Time Tracking For Small Businesses

Jonathan Blum's trio of time tracking tools for small businesses include: Toggl, yaTimer and Tick.

"The concept of tracking employee work hours can be deceptively simple. In practice, it can be a vexing chore.

In my shop of five contract employees, we started out with paper invoices. I would beg, I would plead, and still they would arrive months late. Next, we tried e-mailed time sheets. They were fine -- when they showed up, which was half the time. Finally, like many businesses, I invested in comprehensive online project-management software that did everything from estimate projects to track hours. Too complicated, my employees moaned.

I'm trying again, this time with simple applications that focus more on simply tracking time. The benefits of single-use tools include being simpler to learn, working better with existing business software and lower cost in both time and money. And I recruited my most, um, vocal employee, who finds most complex web-based business applications not worth the effort. She prefers simple email and the phone for tracking work. The two of us tested out some stripped-down time-tracking apps to see if they could make both our lives easier."