Time Tracking Software That's Automatic

Ever find yourself checking your Calendar, Sent Emails, and/or Post-It Notes in an attempt to figure out exactly where your time went on a given day?

We created the Timeline view (located under Time – Timeline) for moments like these.  It’s the ultimate safety net that helps you piece together these holes in your time.

How the Timeline Works

The Timeline literally captures your time down to the minute.  From when you start work in the morning, until when you stop working in the evening or night, the Timeline will have everything in a play-by-play format.

The Timeline displays the Start Time, End Time, Duration, and Activity Details.  When you stop working on a given activity, the Timeline will start a new row to reflect your new activity.

The Summary view is actually a roll up of the Timeline – it combines similar entries from the Timeline and totals them up.

The Timeline – Summary Relationship

The Summary view totals up each individual instance from the Timeline into a single time entry.  Here is an Adobe PDF document that I spent 7 minutes reading (per the Summary view), 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 on the Timeline:

Categorizing & Annotating Directly From the Timeline

You can categorize time entries directly from the Timeline by checking the box to the left of the entry, selecting the Move To Project dropdown, and then selecting the appropriate project for categorization.  The Project column, located on the far-right side of the table, will update accordingly.

Use the Move To Project dropdown to categorize entries from the Timeline.

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.

Multiple consecutive entries categorized to the same Project.

Use the & Annotate button in the Move To Project dropdown located to the right of the Project you are categorizing the entries to, to annotate and categorize at the same time.

The “& Annotate” button (lower-right) will allow you to annotate entries as you categorize them.

You can annotate entries without categorizing them by checking the box to the left of the entry, clicking the blue Annotate button (with pen icon), and entering an annotation in the resulting popup.

Annotate button.

Add / Edit Annotation popup window.

Remember that you can also setup rules to categorize these entries automatically based on keywords.  Please see our Keyword-Based Rules tutorial for more details.

This week I was a guest expert on This Week in Web Design, where we highlighted best practices and tools for accurate timekeeping.

In this episode, we covered:

• The most common challenges freelancers face in tracking their hours
• Best practices for tracking your time more accurately and easily
• How you should present your time to – and invoice – your clients

Source: This Week in Web Design – Accurate Timekeeping

Had enough with QuickBooks? Check out Xero, the hottest new online accounting software package. You can create invoices directly in Xero by using this export from Chrometa.

1. Enable the Xero export within Chrometa by going to Account – Integrations, and clicking the Enable Xero Invoice Integration checkbox.

2. Create your Project in Chrometa to mirror your Xero Contact – specifically by name, and most importantly email address, which is how Chrometa looks for a match during export.

The quickest way to populate your Projects within Chrometa is via a bulk import of your list in CSV format.  Go to the Projects tab in Chrometa, and click the Import Clients button (upper-right) to access the bulk import feature.

3. Create a new invoice by going to the Invoices tab.  Select the New Invoice button.

4. Create a new invoice, save it, and export it to Xero. You can combine the Save and Export steps by taking advantage of the “And” menu located immediately below the Save button.

5. Authenticate the Chrometa connection within Xero (you’ll be prompted to do so), and then you’ll be able to view and edit your invoice within Xero!

If you’re not yet a Xero user, you can take their online accounting app for a free spin here.