Choose a time tracker by the question you need answered.
Start with how you charge. If clients pay by the hour, a quick timer, clear totals and a reliable export may be enough. If you agree a fixed price before the work starts, look for budgets and effective hourly rates for each phase. They show whether each part of the fee still covers the time that part of the work is taking.
The right tool depends on how you get paid.
Almost any tracker can tell you that a task took three hours. If you charge by the hour, correct time totals and a reliable export may be all you need.
Fixed-price work needs one more comparison: the agreed price against the hours the work is taking. So decide which question you need answered before you compare products. That tells you whether a simple tracker is enough.
What should you decide before comparing tools?
Write down the business question the tool must answer. Then a long feature list will not distract you with functions that do not matter for the way you charge.
Hourly work usually needs correct time for each project and an export you trust. Fixed-price work also needs the agreed amount, the part of the job it covers, and the effective hourly rate: the amount divided by the hours spent so far.
- How long did the task or project take?
- How was the week divided across projects and clients?
- Has this phase used more hours than its share of the fixed price allows?
- What is the current effective hourly rate for this project or phase?
What kinds of tool are there?
For people who work alone, time tracking tools usually fall into four groups. Each one can be the right choice, depending on what you need to know:
- A plain tracker records time, adds it up by project, and exports it. For hourly work, this may be all you need, at a low price or for free.
- A tracker plus a spreadsheet keeps the hours in one place and the fixed prices in another. It can give you the right answer, but only if you keep both files up to date.
- A suite built for larger firms adds staff planning, approvals, billing and accounting. It suits a team that needs those features, but it usually takes more setup and charges per user, which is more than one person needs.
- A tracker built around phases keeps each phase's share of the fee next to the hours logged on that phase. It can show budget use and effective rate without a separate spreadsheet.
What should you test before you decide?
Use the trial to test your daily work and the results, not only the settings. Check these points before you build up a long history in the tool:
- Adding time should be quick enough that you still do it on a busy day. Missing hours make every profitability number look better than it really is.
- Open a project and check whether you can see which phase or task used the time.
- Create a client document, then edit the project. The saved document should keep the numbers it had when you created it.
- Check the maths. The line amounts should add up to the final amount, to the cent.
- Log more hours than a budget allows. The tool should keep accepting time and show the overrun, without deciding on its own that the extra work was out of scope.
- Check the real price for one person, including any minimum number of users or required add-ons.
How should you run the trial?
Use a real project, not a sample. Track a normal week, including work you cannot charge for, such as admin. See whether adding time stays quick when you are busy.
At the end of the week, go back to the question you wrote down. The tool should answer it clearly on screen. If you still have to rebuild the answer in a spreadsheet, decide whether that extra work is acceptable to you.
Finally, export your data and open the files. If you know you can take all your data with you and leave, it is safer to commit to the tool.
Common questions
Is a spreadsheet good enough?
Yes, if you keep it up to date. A spreadsheet can store the price and calculate budget use or effective rate from hours you import. The cost is the upkeep: the hours and the money live in different places, so the numbers are only correct after you have updated and checked both.
Do I need any of this if I bill by the hour?
Probably not. When clients pay for every hour you record, correct totals and a reliable export may answer your main question. Phase budgets and effective rates become useful when you agree the amount before you know how many hours the work will take.
What is an effective hourly rate?
For fixed-price work, the effective hourly rate is the agreed amount divided by the hours you spent on the agreed work. A €3,000 phase earns €60 per hour if it takes 50 hours. At 70 hours, it earns just under €43. It compares price with time only. It does not subtract your costs or show your profit after expenses.
Should the tool handle billing and accounting too?
Not necessarily. Billing and accounting have legal and tax rules that differ from country to country, and many people who work alone already use separate tools for them. A focused tracker can handle time, budgets and the reports that go with them, while your accounting tool handles payments and tax records.
How long should a trial actually take?
Five working days on a real project are enough to test your daily routine. The goal is to learn two things: whether adding time stays quick, and whether the tool can answer your main question from the records you create anyway.
Which of these does Phased do?
Phased keeps each phase's share of the fixed price next to the hours logged on it. It shows budget use and the effective hourly rate while the work is in progress, keeps extra requests separate, and creates client-ready reports. It has no accounting, no payment collection, no staff planning and no per-user pricing. It is free during the beta, with every Pro feature.