Other apps, such as Harvest and Paydirt, provide ways for appropriately tracking project work and billing for it, whereas OfficeTime only works for billable hours. Let's say I charge a flat rate of $200 for a face-to-face consulting session, or $5,000 for a website build, regardless of the amount of time spent on the project. ![]() For example, OfficeTime's invoicing and project tools don't handle flat-rate projects. You record expenses as if they were any other line item, which means you see them listed right alongside all your tracked time for any given project.Īlthough OfficeTime includes invoicing and expensing tools, it doesn't cover all situations and conditions that sometimes arise for freelancers. Line items can be expenses, too, such as stock photography you bought for a client's work or transportation to get to a meeting. There is a way to override this setting should you need to. If you begin recording a new task in OfficeTime when you already have a timer running, the app automatically pauses the active line item, rendering it impossible for you to accidentally bill two clients or record time for two tasks simultaneously. That wasn't the case with Everhour, which immediately stopped its timer the moment my computer detected it was offline. When testing Toggl, I cut my internet off suddenly to see what would happen to the timer, and it kept ticking away. Some online time-trackers, such as Toggl, have offline capabilities, though not all do. Seeing as OfficeTime is a desktop app, everything works offline. OfficeTime will then remind you of it via a pop-up message at a time you set. The reminder feature, which is unique to OfficeTime as far as I know, lets you enter any free-form text you want. From that same status menu icon, you can also pause and resume time tracking, quickly start tracking time on a new task, and create a reminder. In the Mac version, it also puts a display of the active timer in the status menu, so you can glance up and see how long you've been working on a task. Your timer will begin tracking time by the minute, which you can see in real time if you leave the window in view. When you're ready to get to work, you create a line item and press a play button on the far left side. You can assign projects to categories, too. Each project contains line items, and each line item can be assigned to a category, such as marketing, design, research, or whatever others you create. Line items are more or less the same thing as tasks, although here they can also be expenses. In OfficeTime, you have projects, line items, and categories. The syncing controls only appear in the iOS app, not the desktop apps. There is no option to sync between a Windows desktop app of OfficeTime and a Mac version of the app. If you choose to use both the desktop app and iOS app, you can sync your account among these devices, but only when they are connected to the same network (e.g., the same Wi-Fi). OfficeTime saves all your account data locally on your computer, or whatever storage repository you indicate during setup. ![]() OfficeTime is nimble enough to let you correct your missteps quickly as you go. Many professionals have this tacit knowledge at their fingertips, but sometimes it takes a little trial-and-error learning to correctly parse your work. To use OfficeTime (and really most time-tracking apps for that matter) effectively, you must spend a few minutes making sure you have a clear understanding of how your business projects are organized. As you set up the account, OfficeTime asks whether you want to start with some dummy data to help you get oriented, or if you want to jump into setting up your own work to track. To get OfficeTime, you download the Windows or Mac app, which comes with a free three-week trial period before you have to enter any credit card information. Another app called TopTracker is totally free, but it's light on features. Harvest (Visit Site at Harvest), which otherwise costs $12 per person per month, also offers a free version of the app, although it limits you to managing only one project at a time. Toggl doesn't include invoicing, but you can connect it to just about any other invoicing and expensing service you might use. Toggl's free tier of service, for example, is adequate for many freelancers. OfficeTime is for solo use only.įor sole proprietors, OfficeTime offers great value, but there are free versions of other apps that offer similar value. Many of those apps, however, support collaboration, meaning you can track and create invoices from not just your time spent on projects but your colleague's time, too. Other time-tracking apps generally cost somewhere in the range of $8 to $12 per month. ![]() Considering you don't pay an ongoing rate for OfficeTime, the price is low.
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