Top 3 time tracking software for small business in 2023

How can time tracking transform your small business?

Time tracking offers numerous benefits to small businesses, from increased productivity to better resource management. In this blog post, we explore the advantages of time tracking for small businesses and review some of the best time tracking apps available, including Timely
and Harvest.

By the end of this post, you will have a better understanding of how time tracking can help you improve your business operations and increase profitability.

What are the benefits of time tracking for small businesses?

Productivity

Time tracking logs can bring significant benefits to small businesses by providing them with valuable insights into how their employees spend their time. With accurate time tracking data, businesses can identify time-wasting activities, streamline workflows, and allocate resources more efficiently.

It also helps in setting realistic goals, better time management, and scheduling. By understanding how time is spent, small businesses can make data-driven decisions that improve productivity and ultimately lead to increased profitability.

Accountability & transparency 

Using time tracking allows small businesses to improve their accountability and transparency, by providing clear records of the time spent on different tasks or projects. This can help to ensure that employees are meeting their deadlines and that projects are progressing as planned.

It can also identify areas where improvements can be made, such as reducing wasted time or increasing productivity. Time tracking can provide small businesses with a transparent way to monitor progress and ensure that everyone is held accountable for their work, which can improve communication and trust between employees, managers, and clients.

Billing clients accurately 

If you’re hoping to improve your accuracy with client billing, look no further! By tracking the time spent on specific tasks or projects, businesses can provide clients with detailed invoices that reflect the exact amount of time worked.

This can help to prevent underbilling or overbilling, which can damage client relationships and impact the business's revenue. Overall, accurate time tracking can improve client satisfaction, increase revenue, and streamline business operations.

Capacity & resource management 

Time tracking can be highly beneficial for small businesses in terms of capacity and resource management. By tracking employee time and activities, business owners can gain insight into how long tasks take to complete, identify inefficiencies in their workflow, and better allocate resources to improve productivity.

This helps businesses optimize their capacity and resources, ensuring that they can meet customer demands and deadlines, while also reducing wastage and improving profitability. 

Additionally, time tracking can help small businesses monitor employee performance, identify
areas for improvement, and reward high-performing employees, leading to better team morale and retention.

Profitability 

Another incentive for small businesses to use time tracking is the profitability that comes with it. By tracking time, businesses can identify which tasks are taking up too much time and adjust accordingly, leading to increased efficiency and productivity.

This can result in cost savings, as less time is wasted on unproductive tasks. Time tracking also allows for more accurate billing, ensuring that businesses are properly compensated for their time and effort.

By having a better understanding of where time is being spent, small businesses can make informed decisions about resource allocation and improve their overall profitability.

What are the best time tracking apps for small businesses?

Harvest

Pros:

1. Time savings: Harvest can help you save time by automating the time tracking process and generating invoices quickly.
2. Improved accuracy: Harvest tracks time accurately, reducing the likelihood of overbilling or underbilling clients.
3. Better project management: Harvest also provides project management features that allow you to track the progress of your projects and ensure that you stay on track.

Cons:

1. Cost: Harvest can be expensive, especially for small businesses or freelancers.
2. Limited reporting: Harvest's reporting capabilities are more limited.
3. Lack of flexibility

Cost

• Harvest will cost you $12 per person per month!

Clockify

Pros:

1. Ease: Clockify provides easy time tracking and project management.
2. Flexibility: Clockify is also available as a mobile app.
3. Productivity: Clockify provides team productivity insights which are fantastic for optimising a team’s working hours.

Cons:

1. Limitations: there are limited features and integrations in the free plan version of Clockify. There is also limited customization options for reports
2. Lack of Automation: manual clock-ins.

Cost

• Clockify costs $7.99 per user per month if you buy the most popular pro-option.

Timely

You’ve already guessed it! 

Pros:

1. Time analytics: Detailed reports to maximize billable hours and productivity.
2. Integrations: Track time across all tools in your tech stack to gain valuable insights.
3. AI: Timely tracks time spent in every web and desktop app automatically for you.

Cons:

1. No free version
2. Fewer mobile features

Cost:

Paying monthly

• The Starter package is $11 each month.
• To use the unlimited version of Timely, which includes all features and capacity, you will pay $28 each month.

Paying yearly

• The Starter package drops to just $9 a month. 
• The unlimited is also discounted to a fantastic price of $22 a month

How can using time tracking worksheets help your small business?

There are a range of time tracking apps available with different features that can benefit your small business! To recap this blog post:

1. Time tracking can provide significant benefits for small businesses in terms of productivity, accountability, transparency, billing accuracy, capacity, resource management, and profitability.
2. Small businesses love time tracking apps for easy invoicing, resource allocation, project management, and integrations features.
3. There’s a wide range of time tracking apps on the market today, and choosing the software that is right for you depends on the business you’re using it for!

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