’s base plan is $8/user per month plus a $10/month base fee. After that initial discount, the base monthly fee jumps to $20/month. You must also have a QuickBooks Online subscription to use QuickBooks Time.

4. Jibble

Best free clock-in clock-out app.

If you want to upgrade your time-tracking from manual punch clocks, paper timesheets, and spreadsheets but can’t afford to pay a monthly subscription for a time clock app, Jibble’s free plan is probably your best option.

While lots of options on the market have free plans, most of them are so limited that you have to upgrade to do just about anything you will need to do. Jibble is the exception, offering quite a few advanced features and a lot of flexibility with no monthly cost whatsoever.

The app’s free plan comes with lots of advanced features that other apps charge a premium for. You can implement facial recognition, create up to two geofences, capture screenshots of what employees are doing on their computers, and capture GPS locations when employees clock in and out.

All of this is available for an unlimited number of employees.

“Very positive, very easy experience using Jibble as a basic, free timesheet software for a small business with less than 10 employees. It’s the best truly free timesheet software I could find. Very user-friendly and intuitive.”

However, like all free apps, Jibble does have some limitations. You won’t be able to see a history of tracked time in the app’s free plan — it only works for one pay period at a time. You also aren’t able to export reports on the free plan. However, you can integrate with QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Deel on the free plan, so you can push your data to those platforms and access historical records there when needed.

Key features

• Facial recognition on clock in and out
• GPS on punch and geofencing
• Automatic screenshots
• Mobile and desktop apps
• Offline time-tracking

Pros

• Free plan can be used to track time for an unlimited number of employees
• If you need to upgrade to a paid plan later, the app’s costs are on the lower end of the average per-employee cost

Cons

• There’s no way to access timesheets from previous time periods on the free plan
• You can’t export reports on the free plan, so you’ll still have to enter time data for payroll manually

Pricing

You can try Jibble by signing up for its free plan, or you can get a free trial of one of its premium plans. The free plan can be used to track time for unlimited employees. Paid plans start at $2.49/user per month.

5. Clockify

Best clock-in clock-out app for freelancers.

If you’re a freelancer who works on projects for multiple clients, Clockify offers a great free plan that likely has everything you need to create detailed invoices and ensure you’re billing your clients properly.

While Clockify’s free plan works for unlimited users just like Jibble’s, its features are so limited that it’s not a practical choice for multi-employee teams. But if you’re a one-person shop and don’t have to worry about things like FLSA and payroll, it’s a great no-cost option.

The great thing about this app for freelancers who work with clients is that you can add an unlimited number of tasks and projects to it on the free plan. This lets you easily track time spent on specific activities for specific clients.

Plus, Clockify is available on the web and mobile, it has desktop apps for all major operating systems, and it has browser extensions for all major browsers, making it easy to track time no matter where you’re working or what system you’re using to work.

“As a self-employed consultant, I had spent years searching for a no/low-cost time tracking app that is flexible, reliable, and easy to use with my self-built invoicing setup. With Clockify, I have all the features that I need and more. It has been absolutely perfect for my purposes.”

Finally, you can see meetings you spent time in directly inside of Clockify using its integrations with Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar, and you can also track time directly within other project management apps you use, like Asana, Trello, Jira, and ClickUp.

Key features

• Built-in Pomodoro timer
• Web, mobile, desktop, and browser apps
• Unlimited projects and tasks
• Track time directly from your to-do list app
• Set billable rates for specific clients/projects

Pros

• Great free features for one-person companies working with multiple clients
• Lots of flexibility in the ways in which and places where you can track your time

Cons

• If you need to upgrade to a paid plan, the pricing structure is somewhat convoluted, and the cost is often much higher than what you’d pay for another app with similar features

Pricing

You can try Clockify by signing up for its free plan, or you can get a free trial of one of its premium plans. The free plan includes unlimited users, projects, and tasks. Paid plans start at $3.99/user per month.

6. Connecteam

Best clock-in clock-out app with HR features.

Connecteam’s small business plan is a great, free option for businesses with fewer than 10 employees. It comes with time tracking and lots of other HR features small businesses need to streamline all of their administrative operations.

On Connecteam’s free plan (available for up to 10 users), you get access to lots of different features to help with lots of run-the-business tasks. You can track time, create work schedules, create an employee directory, run employee surveys, build an internal knowledge base, track paid time off, and store documents.

“Connecteam has helped with managing our employee work time and scheduling tremendously. I have slowly implemented more and more features to benefit our company as a whole, and I have been extremely happy with what I have implemented so far.”

As far as its time clock, you can add customers, projects, and locations to track time based on how your employees work. You can see employees’ locations when they clock in and out and send them automatic reminders to clock in and out based on their work schedules.

Finally, you can approve timesheets and integrate with a handful of payroll providers.

Other than only being available for 10 or fewer users, the app doesn’t put many limitations on the features available in its free plan for time tracking. However, many features included in paid plans — such as geofencing, real-time GPS tracking, and several customizations — are not included in the free plan.

Key features

• Employee quizzes, surveys, and courses
• Internal knowledge base builder
• Team chat application
• Internal help desk

Pros

• Flexible free plan for businesses with fewer than 10 employees that does time tracking and a lot more
• Relatively low-cost pricing for paid plans when it’s time to upgrade

Cons

• Because it has so many features, it can take longer for admins and employees to learn how to use the system
• If you want to retain access to features from all of its hubs when you upgrade from the free plan, you’ll have to subscribe to all three

Pricing

You can test drive Connecteam by signing up for its free plan, or you can get a 14-day free trial of one of its premium plans. The free plan gives you access to its Operations, Communications, and HR hubs for up to 10 users. Paid plans start at $29/hub per month for up to 30 users.

7. Homebase

Best time clock app with point-of-sale integrations.

Homebase’s time clock application stands out because of its ability to integrate with popular point-of-sale (POS) systems, making it a great option for restaurants, bars, retail stores, and other in-person businesses.

Homebase offers direct integrations with Square, Clover, Toast, Shopify, PayAnywhere, and GoDaddy, allowing companies that are already using one of these POS systems to use it for clocking in and out as well. This eliminates the need to purchase a separate device to use as a time clock kiosk for in-person teams.

The app’s pricing model can also be appealing if you have lots of employees but only one or a handful of locations. Instead of charging per employee like the majority of other apps on the market, Homebase charges by location, which can make its monthly cost significantly less expensive.

For businesses where employees earn tips, the app has a tip manager add-on that simplifies calculating, pooling, and distributing tips among staff. It takes all of the credit card tips from your POS system, distributes them according to your instructions, and adds them to employees’ timecards to simplify payroll.

“All of the tasks that need to be done with this product are agonizing for any manager. But this product makes it not only easy but also enjoyable! I love performing all the tasks on Homebase because it is so practical, straightforward, and simple.”

Key features

• POS integrations
• Tip manager
• Employee scheduling
• Background checks
• Break reminders

Pros

• Lots of unique features for in-person businesses in hospitality and retail
• Location-based pricing makes the app very affordable for small businesses

Cons

• Lots of customers report having issues with Homebase’s mobile apps, making it a poorer option for field teams and traveling employees

Pricing

You can try Homebase by signing up for its free plan, or you can get a free trial of one of its premium plans. The free plan is available for businesses with one location and fewer than 20 employees. Paid plans start at $20 per location per month.

8. Toggl Track

Best time clock app for automated time tracking.

It’s easy for employees to forget to switch projects when they’re multitasking across multiple client projects over the course of one day. With Toggl Track’s automated time tracking, you can ensure all of your billable hours are accurately captured so you can invoice clients for every minute spent on their projects.

Toggl Track has a timeline feature that captures everything someone does on their computer while they work. This essentially automates time tracking. Employees can still clock in, choose projects, and switch projects manually, but if they forget to switch projects, they can refer back to the timeline to correct their timesheet.

Employees can also use the timeline at the end of the day to log time for all of the projects they worked on rather than clocking in and out and switching projects throughout the day.

“Easy, friendly time tracking (and more) tool. I use it every day! Toggl Track has made me a lot of money by informing me of just how much time I actually spend on a project.”

Though the app does track everything your employees do over the course of the day, that data isn’t shared with management unless the employee chooses to do so. This can make tracking time with the app more appealing to employees than the more invasive productivity tracking tools.

When it’s time to bill your clients for the time you spend on their projects, you can easily generate invoices using your Toggl Track time data. It automatically aggregates all time employees spent on client projects into invoices that list the different tasks that were worked on.

Key features

• Activity timelines
• Privacy-first tracking
• Invoice generation
• Mac and Windows desktop apps
• Chrome, Firefox, and Edge extensions

Pros

• The timeline feature ensures all time spent on client work is captured and invoiced for
• A free plan is available for up to five users

Cons

• One of the more expensive per-user fees of all of the apps on this list
• Customers note that the client invoicing feature isn’t very customizable

Pricing

You can test drive Toggl Track by signing up for its free plan, or you can get a 30-day free trial of one of its premium plans. The free plan supports up to five users. Paid plans start at $9/user per month.

Industry-specific clock-in clock-out apps to consider

In the list above, I featured the apps that have the broadest appeal and work for lots of different types of industries. However, some industries have very specific requirements that may make the general options a poor fit for their needs. If you’re in an industry with highly specific time-tracking needs, you might want to consider the apps below:

• LawBillity – Best for lawyers, attorneys, and other legal services businesses
• Hellotracks – Best for logistics, delivery, and transportation businesses
• Hour Timesheet – Best for government and defense contractors
• Workyard – Best for construction companies and contractors
• QGenda – Best for healthcare and home healthcare businesses
• Frontline Education – Best for K-12 public and private schools
• BigTime – Best for professional services businesses

Getting started with your new clock-in clock-out app

It’s helpful to communicate with your team early on that you’re planning to implement a new system so they’re not surprised when it happens. Let them know why you’re making the switch, and explain how the new system will benefit both them and the company overall.

You might also want to consider running a pilot with a small team before rolling it out company-wide. This will help you discover common issues that you can address in training once it’s time for the whole team to get onboarded to the new system.

When it’s time to roll it out company-wide, host a meeting where you introduce the new system and show employees how to use it. This will give you one place to answer questions and ensure that everyone is trained on the new system properly.

Finally, make sure people know where they should go if they need support. Designate a point of contact, create a repository where you house training documents and answers to frequently asked questions, and show them how to contact your provider’s support team for help with any technical issues.

By having a good plan in place for rolling out your new system, you can avoid headaches and get your team up and running with the new system quickly and easily.

Related reading:

• How to Create an Employee Clock-In Clock-Out System
• How to Create a Clocking In and Out Policy + Examples
• How to Make Sure Your Employees Don’t Forget to Clock In and Out
• Sample Write-Up for Not Clocking In and Out [Free Templates]
• Free Clock In and Out Calculator