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August 6, 2013 | 4-minute read (747 words)
Originally published in LifeHack.
Ask The Entrepreneurs is a regular series where members of those involved in the Young Entrepreneur Council are asked a single question that aims to help Lifehack readers level up their own lives, whether in a area of management, communication, business or life in general.
Here’s the question posed in this edition:
What’s your favorite tool for tracking employee/contractor time and why? (If it is your own tool, please make that clear in your answer.)
1. TrackSmart
TrackSmart (www.tracksmart.com) is free unless you have more than 20 employees. Also, it does more than just track time: with TrackSmart, employees can log in and schedule a request for vacations or other personal time off. It also comes with excellent technical support.
- Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance
2. eBillity
We use eBillity (www.ebillity.com) as an app (it can also be used as “standalone” software). We love it because of its great features and ease of use. It syncs seamlessly with QuickBooks (www.quickbooks.intuit.com), both QB Premier and QB Enterprise. You can restrict which rates/customers your invited vendors can see. Their great reports can be exported to Excel or as a PDF, and the weekly time entry tool shows you the entire week entered.
- David Ehrenberg, Early Growth Financial Services
3. FreshBooks
FreshBooks (www.freshbooks.com) makes it very simple to track contractor hours. The company is about 10 years old, and it’s worked out all the kinks to create a simple user interface. Two features make it a must-have. First, contractors can bill directly from FreshBooks, which gives me comfort that there wasn’t an error during manual entry. Second, the product is available across most platforms, which facilitates tracking.
- Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches
4. iDoneThis
DoneThis (idonethis.com) helps our team plan projects, see exactly who’s doing what and record our progress as a team. This way, we can all monitor what’s going on, rather than just “the boss” knowing, which helps efficiency and teamwork.
- Nicolas Gremion, Foboko.com
5. Trust
We have a totally flexible schedule and no vacation policy at Greatist because we completely trust each other to get our work done. We work extraordinarily hard, but we also recognize the balance of going to the gym and taking breaks. We know that getting enough sleep makes us better at our work!
- Derek Flanzraich, Greatist
6. JIRA
We are a computer software company, and I’m only recommending this to other small- to medium-sized software companies. We manage all of our software tasks in JIRA (www.atlassian.com/software/jira/overview), and the “Tempo” plugin enables time reporting for all of our software development tasks. I have a 10-user pack, so all of my contractors use the system for both their task lists and time tracking. It’s hosted, inexpensive and customizable.
- Robert Strazzarino, College Scheduler LLC
7. Productivity
I like to measure productivity, not time. I don’t want to force my contractors to give me screen captures, however, I do expect regular updates. If they aren’t working at the pace I expect, I will communicate that up front, instead of getting upset.
- Patrick Curtis, WallStreetOasis.com
8. ClientSpot
ClientSpot (www.myclientspot.com) has been a great tool for solving this problem. It does everything we need for a very reasonable price. The key for us was tracking time on projects and doing it cost-effectively, and this did it!
- Andrew Angus, Switch Video
9. oDesk
oDesk is an oldie, but a goody (www.odesk.com). We use this for our entire team, or times when we have to hire out for special projects. It’s known for a reason, and well worth the investment.
- Benji Rabhan, MorrisCore
10. TimeFox
My favorite tool for tracking employee/contractor time is TimeFox (www.functionfox.com/products.aspx): a high-quality project management software that uses actions and deadlines as a way to overview and track your employees’ assignments and due dates.
- Zach Cutler, Cutler Group
What tools do you use to track employee or contractor time? Tell us about it in comments below.
The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world's most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program.
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