We use ConnectWise at my job.
Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?
21–30 of 53 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?
#22Get yourself a copy of Telestream's Screenflow and record your screen when working. At the end of the billing period, simply scrub through your recordings to build your invoice. Don't mention this to your client as they may request to see them! But if they ever dispute an invoice you'll have no problem winning that battle :-).
Scrubbing through 60 hours of text editor footage every week -- are you serious?
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?
#23I've been looking at the same thing lately - recently switched jobs trying to make a few things a little more efficient for the team. One tool which has peaked me interest is http://www.timelyapp.com. Start and stop times don't matter, only the amount of time spent on a project, which is nice. It also allows to preschedule time and track estimated vs done and how you are sitting on time / finance budgets.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?
#24pen and paper. that I then I enter into my billing software. I feel you judging me. stop.
Tough to beat pen & paper as an easy to use UI.
Pen and paper requires manual subtraction: time finished - time started. An easier UI would be a button to press at start and at finish; the subtraction being done automatically.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?
#25I use a custom Emacs mode [1] that a friend of mine originally wrote. I generally have 1 file per client, and the mode allows for tagging of different time sheet entries, which it can then use to calculate line items on invoices.
A lot of Emacs users I know use org-mode instead, but I've always felt that was "inside out". Hours mode is more like a work diary and that makes more sense to me.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?
#26I use timeEdition http://www.timeedition.com/en/features/screenshots.html. Open Source, nice and simple.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?
#27I use Project Hamster from the gnome project (I'm a linux user). It's free, integrates nicely with my desktop and is always available (unlike web based time trackers). It uses a sqlite database which is a nice plus (I also synchronize the database file over dropbox so I can share the time tracking on my other machines).
At the start of a new month I export the time reports for the previous month from hamster as XML which I then import to my custom billing engine (I tag each task in Hamster by client name). This then gets converted to a time breakdown on each client invoice. Clients can then view a detailed breakdown of the billed work at per minute granularity along with descriptions of each subtask.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?
#28I created a custom spreadsheet[1] that performs various calculations[2].
Download: http://www.mediafire.com/download/i30sbhkeqacci42/timesheet....
To use it:
1. Configure the CONST worksheet values per client.
2. Tweak the HOURS worksheet values as necessary.
3. Switch to the worksheet corresponding to the current month.
4. Enter a start time (in 24-hour format) in the Start column for the work day.
5. When finished working, enter the stop time in the End column.
6. Add activity notes; use column I for task numbers.
7. Switch to the Invoice worksheet at month end.
8. Type CTRL+a to select the Invoice worksheet contents.
9. Export as PDF.
10. Email PDF to client.
11. ???
12. Profit.
[1]The spreadsheet uses LibreOffice Calc--it will not work in Excel without modifications to the cross-references.
[2]There are only five time-slots per day; if the day is broken up further, perform some time math to use only five segments.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?
#29I use SpikeTime - http://www.spiketime.net - a time tracking Service created by me together with a friend (any feedback would be great)
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?
#30I use Harvest: http://www.getharvest.com/
Yes! In particular, Harvest for Mac: http://www.getharvest.com/mac.
Killer features: - Start/stop timing in one-click or keyboard shortcut - See exact time in menu bar: https://www.dropbox.com/s/d56zb9ryffik7ey/Screenshot%202014-... - Idle time detection - leave your computer with timer running. When you're back, Harvest asks "You've been gone 15 minutes, should that time be counted?"
Still hoping for: - better offline support (can't stop timer w/o internet access, which means a bit of mental work when working offline on the Caltrain).