Ask HN: How do you track your billable working hours? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your billable working hours?

#21

Post by dougbarrett » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

PretzelPirate wrote: post #13

admissionsguy wrote: post #12

I invoice for the maximum number of hours I can get away with, not sure what is the benefit of using the actual number of hours worked?

It sounds like you’re fraudulently reporting hours you worked and stealing from the client.

On the flip side, most projects I work on on the side are now are bid based vs hourly based. I wasn't a fan of it at first, but now I've really come to like it.

I know what I'll get paid, and the client knows what they're going to end up paying for the work that's been scoped out. It's up to me to determine whether I'm managing my time/rate correctly to make it a value for the client and that I'm getting what I feel I'm worth.

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your billable working hours?

#22

Post by lelandfe » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 6:06 PM UTC

sandman1906 wrote: post #3

Toggl

Same! For those on Macs, the alfred-toggl workflow is a godsend: https://github.com/jason0x43/alfred-toggl

It's much faster than the native Toggl app, and it lets you do things like restart timers (not possible through the web or native apps). It's a surprisingly full-featured workflow.

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your billable working hours?

#23

Post by jka » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

Hamster[1] has GNOME shell integration, making it relatively easy to use from a Linux-based desktop.

It has a few quirks and could do with some UI improvements, but it's nice to be able to switch task (with some basic autosuggestion and categorization) using a text input in the system tray.

[1] - https://github.com/projecthamster

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your billable working hours?

#24

Post by arseniums » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 6:25 PM UTC

I used tickkl.com. It has lovely dashboard and calendar is color coded so you know the days you tracked and the days you skipped. Also gives possibility to automate some parts of your tracking. Downside I guess that it is not using google calendar api, not sure though they added it or not.

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your billable working hours?

#25

Post by wmu » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

I use my own, simple CLI tool* (not only to track working hours, but also to track open source or hobby activiets). For many years I used Toggl, which is great and powerful - I just needed something that works offline.

[*] https://github.com/WojciechMula/timetracker

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your billable working hours?

#26

Post by zodiakzz » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

dougbarrett wrote: post #21

PretzelPirate wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you’re fraudulently reporting hours you worked and stealing from the client.

On the flip side, most projects I work on on the side are now are bid based vs hourly based. I wasn't a fan of it at first, but now I've really come to like it. I know what I'll get paid, and the client knows what they're going to end up paying for the work that's been scoped out. It's up to me to determine whether I'm managing my time/rate correctly to make it a value for the client and that I'm getting what I feel…

What sort of projects are those? Not software I assume? I've yet to work on a project in my life which remained in the initial scope. Plus debugging seemingly trivial bugs can take entire work days.

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your billable working hours?

#27

Post by coolestguy » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 10:24 PM UTC

I don't charge for my time, I charge for value created which is always more.

A poor salesman charges for his time.

Time does not take into account experience, knowledge or efficiency.

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your billable working hours?

#28

Post by d--b » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 10:44 PM UTC

Tracker.toptal.com

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your billable working hours?

#29

Post by akcreek » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 12:56 AM UTC

The team and I are building HourStack - https://hourstack.com. We are focused on scheduling and tracking time at the task level, which works well with billable hours. We also integrate with task, event, and issue platforms so you can drag existing tasks onto your calendar to schedule and track time against them.

This can be quite nice when working with clients across different platforms like Asana, Trello, and GitHub.

As for downsides, we are a young company and don’t have the full feature set built yet. We are working hard though and making great progress.

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your billable working hours?

#30

Post by stephenr » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 5:31 AM UTC

coolestguy wrote: post #27

I don't charge for my time, I charge for value created which is always more. A poor salesman charges for his time. Time does not take into account experience, knowledge or efficiency.

> Time does not take into account experience, knowledge or efficiency.

That's why more experienced, knowledgable people charge more per hour.