Time Tracking Software That's Automatic

As you probably know, we recently released Chrometa 4.0. All paid up subscribers received the upgrade automatically – simply log into Chrometa at https://app.chrometa.com/login to begin taking advantage of these new time-saving, money-making features immediately!

Here’s a rundown of the seven new features we want to make sure you’re aware of. Please Reply, Call, or hop on Live Chat (now available via www.Chrometa.com and within the app itself) if we can be of assistance.

Get Paid to Send E-Mails…

Our new time capture plug-ins for Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, and Mac Mail createtime entries for you automatically. They show you the amount of time you spent on each e-mail, along with the e-mail address of whom you sent the e-mail to or who it was from.

Result: you capture billable time spend on e-mail correspondence. No need to hit a timer — all this is done automatically for you.

Please download your complimentary email plugin here:

• Microsoft Outlook (Windows only)
• Gmail
• Mac Mail – already bundled into our new Mac download

Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry Call Capture…

According to our research, it’s likely that you lose track of a significant portion of billable time that you spend on your smartphone. In a billable hour world, every lost second hurts you financially.

Chrometa’s new smartphone time capture solves this problem by turning your phone calls into billable time entries automatically. You can then send these entries to a timesheet, invoice, or billing system with one click of the mouse.

Please watch our smartphone demo videos and tutorials for:

• Chrometa for Android App
• iPhone (& BlackBerry, Windows Mobile) Call Tracking

The Fastest Way to Send Professional-Looking Invoices…

You probably wouldn’t mind getting paid by your clients faster after invoicing them for all your hard work. We designed our new Invoicing Tool to bypass the usual payment collection hassle.

After capturing all of your billable time automatically, Chrometa can create your entire month’s worth of invoices with the click of a mouse. Each invoice looks professional — with your firm’s logo if you choose. And best of all, it’s a snap for your clients to pay you directly online.

Please watch a short demo of our new Invoicing Tool now.

Simplified Time Entries…

Previous versions of Chrometa recorded time in increments of one second. In Version 4.0, we’ve changed Chrometa to record time in increments of one minute. This way, we can reduce your time entries to a manageable number, avoiding confusion and complexity.

If you are still seeing time entries in seconds, simply Reply to this email, and we’ll make sure we get you upgraded to take advantage of this new feature.

Improved Tracking Accuracy…

We have continued to put a lot of work into our Mac and Windows time collectors.

If you had experienced any previous issues with regards to tracking accuracy, we encourage you to upgrade to the latest versions of Mac and/or Windows, just uninstall your current version, and grab the latest here:

• Chrometa for Windows
• Chrometa for Mac

Team Time Tracking…

With Chrometa for Teams, you can share common Clients, Projects, and Rules with your entire workgroup. You can also create Team Timesheets and Team Invoices.

For more details on setting up Chrometa for Teams, click here:
http://www.chrometa.com/teams.html

Start Using Chrometa 4.0 Today

Chrometa 4.0 can help you save time, increase the accuracy of your time tracking, and help you get paid for every billable minute you work.

Current Chrometa subscribers can log into Chrometa at https://app.chrometa.com/login to begin taking advantage of these new features immediately.

New users can use Chrometa free for 14-days by visiting www.Chrometa.com and clicking the Download link. If you need a hand, and/or a reset of your free trial period, please drop us a line.

Chrometa for Teams Overview

With our new Teams feature, you can establish a Team Leader and share your Clients, Projects, and Rules across your entire team.  This allows you, as Team Leader, to aggregate and view the total amount of time your team has worked on a given project – which can be viewed by project, and by employee.

You can then create Team Timesheets and Invoices from the categorized and annotated time entries.

Video Intro: Team Time Tracking With Chrometa

Team Time Tracking with Chrometa Software from Brett Owens.

Setting Up the Team Leader

To setup a new Team, go to Account – Payment and select a Team plan.  You will now have access to the Teams features, including a new Team tab at the top of your screen.

As the Team Leader, you can now establish a list of Clients and Projects to share with your Team Members.  Here are the quickest ways to setup or import your list of projects.

You can also setup and share keyword-based rules with your team – so that time entries can be automatically categorized based on a targeted keyword match.  Here’s more information about setting up rules for automatic time entry categorization.

Viewing Team Timesheets

As team members categorize and annotate their time, your Team Timesheets will be created automatically.  You can view these Timesheets by clicking your Team tab at the top of your screen.

You can then export and/or print these Team Timesheets.  You can also create invoices from them.

Please click here for details on how individual team members can quickly and easily create their timesheets.

Viewing Team Reports

The Team Graphs link under the Team tab displays a dashboard of Total Time By Project and Total Time By Team Member.

Use the date range selector in the upper-left corner to adjust the time frame displayed – the graphs will update dynamically with your selection.

Total Time Spent By Project

Total Time By Project, By Team Member

Creating Team Invoices

To create team invoices, click the Create Invoice button located in the upper-right corner of the Timesheet.

You’ll be taken directly to the Invoices screen. with your invoice already started (and perhaps nearly completed!) for you.  Click on an invoice to finish editing it.

Please click here for a full guide on creating invoices in Chrometa.

When your computer is idle for a period of time (by default 5 minutes), Chrometa will stop recording active computer time, because you may be on the phone, or off to a meeting.

When you return to your computer, Chrometa will ask you if you’d like to log the time while you were away.

How to Log Away Time

When you get back to your PC after being away, you’ll see this popup:

To log your time, enter a description in the text box (the Phone Call, Meeting, Lunch buttons are there as clickable text shortcuts).  Then click Log It!

Or, you can defer annotation for later by clicking Not Now.  This time entry will still be captured, but it will not have a description – only a time, date, and duration.

Viewing Away Time

Your Away Time entries can be found at the bottom of the Unbilled Time section located on the Time – Summary screen.

They are also visible from the Time – Timeline screen, listed there in chronological order with your computer time entries.

Splitting Away Time Entries

To split an Away Time entry, mouse over the entry itself, and click the Split Time button that appears towards the right.

This popup will appear – move the slider to the left or right to allocate time to the first or second segment.

You can only split an entry into two parts – but you can split the subsequent entries again.

Categorizing Away Time to Your Timesheet

Away Time can be categorized in the same manner as Computer Time. Click the checkbox at the start of the entry, then select the Project you want to move the entry to from the Move To Project dropdown menu.

Away Time Settings

By default, Chrometa will start logging Away Time after 5 minutes of computer inactivity. You can modify this threshold by adjusting the the Tracking Settings, located under the Options menu (Preferences on Mac) on the time collector itself.

Chrometa Options – PC

Chrometa Preferences – Mac

Turning Off the Reminder Popups

Want to get rid of the Away Time reminder?  Go to Options/Preferences again, and uncheck the final checkbox, “Remind me to log away time when returning to my computer.”

Your Away Time will still be captured automatically – you just won’t be prompted to log it immediately upon returning to your computer. You can log it after the fact by annotating the entry from the main Time interface.

Adding a Manual Entry

You can add a manual entry by clicking the + button in the horizontal toolbar available from the top of the Time – Summary and Time – Timeline views.

Manual entries are ideal for time entries that are not reflected in your Computer or Away Time.  You can annotate, categorize, and add them to your timesheet in the same manner as an automatically captured entry.

Chrometa captures your time “automatically” for you as you work on your computer, so that you can accurately and easily account for every minute of your day – without the need to start/stop a timer, or manually enter any times or notes as you go.

We achieve this by having our time collector act as your personal timekeeper.  It records how long you are working on an activity, and the relevant details associated with that activity (such as the application and file name).  When you switch tasks, our time recording switches with you.

The result is an accurate timesheet that is compiled for you in real-time as you work.

Locating Your Chrometa Time Collector

Our PC time collector is located in your Windows System Tray, denoted by a yellow clock icon, generally in the lower-right portion of your screen.  (Please see: Managing the PC Time Collector)

Our Mac time collector is denoted by an orange clock icon in your menu bar, generally located in the upper-right portion of your screen.

Viewing Your Captured Time Entries

Your time entries will initially appear under Computer Time in the Unbilled Time section of the Time – Summary screen (which is the first tab in the Time section).

The setup is analogous to your email inbox.  If we were not able to find an automatic project match for the time entry (more on keyword-based rules in a bit), we drop the time entry in your Unbilled Time section.

Time entries here are grouped by application, with the total number of uncategorized entries listed in parenthesis to the right of the application name.  Click on the application line itself to expand it and view your specific time entries.

Unbilled computer time, by application.  Click on an application name to expand and view the individual time entries themselves.

Example 1: Documents and Files

Chrometa will capture the name of a file you work on, the total amount of time spent on the document, and exactly when you worked on it (via the Timeline).

This includes Microsoft Office documents like Word and Excel, Adobe products such as Reader, Photoshop, Illustrator, and the Creative Suite, and so on.

Here is an Adobe PDF document that I spent 7 minutes reading, entitled “The Economist – Billable Hour Not Dead.pdf”.

By mousing over the time entry, I can click the Timeline button to see exactly when I was reading this PDF.  We can see that the 7 minute total is actually composed of three different instances:

The beauty of the Summary view is that it totals up each individual instance into a single time entry.

Example 2: Emails

Chrometa will generally capture at least the Subject Line of the email you are reading, writing or replying to.

If you use Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, or Mac Mail, you’re in luck – we have developed special plugins for these email clients that will provide you with the To, From, and CC lines as well.

Let’s say you are composing an email in Outlook, Gmail, or Mac Mail. Chrometa will capture the following information for you:

• The total amount of time you spent composing the email
• The Subject Line of your email
• The To/From and CC lines of your email

Time entry captured from Microsoft Outlook, displaying its Subject Line, Folder, From, and To info.

If you are a Microsoft Outlook or Gmail user, please download the appropriate email time capture plugin here.  If you’re a Mac Mail user, you are already good to go, as our plugin is “baked into” our Mac time collector.

Example 3: Websites

Chrometa will capture the URL and Title of websites visited your Mac or PC, grouped by web browser.  You can search entries, categorize them, or create rules based on the URL/Title information.

Time entry for my visit to our Outlook Plugin page in our Help forum.  The title of the page is on top, with the clickable URL underneath.

If you prefer to not track all website activity, we recommend establishing a browser for personal usage only, and creating a rule that removes all entries captured from that browser.

Moving Unbilled Time Entries to Your Timesheet

You can categorize time entries by checking the box to the left of the entry, selecting the Move To Project dropdown, and then selecting the appropriate project for categorization.

First, check the box to the left of the entry.

Tip: Select multiple consecutive entries at once by selecting the first entry, holding down the Shift key, and selecting the last entry you want. Each entry in between the two will also be selected.

Then click the Move To Project dropdown to select the project for this time entry.

Use the auto-complete field to filter your client/project list – just start typing, and it will pare down your list.

You can also setup a Keyword-Based Rule to perform this action automatically for you.  Please see: Setting Up Keyword-Based Rules for Automatic Categorization

This rule will automatically categorize captured time entries that contain the keyword SMUD to the project SMUD Partnership.

For more on categorization, please see: Categorizing Your Time Entries to Your Timesheet.

FAQ: What If You Run Multiple Applications at Once?

That’s fine – Chrometa never double-counts time, because it’s able to detect which application has your active focus. When your focus changes, Chrometa will automatically stop timing your old activity, and start on your new one.

Result: If you work for 8 hours and 27 minutes on a given day, Chrometa will have exactly 8 hours and 27 minutes of time entries recorded for you, which you can categorize to your timesheet and/or send to an invoice or third-party billing system.

Don’t lose track of another minute of billable email time!  Our new time capture plugin for Microsoft Outlook will help you capture the time you spend on each email – whether you are reading, composing, or replying.

We’ll automatically create time entries in Chrometa for you that include the Subject Line, To/From/CC addresses, and Folder name (if applicable).

To install the Chrometa Plugin For Microsoft Outlook, click the link below to download the installer:

32-bit: http://www.chrometa.com/outlook/ChrometaOutlookPlugin.zip

64-bit: Coming soon

System Requirements: Windows OS and Outlook 2007 or beyond

After the installation, you’ll see the Chrometa plugin icon in Microsoft Outlook (the icon is visible when reading or composing a message):

You’re all set!  Every email you compose, read, and reply to will be recorded for you in Chrometa:

• Subject Line of the email
• To, From, and CC fields
• Folder Name (if applicable)
• Total amount of time spent on the email

You’ll be able to use this information to properly categorize these time entries – either by using the Move To Project dropdown, or better yet, our keyword-based Rules engine (which would allow you to categorize all emails from a certain address to file automatically to a particular Client/Project).

And existing Chrometa users will appreciate that this plugin has you covered even when reading emails from the Preview Pane!

PS – Not yet a Chrometa user?  Check out our free 14-day trial, and start tracking your time automatically today.

By Neil Squillante

Late last year, Business Insider, a publication that breathlessly covers startup companies and new technologies, admitted that the world is not changing that fast. The article noted that every minute people post 695,000 Facebook status updates (impressive), but send 168 million email messages (off the charts). Among lawyers, the numbers are likely even more skewed in email’s favor. Because lawyers spend so much time in email, that’s where they lose the most billable time. Did you spend 25 minutes or 35 minutes replying to your client? Most lawyers are honest so they under-guesstimate, but accuracy is not a crime. The new version of a popular time tracking program can help.

Chrometa 2012 … in One Sentence
Chrometa 2012 automatically captures and categorizes the time you spend working on your computer plus it can track offline time too.

The Killer Feature
Previous versions of Chrometa would tell you how much time you spent in Outlook or in Gmail throughout the day, enabling you to capture all that time. But it didn’t list the time per message so if you read 25 work-related email messages, and sent 10 you’d have to look back at your messages and apportion the time among them — a fair amount of work.

Chrometa 2012 now shows you the time spent per message, identifying each message by subject line, to/from/cc fields, and if applicable even the email folder name.

Chrometa achieves this feat via two free plugins for Microsoft Outlook and Gmail respectively. The Outlook plugin works with Outlook 2007 and 2010, while the Gmail plugin works with Google’s Chrome browser on Mac and Windows.

“Our new Chrometa plugins for Microsoft Outlook and Gmail close the loop on email,” Chrometa CEO Brett Owens told us. “Once you install our email plugins, you’ll never lose another minute of billable email time or waste time reconstructing that billable time.”

Other Notable Features
Chrometa captures time on Macs and PCs. It notices when you stop using your computer such as for a phone call and can ask you about it so you can also track offline time. You access and manage your captured time using a web browser.

Chrometa can automatically categorize the time it captures. For example, now that Chrometa can capture time spent per email message, you can create a rule for each client or even matter. Then Chrometa will place all email time per client or per matter into that category. The rules work for all the time Chrometa captures (e.g., time spent in Word documents). When you log into your Chrometa account, you can convert all the time captured in a category into time entries with one click.

Also new in Chrometa is the ability to create bills (invoices). In other words, Chrometa can now serve as your billing program, not just your time capture program. You can send bills directly from Chrometa via email or export them into DOC, PDF, or XLS formats.

If you already use a billing system, Chrometa offers a growing number of integrations, including Clio, FreshBooks, QuickBooks, PCLaw, and Timeslips. You can also export Chrometa time entries and import them into virtually any billing system.

What Else Should You Know?
You can choose from three versions of Chrometa (all single user) or from two versions of Chrometa for Teams (for multiple users). Pricing for Chrometa starts at $19 per month, whereas pricing for Chrometa for Teams starts at the same price per user per month.

Please download Chrometa’s automatic time tracking software here.

Welcome Taming the E-mail Beast webinar attendees!  Please fill out this form to receive your free Chrometa bonus, courtesy of Randy Dean!

THREE FREE MONTHS of computerized time-tracking software from Chrometa – one of the industry leaders in time tracking and analysis for business professionals.

Chrometa captures your time automatically for you – without you having to write it down, or start/stop a timer. Every email you write, document you work on, and website you visit is tracked for you by Chrometa – it’s like having your very own personal timekeeper.(“no need to start and stop the program, does it automatically for you!”) – an $89 value!

If the embedded form doesn’t appear, please use this link to collect your bonus.

How to Automatically Capture All Your Outlook or Gmail Time and Invoice for It

As you know, it’s nearly impossible to accurately track your email time with merely a start/stop timer. You’re probably bouncing from email to email in rapid fire mode. The last thing you want to worry about is timekeeping, especially if you switch from one client to another as you reply to email messages.

The “magic” of Chrometa is that it runs in the background of your PC (and home Mac), quietly making note of my activities. It’s like having your own personal timekeeper.

But as great as Chrometa has been, it’s had one big flaw — it didn’t capture important details when generating email-based time entries. Such as the to/from fields for emails … and also the details on Outlook messages viewed from the preview pane.

Well, that is, until now!

We listened to your requests – that email details needed to be a priority for Chrometa in 2012.

For you heavy email users, we have great news – we now have special Chrometa plugins available for Microsoft Outlook and Gmail.

Once you install them, you’ll never lose another minute of email time (you’re probably losing thousands of dollars in billable hours each year … or even month … today).

If you’re already a Chrometa user, please download your complimentary plugin for Outlook and Gmail now.

If you’re not yet a Chrometa user, you can get started with Chrometa for free — and be up and running in a matter of minutes.

Please start capturing your email time automatically with Chrometa now (with plugins now available for Outlook and Gmail).

Really Simple Invoicing, Too

Also by popular request — you can now create, manage, and send invoices directly from Chrometa. Since founding Chrometa in 2007, we’ve learned that many of you don’t use billing software because it’s too complex. Spending a day or two each month to create invoices is actually less of a pain than dealing with an insane software system!

So, as is our mantra, we kept things really simple — and we believe that “closing the loop” on your time entries via our new Invoices feature will save you many hours each month.

Please take a look at this sample invoice that was generated by Chrometa with the click of a button.

If you’re a Chrometa user, here’s how to create an invoice.

And if you don’t yet use Chrometa — now is the perfect time to get started. You can use it free for 14 days here (no credit card required).

Already Have a Billing System?

Do you wrestle with the manual entry of time into your billing system? We can help you here too because Chrometa now enables you to export your time entries into popular billing systems like QuickBooks, Basecamp, Timeslips, Clio, PCLaw, and FreshBooks.

Chrometa is the perfect time capture add-on — just ask TechnoLawyer subscriber and longtime Chrometa user Brian D. Byrnes:

“I can say that the QuickBooks Timer was pretty damn dorky … I tried it a few times a long time ago, and if memory serves it got really annoying when you’d generate a bill only to see you had a time entry for 17 hours … simply because you forgot to turn off the timer after you’d started working on a file.“

Fortunately, Brian can now use Chrometa to automatically capture and categorize his time — and he can use our new QuickBooks export to port his time entries into QuickBooks for billing.

MAKE 2012 YOUR MOST PROFITABLE YEAR EVER WITH CHROMETA

With Chrometa’s help, 2012 can be the year you capture and bill for all your time (i.e., hard work).

Please start capturing your billable time automatically with Chrometa.