The 10 Best Employee Time Tracking Apps in 2025

Employee time tracking apps make it easier than ever to track employees’ hours and get people paid, all while saving you time and helping you increase your profitability. To help you find the right option for your team, we reviewed dozens of apps to put together this list of the 10 best employee time tracking apps.

Side-by-side comparison of time tracking apps

Platform	Best For	Rating	Paid Plans Start At
Buddy Punch	Affordability and range of features	4.8/5	$4.49/user/month
Time Doctor	Time and productivity tracking	4.5/5	$6.70/user/month
QuickBooks Time	Time and mileage tracking	4.7/5	$8.00/user/month
Harvest	Freelancers	4.6/5	$11/seat/month
Clockify	Free time tracking	4.8/5	$3.99/user/month
Toggl Track	Small businesses	4.7/5	$9/user/month
ClickTime	Project time tracking	4.6/5	$12/user/month
Kimai	Self-hosting	3.7/5	€2.99/user/month
Memtime	Automatic time tracking	4.6/5	€10/user/month
Workday	Enterprise companies	4.5/5	Custom pricing

What is time tracking software?

Time tracking software is a digital solution for tracking employees’ work hours. It gives employees a way to clock into and out of work, generally using a computer, mobile phone, or kiosk. That data is then compiled into timesheets that automatically calculate total hours worked per employee.

The terms “apps” and “software” generally refer to the same types of solutions. “Apps” may refer to solutions used on mobile phones, and “software” may refer to solutions downloaded onto a computer. However, most time tracking solutions offer both app and software versions, so the terms are generally used interchangeably.

Time tracking software also goes by many other names. Other common terms include “time clock software/apps,” “timesheet software/apps,” “clock-in clock-out software/apps,” and “punch clock software/apps.” These are all just different ways to describe digital solutions for tracking employees’ work hours.

How does time tracking software work?

Time tracking software works through a combination of user inputs and automated processes. User inputs include things like an admin adding all employees to create logins for them and employees clocking in and out using a smartphone, tablet, or computer.

After that, the automated processes come into play. Time tracking software automatically compiles all clock-in and out data into timesheets for individual employees. Timesheets can be reviewed, edited, and approved if necessary before integrations automatically push the timesheet data to your preferred payroll system.

What are the benefits of using time tracking software?

There are a wide range of benefits to using time tracking software:

• Save time running payroll: Time tracking software automatically calculates total hours for you, eliminating the need for manual calculations. Additionally, most time tracking apps integrate with popular payroll providers or offer payroll services, allowing you to transfer your time data to payroll in seconds.
• Ensure payroll is accurate: Not calculating employees’ hours manually significantly reduces the likelihood of payroll mistakes. Plus, many apps have features that help you ensure employees’ timesheets are accurate before you transfer time data to payroll.
• Stay compliant: Time tracking software ensures you’re always compliant with federal, state, and local laws and regulations. For example, most apps will automatically identify overtime hours for you, and some keep records of your timesheets indefinitely.
• Improve productivity: Most time tracking software includes features that let you track time by job, project, task, activity, etc. By understanding how employees are spending their time at work, you can gather insights that help you improve productivity.
• Create more accurate invoices: If you work on projects for clients, time tracking apps can help you identify the time employees spent working on those projects down to the second, ensuring no billable time goes unbilled.
• Improve your budgeting and estimating: The data you gather from tracking time on tasks and projects can give you a better understanding of how long specific tasks/projects take to complete, which can help you create more realistic budgets and estimates for future projects.
• Reduce labor costs: Most time tracking apps comes with features that help you eliminate time theft and prevent employees from accruing pay for unplanned hours, which can significantly reduce your overall labor costs.
• Provide more flexibility in tracking hours: Time tracking apps lets employees clock in and out from wherever they’re working using a computer or mobile phone, so there’s no need to have employees commute to the office to collect paper timesheets or clock in and out using a physical punch clock.

What are the different types of time tracking apps?

There are many different types of time tracking apps, and the best type for your business will depend on your specific needs and goals for time tracking. Here are some of the most common types of apps you’ll find on the market:

• Basic time tracking apps: These apps have only the most basic time tracking features. They allow employees to clock in and out and automatically turn that data into timesheets. Those timesheets can be downloaded as reports to use for running payroll.
• GPS time clock apps: These apps have features to help you monitor field employees, such as GPS on punch (capture location data on clock in/out), geofencing (prevent clock-ins/outs when off location), and real-time GPS (track employees’ movements throughout the day).
• Employee monitoring apps: These apps are designed for computer-based and remote employees. In addition to tracking time, they have features like app/URL tracking, automatic screenshots, and idle time detection that help you identify when employees are billing time but not working.
• Project management apps: These apps combine both time tracking and project management features, letting you create complex project plans and task lists. When employees are working on a specific project/task, they can clock into that project/task to track the time they spend working on it.
• Industry-specific apps: While many time tracking apps are designed to work for a broad range of industries, some are more targeted to the needs of individual industries. These may have features like equipment tracking for construction companies or DCAA compliant features for government contractors.

What features should you look for in time tracking apps?

The specific features you’ll want to look for will depend on how you run your business and what problems you’re trying to solve. However, there are some must-have features that every business needs to make sure that their time tracking software provides:

• Automatic timesheets: The apps that will save you the most time and prevent the most payroll errors are those that compile timesheets for you and automatically calculate total regular and overtime hours per employee.
• Time card editing: You’ll want to be able to edit timesheets in the case of missed punches, but you may also want to look for options like duration entry for salaried employees who need to log their hours but don’t actually need to clock in and out.
• Historical time card reports: Staying compliant with federal laws means keeping historical records of employees’ timesheets. You should be aware that some of the free time tracking apps will not let you download timesheet reports or access historical data.
• Payroll transfer: At the very least, you should be able to download reports you can send to your payroll provider. However, you’ll ideally want a solution that integrates with your payroll provider so your timesheet data can be transferred to payroll automatically.

Additionally, while it might seem obvious, you’ll need a way for employees to reliably clock in/out. That means making sure the app you choose accommodates how your employees work: 

• If they work in the field, you’ll need something with mobile apps for on-the-go access.
• If they all work in-person, you may want to set up a time clock kiosk.
• If they don’t have email addresses, you may need to look for an option that lets you create accounts for employees without requiring unique emails for each one.
• If they work in places where internet and cell service is unavailable or unreliable, you’ll need something with offline access.

Consider these the baseline features to expect from even the most basic time tracking apps. Then, you can start to consider the more advanced features you might need, such as GPS tracking, URL monitoring, facial recognition, and automatic time tracking.

The 10 best employee time tracking apps

Now that you you have a better understanding of how employee time tracking software works and what type of solution you need for your business, it’s time to jump into our reviews of the different apps on the market.

Here is a list of the 10 best time tracking apps, including their top features, pricing, customer reviews, and what types of businesses and use cases they’re best for.

1. Buddy Punch

Best overall employee time tracking app

Buddy Punch tops our list for its ease of use, high customer ratings, affordability, and range of features that accommodate both businesses with simple time tracking needs and those with much more stringent requirements.

As simple as you need it to be

If you’re adopting time tracking software for the first time, the best path forward initially is to keep things as simple as possible. An app that has tons of features, requirements, and distractions will likely make it harder to get employees to actually use it, particularly if your employees aren’t particularly tech-savvy.

Buddy Punch can be as simple as you need it to be. When employees log in, they see a big button that says “Punch In” or “Punch Out.” This makes the action they need to take clear and prevents any confusion about what they’re supposed to do.

That clock-in and out data is compiled into timesheets that you or a manager can review and approve, edit, or reject before running payroll. Then, you can download reports for payroll or set up one of Buddy Punch’s integrations with 20 payroll providers like QuickBooks and Gusto.

As complex as you want it to be

If you want to do a lot more than just basic time tracking, Buddy Punch has you covered, too. You can prevent time theft and keep your employees accountable with features like GPS tracking, geofencing, photos on punch, and facial recognition.

You can also use Buddy Punch’s employee scheduling tool to create and distribute work schedules, which opens up a lot more features. Reduce your labor costs by limiting how early employees can clock in before a shift, automatically clocking them out at the end of their shifts, and automatically removing time for unpaid breaks.

And if your employees work at different locations, in different roles, or on different jobs/projects, you can create categories for each of these things. Then, assign employees to the right categories to track the time they spend on each. If they’re assigned more than one, they’re prompted to select the right one when clocking in.

All of these features are optional. Turn on the ones you want to use; leave the ones you don’t disabled. You can even turn features on only for specific employees. For example, if you have someone who you suspect clocks in before they’re at work, you can turn on geofencing for only that specific employee.

Flexible features for all types of businesses and working models

Buddy Punch accommodates all working styles. If your employees work on computers, they can clock in and out using the web app. If they work in the field, they can clock in and out using Buddy Punch’s mobile apps. If they all work in person, you can set up a kiosk that everyone can use to clock in and out.

Employees can clock in and out using a username and password, 4-digit PIN, or QR code. They can also send a text message to clock in and out, or you can have a supervisor clock all employees in and out at the same time using group punch. There’s also single sign-on available through Google, Okta, and OneLogin.

Finally, employees don’t need unique email addresses to be assigned an account in Buddy Punch. If your employees don’t have business emails, you can simply create accounts for them using an administrator’s email address.

Customer reviews

Buddy Punch has an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars across more than 1,000 user reviews on Capterra. Here’s what customers have to say about it:

• “Onboarding and integration were so easy. It’s really easy to customize it to do exactly what you need. Employees love it because it’s so straightforward to use.”
• “The most impressive feature of Buddy Punch is its intuitive interface. The mobile app functionality allows employees to clock in and out, request shift changes, and view their schedules from anywhere, which is particularly useful for remote or field-based teams.”
• “The software has all the features that I currently was using in my spreadsheet — but better as it took human error out of the equation! I gained reports that tally PTO (vacations, sick time, personal time), which I used to have to pull manually from a spreadsheet.”

Pricing

Buddy Punch starts at $4.49 per user per month (administrator users are free) plus a $19 per month base fee — making it one of the most affordable apps on this list for its features.

2. Time Doctor

Best time tracking app for productivity monitoring

Time Doctor is a time and productivity tracking app designed for companies whose employees mostly work on computers. In addition to letting you capture the hours employees work, you can see what employees are doing with their time while billing hours.

Time Doctor has features like app and URL monitoring that let you see what websites employees are spending their time on, automatic screenshots so you can see what they were doing on those sites, and idle detection so you can see when they’re logged in but not actually working.

Additionally, it has the ability to do this monitoring silently, meaning employees won’t know you’re monitoring their activities. This makes it a great choice if you believe time theft is a problem among your team of knowledge workers.

Key features

• Capture screenshots of employees’ screens at regular intervals.
• Identify automated methods of avoiding idle detection.
• Detect when employees are idle while billing time.
• Monitor employees silently so they’re not aware of the monitoring.
• Capture recordings of your employees’ screens while they’re working.

Customer reviews

Time Doctor has an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars on Capterra. Here’s what customers have to say about the platform:

• “As we are a remote team working on different time zones, Time Doctor helps a lot in tracking working hours of each team member. This is beneficial for the company and also helpful for the individual to see what time was spent on.”
• “Time Doctor has been a lifesaver for me. I am a one-person design company and I need to track the time I spend on many different projects all at once. If I forget what I was doing for a client, I can go back and take a quick look through the automatic screenshots.”
• “It’s easy to use, helping individuals and teams monitor tasks accurately. The app goes beyond basic tracking, showing what apps and tools are used. This helps understand how time is spent, making it easy to spot areas for improvement.”

Pricing

Time Doctor starts at $6.70 per user per month and includes timeline reports, screenshots, and offline time tracking.

3. QuickBooks Time

Best time and mileage tracking app

QuickBooks Time comes with features like GPS tracking, mileage tracking, and geofencing that are great for businesses with traveling employees. With it, you can track time and mileage in one place, making it easy to calculate mileage reimbursements and include them in payroll.

QuickBooks Time also supports automatic time tracking based on work schedules or geofencing, where clocking in and out can be triggered by location-based boundaries. Its smartphone apps can record time entries even when employees are offline, syncing the data once reconnected.

And while most of the other tools on this list offer integrations with QuickBooks Online, Desktop, and Payroll, because QuickBooks Time is also an Intuit product, these tools all work together seamlessly with no integration required.

Key features

• Use real-time GPS to track how many miles employees traveled.
• Set up geofences to automatically clock employees in and out.
• Create work schedules for your employees.
• Integrate automatically with QuickBooks Online and Payroll.
• Use its API to create job codes, locations, and geofences in bulk.

Customer reviews

QuickBooks Time has an overall rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars on Capterra. Here’s what customers have to say about the platform:

• “The first highlight of my experience with QuickBooks Time is that I can integrate my QuickBooks accounting software with it. It is very easy to use also and helps me keep track of my team members no matter where I am.”
• “It doesn’t have too much of a learning curve. Our part-time employees can self-report shifts from the different countries they are based in. We use accounting software from the same company, so the integration was smooth.”
• “The ease of access is the greatest strength of this platform. You can add jobs in seconds and make them able to be used. The reporting side of the platform is second to none. You are able to find everything in a few clicks.”

Pricing

It’s important to note that you have to have a QuickBooks Online subscription to use QuickBooks Time. For the first three months of your subscription, QuickBooks Time’s base plan is $8 per user per month plus a $10 per month base fee. After that initial discount, the base monthly fee increases to $20/month.

4. Harvest

Best time tracking app for freelancers

Harvest has a free plan that’s great for self-employed freelancers. With it, you can track your time toward up to two projects, create invoices, and accept payments through PayPal and Stripe. And if you use QuickBooks Online or Xero for accounting, Harvest will also copy any payments you receive to those platforms.

Because Harvest tracks your time by task/project, creating detailed invoices is easy. It essentially copies all of your tasks and time attached to them, calculates the total hours, determines the amount owed, and details all of this information out line-by-line on your client invoices automatically.

As far as tracking your time, Harvest is flexible and comes with handy features that ensure no billable time goes unbilled. You can connect it to your calendar to capture the time you spend in meetings with clients, and you can download its apps for Mac, Windows, iPhone, and Android to easily track time no matter where you’re working.

Key features

• Integrate with project management tools like Asana, Basecamp, and Trello.
• Create detailed invoices instantly using your tracked time data.
• Accept payments via PayPal and Stripe from your Harvest invoices.
• Set up automatic email reminders for unpaid invoices.

Customer reviews

Harvest has an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars on Capterra. Here’s what customers have to say about the platform:

• “The UI is very slick; they’ve really gone deep on how people use the product. Things like keyboard shortcuts and supporting regular vs. decimal time when entering timesheets are a real time saver.”
• “I like drilling down to specific details about a project while tracking my time; Harvest lets me bill to a project and add auto-populated info about what I’m working on so I can report this info to clients.”
• “It’s crucial to have an understanding of how your time is being used in your business, and Harvest makes this easy to do! I love how easy it is to add projects, track retainer clients, and see a project budget at a glance.”

Pricing

Harvest has a free plan that includes time tracking and invoicing for one user and up to two projects. Paid plans start at $11 per seat per month.

5. Clockify

Best free time tracking app

If you need to switch from manual to automatic time tracking but don’t have the budget to spend on a subscription app, Clockify might be the right choice for your business. It has a generous free plan that includes basic time tracking for unlimited team members.

And while free always sounds better than paid, the features you get on Clockify’s free plan are extremely limited and suitable only for very basic time tracking. Team members can clock in and out, their time is collected into timesheets, and you can download timesheet reports at the end of the month for running payroll.

Unfortunately, you aren’t able to customize report downloads on the free plan, and its payroll integrations are only available on its paid plans. 

Other helpful features you’ll find in the free plan include the ability to download Clockify onto a tablet to use it as a time clock kiosk, unlimited projects to track time spent on specific projects and tasks, and integrations with Outlook, Google Calendar, and several project management platforms. 

Key features

• Free basic time tracking for unlimited users.
• Built in Pomodoro timer.
• Timesheet report downloads.
• Integrations with Outlook and Google Calendar.
• Kiosk mode via a shared tablet/computer.

Customer reviews

Clockify has an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars on Capterra. Here’s what customers have to say about the platform:

• “I think my favorite thing about Clockify is that we can use it to track retainers for our clients. We simply put in the tasks with hour limits so that we can track our progress alongside how many hours have already been paid for.”
• “It’s easy to use, helps track time efficiently, and provides valuable insights through detailed reports. It’s a great tool for managing projects and improving productivity.”
• “Built in to my browser, only takes two seconds to select the project, and it’s easy to go back and edit times if needed. I’ve been using the free version for over two years to run my business. I’ve tried others, and keep coming back to Clockify because it is so simple to use.”

Pricing

Clockify’s free plan gives you basic time tracking for unlimited users. Paid plans start at $3.99 per seat per month.

6. Toggl Track

Best time tracking app for small businesses

Like Clockify, Toggl Track also has a free plan. It’s more restrictive than Clockify’s in terms of user count — you can only have up to five users on Toggl Track’s free plan — but you get a lot more features in Toggle Track for those five users than you get in Clockify for unlimited users. This makes it a good option for small businesses.

At its most basic, Toggl Track’s free plan gives you time tracking for five users, timesheets, and timesheet reports. You can also add unlimited projects to track time toward specific projects and tasks.

However, you also get access to much more advanced features. Toggl Track will track time for your employees automatically, sorting time into the proper client projects and tasks based on keywords, applications, or URLs. And if a team member forgets to log time, they can view a timeline to see what they were working on when.

Team members can also track time for multiple employees at once — say if you have multiple people in a meeting — by adding teammates to their time entries. Finally, Toggle Track is an anti-surveillance tool, which means the data it collects is designed to help employees track their time instead of for management to review.

Key features

• Create time entries automatically based on keyword, app, or URL.
• Give employees access to their work history without invading their privacy.
• View a timeline of all activities to get more details on time you forgot to log.
• Attach time to an unlimited number of clients, tasks, and projects.
• Integrate with 100+ project management and payroll apps.

Customer reviews

Toggl Track has an overall rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars on Capterra. Here’s what customers have to say about the platform:

• “I’ve been using it for 5+ years and love it! Easy to use, easy to set up, and helpful for accountability on where your time is going.”
• “There are many ways to view the hours you’ve logged, and you can log hours for multiple organizations with one free account. It’s a very comprehensive app overall.”
• “I have tried a lot of time tracking apps. Some are more feature rich than Toggl, but from my experience, the team at Toggl have figured out a decent balance between complexity and ease of use.”

Pricing

Toggl Track has a free plan for up to five users; paid plans start at $9 per user/month.

7. ClickTime

Best project time tracking app

ClickTime is a project time tracking and resource planning platform designed for professional services businesses and agencies. In addition to tracking employee time overall and against specific clients’ tasks and projects, you can also improve your forecasting and make sure projects stay on budget.

With ClickTime, employees can log their time to either billable or non-billable tasks. Admins and managers can then review those reports to optimize productivity by reducing or eliminating the types of work you can’t bill clients for, such as unnecessary internal meetings.

ClickTime also takes all of your historical data and pairs it with your future plans to help you understand how many employee hours new projects will take to complete, how the hours you’ve worked compared to the hours you estimated you’d need, and how much work each member of your team is assigned.

Key features

• Access detailed burndown reports showing budget vs. billings.
• Get insights into why time/cost estimates and actuals differ.
• Create more accurate budgets based on historical data.
• Plan your team’s capacity to avoid overbooking work.
• Create heavily customized reports using Data Studio.

Customer reviews

ClickTime has an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars on Capterra. Here’s what customers have to say about the platform:

• “ClickTime is very straightforward and easy to use. There are so many types of reports available to run, which is great. We even use the custom report generator for some special reports we need.”
• “It has enabled our IT department to track the level of effort we spend on operational tasks and project activities. We have a far better understanding of where our employees spend their time and are able to make more informed decisions about where to invest our effort.”
• “Very easy to use, great reports to assist you in monthly, quarterly, and yearly information. Employee utilization is great for our company as we work on a bonus program quarterly. The project detail report is fantastic for our clients — easy to see how their billing came together.”

Pricing

ClickTime’s pricing starts at $12 per user per month for up to 25 users and includes time tracking, reports, and email reminders. However, most of the platform’s more unique resource management and budgeting features are only included as part of its $27 per user per month plan.

8. Kimai

Best open source time tracking app

One way to avoid the subscription cost of paying for time tracking software without sacrificing access to features is to use an open-source option that allows for self-hosting. It requires a lot of technical know-how to set up, but if you have that support on your team, Kimai is a good choice.

Kamai has features to support time tracking, project time tracking, invoicing, and expenses. You can create private client portals — which can be shared via unique URL or password-protected — to share project progress with individual clients. It’s also pre-translated into 30+ languages out of the box.

You can also extend the functionality of the platform using plugins — some of which are free and some have a flat-rate cost. And since it’s open source, you can also build anything else you need into the platform. This makes it infinitely customizable to do exactly what you need it to do.

Key features

• Extend the functionality of the platform with plugins and custom code.
• Access an extensive JSON API for reading and writing data.
• Instantly translate all labels and fields in the platform into 30+ languages.
• Login to the platform using SSO via Google Workspace, Authentik, or Azure.
• Self-host the platform to get access to it at no monthly cost.

Customer reviews

Kimai has an overall rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars on Capterra. Here’s what customers have to say about the platform:

• “Easy to set up and relatively easy to use. Quick monthly exports in a variety of formats. Self hosted environments keep your data safe.”
• “It has a simple interface and just works. You can manage everything in an easy way.”
• “An excellent example of lean, straightforward open-source software.”

Pricing

If you choose to self-host Kamai, you can use all of its features for free forever for as many users as you want. If you choose to have Kimai host your instance, prices start at €2.99 (approximately $3.19 USD) per user per month.

9. Memtime

Best automatic time tracking app

Memtime is an automatic time tracking app that tracks time for your employees so they don’t have to remember to clock in and out of projects and tasks throughout the day. It works by tracking the time employees spend in specific programs across the entire workday so they can easily see exactly where all of their time went.

It goes into great detail in these records, showing things like the name of the file you were working in, the subject line of the email you were reading/responding to, or the URL of the website you were viewing. This makes it easy to drop time into project/task buckets at the end of the day so not one minute is unaccounted for.

You can create all of your projects, sub-projects, and tasks in Memtime itself, or you can integrate with project management tools like Asana, MeisterTask, ClickUp, and Wrike. And when it’s time to run payroll and send invoices, you can download time reports in CSV, PDF, or Excel formats or integrate with your accounting or payroll software.

Key features

• Activity tracking timelines are only viewable by individual employees.
• Get a detailed view of every single thing you did over the course of a day.
• Drag and drop activities into project buckets to account for all billable minutes.
• Integrate with your project management tool of choice to auto-sync projects to Memtime.

Customer reviews

Memtime has an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars on Capterra. Here’s what customers have to say about the platform:

• “I love the side-by-side display of the calendar with intra-day activity on the left pane and the right pane that allows you to easily drag-and-drop your project time allocations appropriately. The timesheet is very easy to use for reporting and billing to clients. This has saved me so much time.”
• “I’ve worked on billable time for over 20 years, so I am meticulous about my timekeeping. But on those days where I’m pulled from tasks without notice, Memtime helps me keep track of the time I actually spent on things.”
• “It’s exactly what I need: it’s automatic, you don’t have to think about starting the timer (and obviously forgetting it), and it tracks your online AND offline time. I really like the fact that it records which file you are currently working on.”

Pricing

Memtime’s plans start at €10 (approximately $10.38 USD) per user per month and include automatic time tracking and calendar integrations.

10. Workday

Best enterprise time tracking software

While all of the options above can work for enterprise companies, they’re much more catered to small and midsize businesses, which may make them too simplistic to fill the needs of an extensive organization. So for enterprises, we recommend Workday — a platform built for massive scale.

Workday has time tracking, but that’s just a fraction of the features it offers. It’s essentially a complete HR and finance suite. You can use it to track time, run payroll, do your bookkeeping, conduct employee surveys, manage your spend, hire new employees, and manage your benefits — just to name a few of its features.

Because it’s built primarily for enterprises, Workday also takes a professional services approach to get you up and running with the software. Instead of being handed a login and left to figure out the platform on your own, you’ll have a dedicated team helping you get everything set up and your team onboarded onto the platform.

Key features

• Run payroll for local and global employees.
• Create employee schedules and track time and absences.
• Manage payments to vendors and contingent workers.
• Run robust employee engagement surveys.
• Get access to tools for hiring, onboarding, and retaining employees.

Customer reviews

Workday has an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars on Capterra. Here’s what customers have to say about the platform:

• “Overall, my experience with Workday has been great. It makes tracking payroll, time management, and benefits easier for managers and employees. Once you get used to it, it’s a very helpful tool.”
• “Having all your HR related tasks in one system (time tracking, vacation tracking, performance, learning, employee files, payroll, etc.) make it a one stop system for companies.”
• “Moving to Workday was a big improvement from our previous HR system where we had an account per country, totalling to over 10 accounts.”

Pricing

Pricing for Workday is not publicly available.

Industry-specific options to consider

The apps in the list above are all broadly targeted to employers in all industries. However, if you need something with features catered to your specific industry, here are 11 more options to consider:

• ClockShark – Best construction time tracking app
• LawBillity – Best lawyer time tracking app
• Track It Forward – Best volunteer time tracking app
• Karbon – Best time tracking software for accountants
• Monograph – Best time tracking software for architects
• BigTime – Best professional services time tracking software
• Hellotracks – Best time tracking software for transportation businesses
• QGenda – Best healthcare time tracking software
• HiveDesk – Best call center time tracking software
• FieldClock – Best farm time tracking software
• Hour Timesheet – Best DCAA compliant time tracking software

How to choose the right time tracking app for your business

The first thing you’ll want to do when shopping for time tracking apps is put together a shortlist. Hopefully, the list of options above helped with that. Just start by writing down the names of any options you find interesting. You’ll narrow down the list in the next steps.

Next, you’ll want to compile a list of features you’d like to have. At this stage, just write down anything you think would be helpful. When you’re finished, decide which features on your list are must-haves, and which are nice-to-haves:

• Must-haves are tablestakes, business-critical features that you can’t operate without.
• Nice-to-haves are things that you’d like but don’t absolutely need to operate effectively.

With this list of must-haves and nice-to-haves compiled, you can start narrowing down the options on your shortlist. Look at the features of each tool, and remove any that don’t include your must-haves.

Next is pricing and budget. Determine which of the tools on your list are priced within your budget. Remove any that cost more than what you can afford to spend.

A note on pricing: Make sure to spend extra time validating that the features you need are available at the price you can afford. Pricing for software tends to be intentionally vague, with many apps putting their most desirable features in higher-cost plans. Spend extra time at this stage ensuring the features you need are available at the price you can afford. 

After that, you can start to consider your nice-to-have features. Narrow your list down to three or so options that offer the highest number of features you want at the most reasonable price.

From there, start a free trial and test the apps. You’ll want to make sure that the features work the way you expect them to and that everything you need is available. You might also want to try reaching out to the provider’s support team to make sure they’re responsive when you run into issues and need help.

Following this process, you should be able to find the perfect time tracking app for your team.

Tips on getting your team to start using your new app

In every organization, there are always a few employees who are resistant to change and will have a difficult time adopting a new solution. To ease their anxiety, follow these tips:

• Do a slow roll-out: Instead of introducing the new tool to everyone at once, roll it out first with a few employees who are willing to help. This will help you identify where people are going to run into issues and work out any kinks before everyone is using it.
• Create guidelines and training materials: Employees will abandon time tracking if they don’t understand how to use it. Create short, simple, and clear instructions, and house them somewhere that’s easy for employees to reference.
• Hold training sessions: Host training sessions for all employees before asking them to use the new time-tracking application. Presentations can work, but it’s better to run demos so employees can learn by doing.
• Encourage feedback: Ask your team regularly how they feel about the time tracking app and process. Soliciting feedback makes employees feel heard and helps you optimize your procedures to be more effective.

Finally, make sure to communicate why using the app — and tracking time in general — is important. Reframe the discussion by focusing on the benefits for your employees. 

When employees understand that the ultimate goal is to make sure they’re paid on time and properly, they’ll be much more likely to be willing to adapt to the change.

Best practices for effective time tracking with apps

As you prepare to introduce your new time tracking app to your team, here are some best practices to follow and share to ensure everyone tracks their time properly:

• Ask your team to enable clock-in/out reminders. Forgetting to clock in/out from time to time is inevitable. However, most apps have built-in notifications that can remind employees if they haven’t clocked in/out within a few minutes of their schedules. Getting your team to allow these notifications will help keep your time records accurate.
• Set up guardrails. Most time tracking apps will let you automatically clock anyone out who’s still clocked in at, say, midnight. When someone is clocked out, you get a notification. This can help you prevent paying employees for way too many hours because they forgot to clock out and billed for multiple days straight.
• Use clear labels and descriptions. If you’re creating different jobs, projects, locations, and/or roles for employees to clock into and out of, make sure that the labels and descriptions for each are extremely clear to avoid confusion and time card mistakes.
• Establish a designated point of contact. Make sure your team knows who to contact if they experience issues with the app. Explain when they should reach out to you and when it’s more appropriate to contact the app providers’ support team.
• Encourage real-time time tracking. Waiting until the end of the day to log time to projects is much more likely to produce errors. Encourage your team to track their time across the day as they start and stop working on specific tasks.
• Delegate the effort. Make proper time tracking everyone’s responsibility. Require managers to review and approve their employees’ timesheets and correct any errors. This takes some of the onus off of you and gets managers more involved in encouraging their teams to track their time properly.

Finally, set aside some time at least once a quarter to do a deep review of your reports and processes. Your employee time tracking app will become a powerful source for identifying ways to reduce labor costs, save time, and improve profitability, so make sure you’re taking full advantage of all of its benefits.