Timesheets may seem like an antique in the modern workplace, but they’re still around for a good reason. Back in the day, companies used them to make it easier to track who came to work and when. In the end, everyone got paid fairly, and people had extra motivation to clock in and out on time.
In the modern age, there are no machines where you’d punch in and out instead, we have online timesheets. Besides tracking time, they do a whole bunch of other tasks, making them useful for business owners of all sizes, as well as freelancers.
Why online timesheet apps?
There are a few reasons why you’d want to create and track your timesheets online.
First, it’s easy to sync different accounts and devices in real-time. No matter where you or your employees are, you can get accurate timesheets in a single online dashboard.
Online timesheets are more accurate, and you don’t have to do any more time clock rounding. You’ll get the precise work time for each employee by the second, so you can pay them exactly for the time they worked.
Moreover, an online timesheet app such as Timely integrates with a variety of other tools. For example, connecting project management tools with timesheet apps lets you track time for specific tasks, clients, or types of work.
In short, they’re ideal for any modern company’s tech stack. Let’s go through the very best online timesheet app in 2023.
Timely
Tracking time takes more time from your day, which is kind of ironic. But not with Timely - you can save up to 75% of tracking time admin work by using our app. Whether you want to use it as a freelancer to track your time for clients or to create timesheets for your employees, Timely does it all.
And the one thing that sets it apart from other time-tracking tools is that there is no invasion of privacy. No employee will have anything on their device that records their screen, monitors their clicks and keyboard activity, or anything similar.
The best part about Timely is that it’s automatic. Once your employees create an account, all they need to do is start the timer and stop when they’re done. Timely automatically breaks down the time spent in each app.
And if you want even more details across different apps and tools, Timely has plenty of integrations and open APIs that let you have full control of your workflow. Asana, Basecamp, Github, Google Calendar, Airtable, Jira, and Hubspot — are just some of the many supported tools in Timely.
Creating timesheets has never been easier. You’ll know exactly how much time your employees spend on each task so you can pay them by the second rather than relying on old-school time clock rounding methods.
Timely pricing starts at $9 per user per month, giving you access to up to 50 projects at a time with up to 3 teams.
Clockify
Although fairly new to the market compared to some other entries here, Clockify has quickly made a name for itself. This app is fairly intuitive, which is one of the reasons it amassed more than a million users so quickly.
Now, when it comes to timesheets, Clockify is good but not the best. Your employees can track their time on their own on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. As you invite them to the app, you also add the types of tasks (i.e., you create a predetermined task list) they will be doing.
When you need to create a timesheet for these employees, they’ll have to add their tracked time and tasks to a new timesheet manually. If you’re trying to lift the burden from your employees, this is not the most intuitive solution. It’s pretty complex compared to some of the more automated ones in this article.
The paid plans start at $3.99 per user per month, but timesheets are only available starting from $5.49 per user per month. There’s a free trial available as well.
Toggl Track
Besides Timely, Toggl Track is the only other tool on this list that is strictly against any form of employee surveillance, which earns them plenty of brownie points. The app has a great user experience and caters to employees as much as businesses — as Toggl aims to increase product adoption.
When it comes to timesheets, there’s no need to do anything manually in Toggl. Just launch the time, and you can stop it and start it again on your desktop, mobile app, or web browser.
All the time tracking data for your timesheets is logged in a central dashboard. You can even set requirements for your employees for their time to be counted towards a timesheet, such as belonging to a certain project or task.
Toggl Track has a pretty good forever free plan, but only for up to 5 users at a time. Paid plans start at $9 per user per month and give you almost all of their options and features, including timesheets.
Hubstaff
This app has been around for a while, and it’s renowned both for its time tracker and its talent marketplace. Hubstaff has several features that make it handy for freelancers, agencies, and business owners alike.
The timesheets are pretty advanced and give you options such as setting weekly budgets for your teams based on employment rates and hours, making different timesheet settings per user, creating timesheet approval flows, and locking up timesheets to prevent further editing.
The not-so-cool thing about Hubstaff is that you can also use it to monitor your employees. This entails getting screenshots of their screen at random intervals, checking whether they’re idle or not, and what kind of pages they’re visiting during working hours.
The good news is that you can use timesheets even in the free Hubstaff plan. Paid ones start at $5.83 per user per month, giving you access to just one integration, but hey — unlimited screenshots.
Timecamp
Although not as well known as some of its competitors, Timecamp is moving through the ranks thanks to its UX and ease of use. Start the tracker once, and Timecamp figures out on its own what you were doing and breaks up your time according to apps. When you’re idle, the time tracker gets turned off. Simple as that.
When it comes to timesheets, you can create and approve them with ease, be it daily or weekly. It’s possible to add comments to timesheets, as well as lock them up once done, to prevent further editing. You can also send out reminders in case one or more employees forget to send in their timesheets for the week.
Creating daily and weekly timesheets is possible even in the forever-free plan. However, you’ll have to get a paid plan to start using timesheet approvals.
Scoro
If you’ve ever wanted more than just tracking time, Scoro is going to be right up your alley. All of the apps so far were created for time tracking, and this one is built for “end-to-end work management”.
In other words, this means adding things like project management, sales CRM, detailed reporting and dashboards, finance reports (based on tracked time and projects), and more.
Having said all of that, the timesheet feature is not the smoothest experience, especially when you consider some other entrants on this list. Anyone can access their timesheet, but to view it properly and export it, you need to do a bit of tinkering to find the right setup. And after that initial work, you’ll have to manually edit your timesheet each and every time you want to do something with it.
Given its rich feature set, it’s not surprising that Scoro prices start at $26 per user per month - considerably more expensive than the competition. The minimum you can add to your team is 5 people, so prices actually start at $130 per month. For just tracking time and doing timesheets, there are better and cheaper tools. However, if you want one tool to do it all, this just might be a great deal.
Harvest
Simplicity is the name of the game with Harvest. Launch this app on your desktop, mobile, or browser and start tracking time in a single click. No complex workflows, approvals, project management, or any of the fancy features in the other tools.
Creating a timesheet is relatively simple but you don’t get any of the advanced options in the tools mentioned above. The one highlight we have to give to Harvest is that it has quite a few integrations with some apps such as Asana, Slack, Stripe, Trello, Zapier, Zendesk, and many others.
The forever free plan is great if you’re tracking time on your own, as you’re limited to one seat and two projects. To unlock full features and unlimited time tracking, you’re going to pay $10.80 per seat per month for Harvest.
Jibble
This is the new kid on the block, and with such fierce competition, you can expect a great offer from them as they’re itching for a breakthrough. The way Jibble plans to do this is with pricing. They have a forever-free plan that gives you some great features that you can use entirely free.
These include automated timesheets, geofencing, GPS time tracking with a mobile kiosk, and biometric verification (with face ID or a PIN code). Special attention was paid to the mobile version of the app, and it lets you easily view and access timesheets on the go. This makes for a great solution for remote employees or those who work away from the office for specific tasks.
While the free plan really is generous, it’s also limited. You can’t add as many users and admins as you want and you can’t track time according to task, project, or client.
Paid plans start at just $1.99 per user per month. However, you’re going to have to pay $3.99 per user per month for the Ultimate plan to get the really good features.
Wrapping up
Timesheets are not yet extinct and with online timesheet apps like these, they won’t be any time soon. They’re a great way to track expenses, manage your budget, get an insight into your team’s performance and just make sure you’re running a tight ship.
Choosing an online timesheet app is no small feat — you need something you can trust with your work, your employees’ livelihood, and your clients’ budgets.
