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Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?

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41–50 of 53 posts

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?

#41
I use HoursTracker: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hourstracker-pro-timesheet/i...

Absolutely fantastic. Developer has been responsive to feedback/requests.

I'm a software engineer by trade and in any given week I'll log time against 5-6 different projects/clients. This app has been fantastic.

(You can export CSV/friendly formats by just e-mailing them directly from the app, can do date-range based, etc. It's fantastic.)

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?

#42
We use our own open source project which you can configure to chat via hangouts and you log your hours by project via a hangouts chat bot. It also asks you if you learnt something and weekly sends a report ranking the people who learnt the most: https://github.com/FDVSolutions/jennatimetracker

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?

#43
I just look at my commit times But my workflow is kinda weird, i change code and I commit which then pushes it to my development server. I do it this way because I always use different computers throughout the day/week. So that way I always have the latest version of my development code. Then when I finnish a feature I push it from my dev repository to the test repository where I use git like it should be used. But because I have this development git repository it is easy to see my work times. I still want to automate it though, now i'm just starting up qgit and do the manual lookup for a week and bill that to my clients. I do all my projects this way.

Also recently started using this: https://github.com/gurgeh/selfspy It gives quite awesome data, and most of my workflow is known, so maybe I could hack something together that logs things it considers work (but since I change pc so often I don't know if that will really work). Should have a procrastination/work/documentation list for your browser though to make it more effective.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?

#47

I 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 offl…

Harvest is free for up to 2 clients. I used them for 6 months free before I upgraded to add on a third client. Definitely worth it for me.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?

#48
Disclaimer - I'm the co-founder of Taskulu

While Taskulu is not just a time tracking tool, it allows you to track your work hours on your project tasks. You can create projects, phases, lists, and tasks, manage your team with project-level Roles and Permissions, chat with your team members in real time, and (soon) hire people and make payments or get paid based on your logged work hours.

You can check it out at http://beta.taskulu.com and register with "HNBETA" invitation code. As the URL suggests, we're still in beta stage and looking forward to getting your feedback!

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?

#49
Disclosure: I'm one of the founders of Tiempo

Most people default to pen, paper, or Excel. But, it quickly becomes more hassle than its worth. And, if the hours you track need to be sent to a finance team or an accountant, it gets even more complicated. That's why we created Tiempo.

Tiempo is a new time tracking app that aims to be the fastest way to track time. It works on the web and has apps for both iOS and Android. We even use it ourselves to track developers we have contracting for us.

Plus, you can have unlimited customers, even on our free tier (Harvest limits you to 4).

Check it out at https://track.tiempoapp.com/signup or see our site at http://www.tiempoapp.com.

The Tiempo team is made of former Intuit employees that have spent their careers focused on building software for small businesses.

We'd love any feedback the HN community has!

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of billable hours?

#50
I work at a consulting company that uses an inhouse tool that is a beast of burden. Recognise that some of this might be already solved in the listed solutions (excel included) but this is what you don't want:

7.5 hours - every working day you need to put in 7.5 hours regardless of what you do. Put in 7.4hours and it cracks it at you. What would be nice: Know that I have entered time against a code and assign the rest of the days time to a generic code that I can edit at a later date or leave. Manual submission - every day the user needs to be submit their timesheet. People forget. People don't care. Management cares. What would be nice: If time has been entered, auto submit. Otherwise, let me be or prompt me in a nice way Making changes - if you want to edit hours or change a job code on time that has been submitted, it requires all days back to that day to be unsubmitted, the edit made, then all time re-submitted. What would be nice: let me edit by code by day Doesn't know where I am - we generally spend most of our time at the clients offices and we have their address(es) within the tool. What would be nice: Know that I have spent time at a client office and put in time to that clients code and prompt me to confirm it Code search - painful. We have hundreds of client codes, past and present, and finding them is not as simple as type in client name and select. Generally there is a client codes, a project code and potentially a sub code. If someone has spelt something differently, allocated it to a different person or if you enter one character incorrectly, it can't find it. What would be nice: Search that works Not mobile - they have put together a "mobile friendly" version but it provides limited functionality resulting in having to get onto the desktop version to do most of it and then use the mobile site. What would be nice: Mobile that doesn't require desktop intervention Reporting - just plain ugly and hard. What would be nice: Not plain ugly and hard reporting Visibility - if it is a fixed fee project and I have 40 hours allocated to it, I don't know that unless I'm told / project manager is riding my arse on hours. What would be nice: As time is submitted, show me how much I've consumed / how much is left Seperation - it isn't connected to the resourcing tool that lists what people are on, how long they are on it or if they have holidays booked in. What would be nice: If person is put onto client, put that code in their time sheet. If holidays booked, put it in timehsheet

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