What is time tracking software?

When it comes to paying staff, invoicing and quoting for your business, it’s important to your bottom line to take the guesswork out. This is where this software can help, it’s a tool that allows you to automate recording the working hours for you or your employees, so you have a better view of where your team’s time is being spent, helping you make better business decisions and understand your profitability down to the second. 

What are the main benefits of a time tracking app?

• Streamline your billing process. Send accurate invoices with a few clicks. Work with your accounting software to automatically populate the time spent on a project or job within your invoice, so you can increase accuracy and save time on manual data entry.

• Usable insights into employee and project productivity. Track when your employees are clocking in and out for the day, how long it takes them to complete a job and who’s having the biggest impact. Knowing where your staff are spending their time allows you to better understand how to price and run projects, schedule your team and spend your time.

• Create concrete estimates and quotes. Gain actionable insights into the time and resources particular projects and tasks take to better inform your next job quote based on concrete numbers. No more overestimating your resources or undervaluing your time.

What are the typical features of a time tracking app?

• Time tracking. A fundamental of any time tracking system is the ability to automatically track and monitor hours, minutes and seconds. You and your team should easily be able to clock in and clock out and record active and idle times.

• Timesheets and rostering. Easily set up staff schedules and swap around shifts and track exactly how many hours each staff member is working.

• Cost and quote estimations. Track how long certain projects and tasks take on average based on past time spent to easily get estimates for project costs. 

• Project invoicing. Manage every project accurately right to the end with automatic invoices created based on actual time worked. 

How time tracking apps work with Xero

Tracking the time you and your employees spend on any project, task or shift is only one piece of the puzzle. Getting paid for that time is the other. Integrating your time tracking app with Xero can help you send off invoices quicker based on accurate hours and get paid sooner, and pay your staff accurately without the double data entry. 

Feel more confident that every minute spent at work is being recorded and reflected in your accounting software for simplified payroll, invoicing and tax purposes. Connecting your apps with Xero can allow you to:

• Set up staff schedules and track employees actual hours worked vs scheduled hours to feed into your payroll

• Import tax rates and account codes from Xero to your timesheets

• Automatically raise invoices in Xero for projects and populate time spent

• Transfer supplier, expenses and customer information between both apps

Find your fit

Every time tracking apps’ integration with Xero can be different. To learn more, browse through the apps in this category. Click on an app to find detailed information on how it works and integrates with your Xero account, and ratings and reviews by other Xero users. Want to try an app? You can then get started directly from the app listing page in just a few clicks.