Employee time tracking apps can be critical to, well – keeping your team on track. They help accurately track each worker’s time and can help uncover areas to improve efficiencies and profits. The best time tracking apps can also help you improve profits. They help do that by dialing in a number of things with your accounting, like payroll, expense tracking, and client invoices.
Of course, different employee time tracking apps can do different things for different businesses. The toolset you need might not work for a neighboring business, and on the other hand, all the great features in the world won’t amount to much if they don’t solve real problems your business faces.
Below, we’ll cover ten of the best employee time tracking apps, based on industry need, company size, and more. We’ll examine features, price tiers, unique advantages, and ideal businesses or industries for each.
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1
Best employee time tracking app for construction & field services
91 reviews
115 reviews
Workyard is made specifically with the needs of construction firms in mind.
It starts with the unique time tracking needs of distributed project teams.
Next-gen GPS technology and construction time tracking help accurately track when and where each employee is. By recording actual site entry and exit times, Workyard gives owners the transparency they need to know their payroll is accurate.
Workyard is more than just time tracking.
By allowing employees to tag their hours to projects and costs codes, Workyard automatically generates job costs reports that you can view in real-time.
The benefit is getting the information you need to improve profitability through more accurate client invoices and better future bids.
Precise GPS Tracking
Workyard’s advanced GPS time clock app allows you to readily see when workers arrived and left the job site, how many miles they’ve traveled, their exact current location, as well as detailed travel time for previous driving trips.
You can also create highly targeted custom geofencing rules to automate clock-in and clock-out when sending your workers to disparate field locations.
Built-in Job Scheduling
Workyard’s job scheduling functionality allows you to easily create work schedules for your team and communicate exactly what needs to get done with notes, checklists, photos, and documents.
Easy to Use
The Workyard employee time clock app is ideal for busy construction workers since it is simple to use and includes GPS-based reminders to prompt employees to clock in and out. Employees will also be reminded to take obligatory breaks, ensuring that you, as the employer, remain in compliance with any applicable employment laws.
Complete installation takes only a few minutes — seconds for the employee mobile app — and all of your employees can access the app and clock in and out with a few clicks.
Key Features:
- Timesheets
- GPS Tracking
- Geofencing
- Scheduling & Dispatch
- Work Orders
- Project Management
- Overtime & Break Compliance
- Payroll Integrations
- Job Costing
- Invoicing
- Mobile App
Best Suited For:
- Construction & Specialty Contractors
- Oil & Gas
- Manufacturing
- Property Management
Pricing
- Free trial - 14 days (no credit card needed)
- Time Tracking - $6/mo. per user + $50/mo. company fee (paid annually)
- Workforce Management – $13/mo. per user + $50/mo. company fee (paid annually)
- Custom pricing for organizations with more than 50 employees
Try Workyard free for 14 days.
No credit card needed.
2
Best all-in-one time tracking app for freelancers
276 reviews
95 reviews
Bonsai is a great choice for freelancers who charge hourly rates and need to create invoices. This app allows you to track working hours, then bill according to per-hour or per-project rates.
It also supports collaborators if you’re working as part of a freelance team.
Bonsai offers cross platform support, too, with iOS, Android, Mac and Chrome extension support.
All-in-one platform for freelancers
Bonsai is built to provide all-in-one functionality for independent freelancers or small teams they might manage.
This means time tracking is one of many features Bonsai offers, which include…
- Proposals and Contracts
- Bookkeeping and Banking
- Client Relationship Management (CRM)
- Kanban-Style Task / Project Management
Bonsai could therefore be the Swiss Army knife for freelancers, independent consultants, and small creative agencies — capable of doing many things capably, but focused on addressing smaller and more immediate tasks over solving large-scale problems for larger businesses.
Forms for (almost) everyone
Bonsai’s emphasis on serving creative professionals opens up a wide field of opportunities, and their team has done an excellent job building out a form and template library for different use cases in different types of businesses. This benefit should streamline onboarding time for many freelancers, who might otherwise have to customize the minutiae in every contract and form to reflect their brand.
Banking built in
Perhaps unique among the solutions mentioned here is Bonsai’s dedicated financial features, which include its own branded business banking account (!) on top of bookkeeping, invoicing, and payroll-processing functionality. A solo freelancer could build nearly all their business inside Bonsai based on this availability.
However, from a pure time-tracking perspective, Bonsai might not be the best solution for managing teams of employees.
Key Features:
- Timesheets
- Scheduling & Dispatch
- Work Orders
- Project Management
- Payroll Integrations
- Job Costing
- Invoicing
- Mobile App
Best Suited For:
- Tech & IT
- Creative or Professional Services
Pricing
- Starter: $25/mo.
- Professional: $39/mo.
- Business: $79/mo.
3
Best free no-frills employee time tracking app
6 reviews
TopTracker comes from the TopTal platform, one of the top freelancing platforms out there. This is a tool that allows you to track time, screenshots showing activity, and webcam footage to prove that you’re staying on task.
Not only can you use information collected by TopTracker for client billing, but you can also create productivity reports. These reports allow you to track specific activities so that you can examine the way you work to see where improvements can be made.
Invoicing is handled through TopTracker directly, and its partnership with Payoneer allows it to process client payments in-app for freelancers as well.
While Bonsai and TopTracker are both oriented towards freelancers, TopTracker is decidedly not an all-in-one tool — it’s a free app with laser-focused functionality. If you simply need to track every minute you spend on a client project for accurate billing, TopTracker is an effective free option.
TopTracker does not have a dedicated mobile app, however. If you plan to track time while on the go, you may need another solution.
Key Features:
- Timesheets
- Project Management
- Payroll Integrations
- Invoicing
Best Suited For:
- Tech & IT
- Creative or Professional Services
Pricing
- TopTracker is free!
4
Best employee time tracking app for creative teams or agencies
21 reviews
491 reviews
TrackingTime is another app serving creative-services businesses, but unlike Bonsai, it’s optimized for team-based tracking, with built-in compliance rules to help businesses stay on the right side of the labor laws.
It’s built around the needs of project managers looking to monitor a team’s workload.
There is a simple dashboard that gives you an overview of worked hours, plus all tasks currently in progress. It’s easy to assign tasks or communicate with team members within the software.
It offers great cross platform support with Chrome and Firefox extensions and syncing with native Android and iOS apps.
Additional features include the ability to monitor breaks, time off, overtime, and produce final timesheets.
Lots of integrations
One of TrackingTime’s big selling points is its ability to “add time tracking to the apps you use every day,” which extends time-tracking functionality into Microsoft products (365, Teams, Outlook, etc.), Slack, Google’s GSuite (Docs, Cal, Sheets, etc.), and a multitude of project-tracking apps like Trello, Asana, Jira, and the like.
Being able to track employee time while they’re working in one of the various other apps comprising your company’s tech stack could be a great benefit, as it might eliminate a lot of redundancies and manual re-entry issues.
Key Features:
- Timesheets
- Work Orders
- Project Management
- Overtime & Break Compliance
- Mobile App
Best Suited For:
- Tech & IT
- Creative or Professional Services
Pricing
- Free for up to 3 users.
- Pro: $7/mo. per user
- Business: $12/mo. per user
5
Best employee time tracking app for growing creative teams
67 reviews
18K reviews
Toggl was designed with both freelancers and teams in mind. Toggl is a popular choice for software companies, the hospitality industry, and legal service companies.
Toggl Track is part of the Toggl family, which bears some similarities to TrackingTime in terms of its range of features and the businesses it serves. It not only allows you to track hours worked, but helps you see what was worked on. Toggl helps break the workday or the project down into specific subtasks so that you can track time spent on each.
From there, you can generate reports to gain insights into time spent on various tasks throughout the week or month.
Toggl allows you to manage time across your entire team—and will even generate invoices based on collected time data.
Tools for growing businesses
Toggl’s range of products, which include Toggl Track, Toggl Plan, and Toggl Hire, seem built to serve creative businesses that don’t plan to be small forever. However, unlike Bonsai’s all-in-one toolkit, Toggl’s separate products appear to be offered with separate pricing structures.
This separation could make Toggl Track a good introduction for smaller teams, which can then easily add the project-management features of Toggl Plan as their teams grow, with Toggl Hire adding important applicant-screening features as companies ramp up their hiring.
Browser extensions and automations
Like TrackingTime, Toggl has a wide range of integrations that make it easier for teams to track time worked while bouncing among the various apps used to get projects across the finish line. Its browser extension library is quite, well, extensive — over 130 popular cloud-based apps, from Asana to GitLab, can work through simple plugins installed onto a user’s Chrome browser.
Key Features:
- Timesheets
- Project Management
- Payroll Integrations
- Job Costing
- Mobile App
Best Suited For:
- Tech & IT
- Creative or Professional Services
Pricing
- Free: up to 5 users.
- Starter: $10/mo. per user
- Premium: $20/mo. per user
- Enterprise: custom pricing for larger organizations
6
Best employee time tracking app for payroll integrations
117K reviews
31K reviews
QuickBooks’ employee time tracking app is designed to be used by companies in a wide range of industries. It’s simple to use, and employees can clock in and out with a few clicks from any device with an internet connection. Since it’s part of the Intuit QuickBooks family of products, it’s used by millions and also integrates seamlessly with other QuickBooks software.
Easy and secure clock-in on any device
Employees can clock in and out using any device and their unique PIN with the QuickBooks employee time clock app. It’s simple, quick, and efficient, with extra security features like photo capture.
Employees will typically use the companion mobile app (QuickBooks Workforce) or the Time Kiosk app — which typically runs on tablets set up on-site — to clock in and out. You can prevent time theft and buddy punching in your company by adding features like photo capture and a unique PIN for each employee.
Simple employee scheduling
You can quickly create and share schedules, adjust plans, cover shifts, and guarantee a smooth timetable using the QuickBooks time clock app. Added notifications will alert you if any of the employees are late or absent, and every employee will receive notifications if the schedule changes.
Key Features:
- Timesheets
- GPS Tracking
- Geofencing
- Scheduling & Dispatch
- Overtime & Break Compliance
- Payroll Integrations
- Mobile App
Best Suited For:
- Construction & Specialty Contractors
- Manufacturing
- Healthcare
- Retail
- Property Management
- Tech & IT
- Creative or Professional Services
Pricing
- Premium: $20/mo. base fee, plus $8 per user/mo.
- Elite: $40/mo. base fee, plus $10 per user/mo.
7
Best employee time tracking app for distributed / hybrid workforces
28 reviews
123 reviews
Time Doctor is all about reducing the amount of time wasted on a day-to-day basis—and it’s designed with teams in mind.
This is an app that provides pop-up alerts when you surf into time-wasting websites, and it gives you time tracking tools to monitor productivity.
Daily time reports allow you to set metrics for you and your team, which gives you a target to try to beat each day.
Office, hybrid, or remote?
Time Doctor is one of the few time-tracking products specifically oriented around the different ways teams work today — its “best for” pages focus on remote, hybrid, and in-office teams as well as industries like tech or call centers.
This focus could make it a helpful addition to the toolkit of managers who must handle teams coming and going to and from the office, with features like proof-of-work reporting to keep hybrid employees honest.
Key Features:
- Timesheets
- Scheduling & Dispatch
- Work Orders
- Overtime & Break Compliance
- Payroll Integrations
- Mobile App
Best Suited For:
- Tech & IT
- Creative or Professional Services
Pricing
- Basic: $7/mo. per user
- Standard: $10/mo. per user
- Premium: $20/mo. per user
8
Best employee time tracking app for service businesses billing hourly
1.1K reviews
2.7K reviews
Harvest is great for consultants, IT, and engineering teams looking to track attendance and productivity.
Harvest offers options to start and stop timers while working or fill in timesheets at the end of the day. It also works on both desktop and mobile platforms, providing workers with reminders to track their time.
One of the key features that Harvest offers is integrations with popular apps like Google, Google Calendar, Outlook and more.
This includes browser extensions and other flexible ways to integrate. All aimed at making it easy for workers to work their own way—and still keep track of their time.
Harvest also gives you tools to analyze the big picture. You can look at overall project progress, zoom in to look at task details, and keep track of your team’s work capacity.
These reporting tools also provide options for tracking budgets to make sure that you stay on track. And since Harvest was originally built around invoicing (I used it as a freelancer), its tracking and analytics tools make it easy to accurately bill clients and collect payments from them.
Key Features:
- Timesheets
- Project Management
- Payroll Integrations
- Invoicing
- Mobile App
Best Suited For:
- Construction & Specialty Contractors
- Tech & IT
- Creative or Professional Services
Pricing
- Free for 1 user
- Pro: $12/mo. per user
9
Best employee time tracking app for a single location
1.9K reviews
1.9K reviews
Clockify lets you use any smart device with an internet connection as a time clock kiosk. The software is simple to set up and use, and could be especially helpful for businesses working out of a single location — but Clockify does have a GPS tracking feature for distributed field teams as well.
Employees can clock in and out, take breaks, and ensure shift coverage in real-time with just a few clicks.
On top of its other strong features, the Clockify app also has a range of reporting features to help you assess employee productivity and payroll costs, and also allows you to export timesheets for payroll and process them further.
Precise and Easy Time Tracking
With the Clockify app, any device can become a kiosk for logging in and out and precise time tracking. It’s easy to use and will automatically track the hours of all employees, note breaks, and allow them to clock in and out with just a couple of clicks.
Clock In/Clock Out Made Easy
Employees can effortlessly clock in and out and access their accounts from anywhere using their unique PIN. Your employees can devote more time to patients and less time to paperwork and complex systems with efficient time tracking and quick clocking in and out.
Key Features:
- Timesheets
- GPS Tracking
- Scheduling & Dispatch
- Payroll Integrations
- Mobile App
Best Suited For:
- Construction & Specialty Contractors
- Oil & Gas
- Manufacturing
- Healthcare
- Retail
- Property Management
- Tech & IT
- Creative or Professional Services
Pricing
- Basic: $4.99/mo. per user
- Standard: $6.99/mo. per user
- Pro: $9.99/mo. per user
- Enterprise: $14.99/mo. per user
10
Best employee time tracking app for collaborative service businesses
51 reviews
634 reviews
TimeCamp comes with a lot of features that make it ideal for small businesses.
It starts with automatic time tracking that scans your apps for activity to log hours worked. From there, you can generate profitability analysis reports to gain insights into productivity.
Spending too much time on meetings or too much money on a particular item? This app allows you to zero in on these things and correct them.
TimeCamp also gives you the ability to track billable work, approve timesheets with one click, and generate client invoices.
On top of that, it also integrates with lots of apps—Google, Outlook, and Asana to name a few.
Key Features:
- Timesheets
- GPS Tracking
- Geofencing
- Invoicing
- Mobile App
Best Suited For:
- Construction & Specialty Contractors
- Manufacturing
- Tech & IT
- Creative or Professional Services
Pricing
- Free tier (no user limits)
- Starter: $3.99/mo. per user
- Premium: $6.99/mo. per user
- Ultimate: $10.99/mo. per user
Frequently Asked Questions About Employee Time Tracking Apps
“Best” will always be a subjective judgment that requires you to answer at least a few questions about your business needs:
- How many employees do you need to track?
- How many locations do your employees work from?
- Do your employees need to travel to different locations to do their jobs?
- Are your employees scheduled in shifts, regular hours, or via other methods?
- What other key features do you need from your employee time clock app?
- GPS tracking
- Timesheet reporting
- Scheduling
- Dispatching
- Job and/or labor costing
- Compliance rules
- Payroll integrations
- Other business management features
As many time clock apps are optimized for certain industries or business types, you’re likely to do best with an app built to serve your specific niche and use case(s). Make sure you check user reviews to see what other professionals in similar positions think about any app you might want to use!
Most employee time tracking apps offer free tiers, either as a trial or for a limited number of users.
If all you need is basic (but accurate) employee time tracking functionality, you might want to try TopTracker or TimeCamp, neither of which place per-user limits on their free tiers.
Some employee time clock apps are better than others at accurately tracking employee hours worked. As with other answers in this FAQ, the “best” choice for your business will typically depend on your needs and use case.
For example, Workyard excels at tracking construction and field service employee hours, particularly if those employees visit different worksites as part of their ongoing responsibilities.
If your business is more focused on providing creative services on an hourly or project basis, many of the apps in our list could help. Toggl Track has a solid feature set for companies that expect to grow, while TrackingTime seems more focused around extending time-tracking functionality into other apps your team uses regularly.
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