Time Tracking – Time Tracking Software Reviews

Punchtime Time Tracking App

Intelligent Time Sheets in the Cloud

Punchtime is a SAAS solution for businesses to keep track of employee time & location.

Punchtime app is installed on the employees smartphones, all the data gets pushed to the Punchtime cloud
The employer can access all the time & location data with any smartphone, tablet or desktop
iOS app is available in the app store. The service works on all other platforms using any web client that supports HTML5. Android app is currently in development.

Key Points

Well designed, easy to use
Quick signup, no contract
Affordable, starts at $3 a month per employee
Integrates with existing payroll packages to help automate payroll
Supports Geo-fencing (automatic clock in/out)
Dashboard with project management features (time spent per job, total travel time, average start and end times etc.. )
Sent automated notification to employees when entering specific location or work area

Packages

3$ a month per employee

Time & Location data
Automatically calculates hours for payroll

$9 a month per employee

Geofencing
Project management features
On site notifications
Integration with accounting and payroll systems

Why is Punchtime on an invite only basis?

We are currently testing Punchtime with a group of companies. Our invite process allows us to be selective with our first batch of users. During this time, we are working closely with these companies and welcoming feedback, bug reports and feature request before opening sign up to the general public.

Learn more on their web site: punchtimeapp.com

Harvest Time Tracking Tips

Here’s a 5 minute long video from the folks at Harvest detailing some of the nuances of time tracking on the Harvest platform. Learn more about Harvest here.

I’ve been using Harvest since October, 2012, and love it! I create over 500 separate time entries every month by tracking my time religiously. I love tracking my time, and it makes me more productive. It’s like having a little boss over there telling me I should keep on task, and be productive.

I use the Mac desktop client, which you can learn about on the Harvest web site. A couple of interesting things to note about the Mac app:

You can minimize it and track time exclusively from the menu bar at the top of the screen, if you want.
I usually keep the window open, which gives me greater ability to start and stop timers, edit descriptions, and see the rest of my time entries for the day.
Speaking of day: it gives you a whole-view of your day! So, at the end of the day, you can review all of your time entries and see exactly where your day went, and how many hours you worked.

Things I wish the Mac app did:

Displayed how much money I have earned that day. While it does show me the hours I have worked on that particular day, it doesn’t show me the revenue earned. That would be nice, although I can easily gather that information on the Harvest web app.
Remembered the last time entry description for each project category (I’ve written about this before).
Show me the gaps in my day. Currently, Harvest only shows me time entries, but doesn’t tell me that I missed a 15 minute block of time between two time entries.

And here is a quick video detailing their iPhone app, which works really well. I’ve used it a bunch of times to compliment the Mac App.

My favorite thing about Harvest is the desktop application for Mac. Ever since converting to using a Mac a little over two years ago I’ve longed for a native desktop application, and Harvest really delivers.

It did take me a little bit of time to get used to the differences in Harvest. I’ve emailed them with recommendations, and even posted some of them here, but I’ve gotten used to the way it works and it works great with my workflow.

Anyways, that’s my 5 minute review. I must say, if it wasn’t for the Mac app, I’d have looked at using a different system. It’s critical to my usage.

Harvest Mac App

I’ve been using the Harvest time tracking service for about 10 months now (since October), after switching to it from a desktop application for time tracking.

I have to say, I love it!

I primarily use the Mac App, which is featured in the video above. It interfaces with the web site (which I rarely use except to add projects, clients, and run reports).

A couple of things that I would recommend they improve:

1. An option to set the start time immediately after my previous entry. Use case: I stopped my previous time entry, and accidentally let 15 minutes go by before starting my time and now I want an easy way to set the start time to be immediately after my last time entry ended. See this screenshot.

2. Show gaps in my day in a different color, and allow me to assign those to another entry. I’d like to be able to see where there are gaps in the time sheet entries from my day (either a new one, or the previous or next entries). For example, see this screenshot.

3. Have it so that it remembers my last description so I don’t have to re-type it if I want to only make a minor change. I’ve managed to figure this one out: Just click start on a previous entry, and then if you want to leave it alone, it will keep the time entry notes.

4. When entering time manually, allow me to enter the duration, not just the start/end times. Sure would be nice to be able to just enter “1 hr” rather than having to enter a specific start time and end time.