Finding the best time tracking solution for an accounting practice can be challenging.
In this post, we review the top time tracking software options specifically for accountants, comparing features, integrations, and pricing to help you make an informed decision.
You'll learn key considerations when evaluating time tracking tools for your firm, see side-by-side comparisons of leading solutions, and get actionable recommendations to boost productivity.
Introduction
Time is an accountant's most valuable asset. Tracking time ensures that both the accounting professional and client are on the same page regarding project scope, budgets, and value delivered.
With the right time tracking solution in place, accounting teams can seamlessly record time worked down to the minute, generate insightful analytics to showcase their productivity, and integrate with popular accounting software to directly feed timesheets into client invoices. This saves accountants hours otherwise lost to manual processes while demonstrating accountability through accurate time logs.
Some key features to look for in time tracking tools catered for the accounting profession include:
- Robust time analytics providing visual breakdowns of time allocation across clients, projects, tasks, and more to pinpoint inefficiencies
- Flexible entry options via desktop and mobile to log time conveniently in or out of office
- Two-way sync integrations with accounting systems like QuickBooks to directly pull logged hours into invoices with no duplicative data entry
- Easy-to-use interfaces requiring minimal training for rapid firmwide adoption
- Custom reporting and bill preparation functionalities to quickly compile professional timesheets and invoices
Equipping themselves with specialized time tracking technology allows today's accountants to not only recover revenue leakage from poor time capture, but reinforce trust and transparency with clients by substantiating billed hours. Streamlining otherwise manual processes, quality software solutions give accounting teams back their most scarce resource - time.
How do accountants track their time?
As an accountant, accurately tracking your time is crucial for measuring productivity, ensuring proper client billing, and streamlining practice management. Rather than tracking time manually, it's highly advisable to use reliable accounting-specific time tracking software.
Key features to look for:
- Project tracking: Easily track time on a per-project basis across multiple clients
- Integrations: Seamlessly integrate with popular accounting platforms like QuickBooks
- Invoicing: Generate detailed invoices directly from recorded time logs
- Reporting: Gain insights into productivity, profitability, capacity planning
Best practices:
- Log time concurrently: Record time as you work to avoid forgetting billable hours
- Add descriptions: Indicate client name, work performed, dates to provide transparency
- Classify tasks: Mark time entries as billable, administrative, personal
- Review weekly: Evaluate hours worked to identify capacity gaps or improvements
Rather than piecing together various tools, purpose-built solutions like Vintti provide accountants an all-in-one platform to efficiently track time, invoice clients, monitor productivity, and streamline practice management. By leveraging the right software, accountants can focus on client work rather than manual administrative tasks.
What is the free accounting software for tracking time?
Free time tracking software provides a way to monitor how much time is being spent on tasks and projects without incurring software costs. Many options exist for free time tracking tools, most offering basic functionality like manual time entry, tagging, and reporting.
Some popular free time tracking tools include:
- Clockify - A free online time tracker with features like productivity metrics, invoicing, and integrations. Good for freelancers, agencies, and small teams.
- Toggl Track - A simple but full-featured free time tracking app with flexible reports and idle tracking. Useful for understanding where your time goes.
- TimeCamp - Free time tracking software with automated time capture, project management features, and integrations. Ideal for remote teams.
- TrackingTime - Free browser-based time tracking with tagging, analysis, and reporting. Easy for tracking time without installing software.
- Deputy - Free online employee scheduling software with basic time tracking functionality built-in. Useful for shift-based teams.
- Paymo - Project management software with free time tracking and reporting tools. Helpful for monitoring time across projects.
The free versions of these time tracking apps provide the core functionality required for basic time monitoring and analysis. While advanced features usually require upgraded paid plans, free users can still track time entries manually, categorize activities with tags or projects, and run reports on where their time was spent. For budget-conscious users like freelancers or solopreneneurs, free time tracking tools often provide sufficient capabilities.
What software would accountants use?
Intuit's QuickBooks Online is one of the most popular accounting software platforms used by small businesses and accounting professionals. As a cloud-based solution accessible via web browser or mobile app, it offers convenient access to essential accounting features.
However, while QuickBooks excels at core accounting tasks like invoicing and reporting, it lacks sophisticated time tracking capabilities. For accountants who bill clients hourly or need to track project budgets, dedicated time tracking software is essential.
Leading solutions like Harvest, Paymo, and Toggl seamlessly integrate with QuickBooks while providing robust time tracking and reporting functionality. Key features include:
- Automatic time capture via desktop and mobile apps
- Productivity metrics like billable hours and utilization rates
- Project budgeting tools
- Customizable invoices and reports
- Integrations with CRMs, payroll, and other systems
Specialized time tracking platforms empower accountants to closely monitor productivity, ensure accurate client billing, optimize staffing, forecast cash flow, and make data-driven decisions. When integrated with QuickBooks Online, these solutions become even more powerful.
By leveraging purpose-built time tracking software, accounting professionals can maximize efficiency, profitability, and client satisfaction. The best solutions fit seamlessly into existing workflows while providing enhanced visibility through robust analytics.
What software do accountants use when working?
Accountants use a variety of software solutions to manage their workload and ensure accuracy and efficiency. The most common types of software used are:
Time Tracking Software
Time tracking software is crucial for accountants to record billable hours and ensure proper client billing. Popular options like TimeCamp, Harvest, and Toggl allow easy time entry via desktop and mobile apps. Key features include automatic time capture, productivity monitoring, and integrations with accounting, invoicing, and payroll systems. Using time tracking software improves payroll accuracy, optimizes schedules, and provides insights to boost productivity.
Accounting Software
Accounting platforms like QuickBooks and Xero help manage tasks like invoicing, reporting, tax preparation, and more. Their dashboards centralize financial data with real-time visibility into cash flow, profits and losses, account reconciliation, and other metrics. Built-in customization, automation, and integration capabilities streamline workflows. As QuickBooks holds over 80% of the small business accounting software market share, it remains the dominant choice for accountants working with SMB clients.
Practice Management Software
Solutions like Practice Ignition enable managing client relationships, scheduling, progress tracking, and task management. Key features like centralized dashboards, automated reporting, integrated calendaring, and collaboration tools optimize firm operations. This software provides a streamlined platform to oversee employee productivity, monitor company financials, and deliver an improved client experience.
In summary, time tracking, accounting, and practice management systems provide the core infrastructure to facilitate accountants' daily work. Integrating these SaaS platforms lays the technology foundation needed to boost productivity, ensure accuracy, and drive profitability. Leveraging them in tandem gives comprehensive visibility to make informed decisions and operate efficiently.
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Unlocking Efficiency: The Benefits of Time Tracking for Accountants
Time tracking provides valuable insights for accountants, enabling the optimization of billable hours, productivity, and project profitability. By eliminating manual processes, it also ensures accurate client billing.
Mastering Billable Hours with Time Analytics
Time tracking software gives accountants full visibility into where time is being spent. Powerful analytics provide a detailed breakdown of hours worked across projects, tasks, and clients. This allows accountants to:
- Identify the true profitability of projects and clients. Loss-making engagements can be spotted early.
- Adjust resourcing to align hours with budget. Project teams can be right-sized.
- Set realistic budgets for future projects based on historical actuals.
- Optimize utilization rates through better capacity planning.
With data-backed insights from time tracking analytics, accountants can maximize billable hours and ensure healthy profit margins.
Boosting Team Productivity Through Time Monitoring
Time tracking also uncovers productivity metrics for individuals and teams. Common problem areas like context switching, inefficient workflows, and unproductive meetings are easily identified.
Armed with this data, accountants can:
- Set capacity planning targets for higher team output.
- Spot and fix workflows that hamper productivity through unnecessary steps.
- Implement better practices around meetings, email management, and deep work.
The result is higher team productivity and output, directly improving the bottom line. Time tracking software becomes an invaluable asset for continuous process improvement.
Automating Accuracy: The End of Manual Time Tracking
Manual approaches to capturing billable hours — spreadsheets, paper timesheets — are notoriously error-prone. As client projects grow more complex, this introduces inaccuracies into invoices.
Robust time tracking software eliminates these pain points by:
- Automating manual processes completely. Time entries are captured instantly without relying on memory recall.
- Providing audit trails for entries with detailed reporting.
- Seamlessly integrating with accounting systems to simplify invoices.
Such automation and accuracy pays dividends over time through reduced payroll costs, fewer billing corrections, and better forecasting for resourcing needs. The business benefits strongly justify switching to automated time tracking.
Essential Features in Time Tracking Software for Accountants
Time tracking and management are essential for accounting professionals to maximize billable hours, ensure accurate client billing, analyze productivity, and streamline operations. The best time tracking solutions provide robust analytics, seamless accounting software integrations, project management capabilities, and real-time visibility into team member activity.
In-Depth Time Analytics for Informed Decision-Making
In-depth time analytics give accounting practices data-backed insights to make informed decisions. Key analytics to look for include:
- Utilization rates by client, project, user, and more to analyze productivity and identify optimization areas
- Profitability reporting to see true margins on clients and projects
- Capacity planning tools to forecast workloads and optimize staff levels
- Custom reports and dashboards to visualize data
With insightful time analytics, accountants can right-size workloads, ensure appropriate billing, optimize team productivity, forecast growth needs proactively, demonstrate value to clients, and drive overall profitability.
Seamless Accounting Software Integrations
Tight integrations with leading accounting platforms like QuickBooks streamline time tracking and billing workflows for accountants. Key capabilities include:
- Automatic syncing of client lists and projects
- Direct export of billable time entries
- Simple generation of invoices with a click
By eliminating manual duplication of data between accounting and timekeeping systems, critical information stays up-to-date across platforms. This saves administrative time while minimizing errors.
Project Management Software with Invoicing for Total Control
Robust project management tools give accountants command over all aspects of client work. Essential features include:
- Planning tools to outline project scopes, assign tasks, set budgets and deadlines
- Customizable workflows to match established accounting processes
- Easy client collaboration through file sharing and messaging
- Progress indicators to track milestone completion
- Flexible invoicing integrated with time logs for simplified billing
With project planning coupled with time tracking, accounting teams can expertly manage clients, demonstrate progress, achieve milestones, control budgets, and bill accurately.
Real-Time Employee Time Tracking App Insights
For busy accounting managers overseeing multiple client projects, real-time visibility into team member activity is invaluable. A centralized dashboard shows:
- Which tasks each team member is actively working on
- Time logged on each project and client
- Idle time indicators
- Productivity metrics over time
With real-time tracking, managers can provide in-the-moment feedback, balance workloads, optimize schedules, and drive productivity gains across the firm.
The Top Time Tracking Apps for Accountants Reviewed
We review the leading time tracking platforms designed specifically for accounting professionals. These solutions enable efficient time and project management, seamless integration with popular accounting software, and insightful analytics to optimize productivity.
Harvest Time Tracking: A User-Friendly Solution for Accountants
Harvest is an intuitive time tracking application tailored to service businesses like accounting firms. It makes time tracking simple with automatic timers and an easy-to-use interface.
Some key features include:
- User-friendly desktop and mobile apps
- Automatic timers and time capture
- Visual workflows to manage projects
- Seamless integration with QuickBooks Online
- Robust time and expense reporting
Harvest provides an effortless way for accountants to track billable hours and expenses for client work. The software integrates smoothly with QuickBooks Online, allowing easy client invoicing. With an emphasis on visual workflows and intuitive user experience, Harvest removes hassles for time management.
While Harvest lacks advanced functionality for large firms, it works wonderfully for sole practitioners and smaller accounting teams. For user-friendly time tracking optimized for accountants, Harvest hits the mark.
QuickBooks Time Tracking: A Versatile Companion for Accountants
Intuit's QuickBooks Time Tracking module delivers capable support for accounting professionals right within QuickBooks. Available on desktop, web, and mobile, it enables tracking billable time and expenses from anywhere.
Notable aspects include:
- Tight integration as a QuickBooks add-on
- Multi-platform apps (desktop, web, mobile)
- Timer and time sheet features
- Project management capabilities
- Detailed reporting on billed/unbilled hours
As a QuickBooks native extension, the time tracking tool shares a common interface with the accounting system. This allows accountants to seamlessly connect time and expenses to invoices without changing software. QuickBooks also provides rich analytics on utilization and profitability.
For solopreneurs and small-to-medium accounting firms using QuickBooks, Time Tracking is an excellent companion for simplifying time and billing. But larger practices may need more advanced functionality found in standalone tools.
Paymo: Comprehensive Time Management for Accounting Firms
Paymo goes beyond basic time tracking, offering full-featured project management and team collaboration tools for accountants. It caters especially well to mid-size and enterprise accounting practices.
Some noteworthy aspects of Paymo include:
- Complete suite of time and project management tools
- Customizable workflows and templates
- Real-time team collaboration features
- Robust time tracking analytics
- GDPR compliance for working with international clients
Paymo handles demanding needs of larger accounting teams with ease. Features like task management, custom reports, utilization metrics, and team dashboards help optimize firm productivity. International compliance standards also help win clients worldwide.
For end-to-end time management with advanced reporting, Paymo delivers the complete package. Its flexibility works for firms of all sizes seeking to maximize output. From tracking hours to forecasting resources, Paymo has full-spectrum accounting project solutions.
Choosing the Right Time Tracking Solution: Key Considerations for Accountants
Managing time effectively is crucial for accounting professionals to stay efficient and profitable. When evaluating time tracking solutions, key aspects to consider include:
Evaluating Pricing and Plans: Find Your Fit
The pricing model varies widely across time tracking tools. Compare:
- Per user monthly or annual pricing
- Features included in each plan tier
- Additional fees for more robust functionality or support
Determine the number of users needing access and specific features that best suit your firm's needs. Scalability is also key - ensure the solution can grow with your business.
For small firms, free time tracking options like Toggl Track provide basic functionality that is likely sufficient. For larger practices that bill clients by project or task, solutions like Harvest or TimeSolv offer more advanced integrations, reporting, and budgeting tools well worth the additional investment.
The Quest for Ease of Use in Time Tracking Software
Ease of use is imperative for user adoption across the firm. Employees need to intuitively start timers and track time without friction from their desktop and mobile devices.
The software should match natural accounting workflows - allowing easy timer start/stop/assignment to client work or projects. Firms billable hours rely on the solution's usability.
Additionally, the reporting interface should enable straightforward data analysis without excessive clicks or complex configurations. The platform must make accessing actionable insights simple.
The Importance of Mobile Functionality in Employee Time Tracking
In today's remote and hybrid work environments, accountants need to track time regardless of being in the office. Mobile functionality across smartphones and tablets is a must have.
Native mobile apps like those offered by Hours and Hubstaff provide flexibility for professionals to conveniently log hours from anywhere. Some solutions even offer offline mode for keeping timers running in areas with no internet connectivity.
For accountants frequently working off site with clients, accessing the tool via mobile devices is particularly indispensable.
Integration Matters: Accounting Practice Management Software Compatibility
Manual entry of time data between systems can negatively impact an accounting firm's bottom line through wasted administrative effort.
Seeking solutions with native integrations to popular platforms like QuickBooks, Xero, or Intacct can streamline operations. Automatic syncing of time, tasks, projects, billing rates, and invoices saves substantial effort while reducing human data input errors between systems.
APIs offered by tools like Workfront also allow connecting the time tracking software with other critical firm tech stacks to build a centralized hub for managing the practice.
Time to Decide: Conclusion and Recommendations for Accountants
Accounting professionals juggle many responsibilities, so choosing software that simplifies time tracking is key. After comparing the top options, we recommend:
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Harvest - Best for small firms. Offers simple time tracking with powerful reporting at an affordable price. Integrates with over 50 accounting apps.
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QuickBooks Time - Most versatile. Seamlessly integrates time data with QuickBooks' accounting and invoicing. Features timesheets, schedules, and mobile apps.
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Paymo - Best for larger practices. Robust features for enterprise-level time and expense tracking. Customizable reports and project management tools.
The best time tracking balances accurate data capture, insightful analytics, and ease of use. Evaluate your firm's needs - client base, size, billing complexity - when deciding on software. Leverage free trials to test options first-hand.
Prioritizing time management ultimately saves money and fuels firm growth. The right tracking solution, integrated properly, can help accountants focus on delivering exceptional service.
