With the right remote time tracking software, you can easily keep track of your work progress and that of your team members. When you have a team working remotely, some might commit time theft or be irresponsible by manipulating work hours, which can lead to less productivity and profitability. That’s why it’s good to introduce a remote time tracker to track and monitor how much time your team spends on a specific task or project. This gives you an idea of what they’re up to during work hours. This way, you can know when to come in as a leader. This article will discuss some tools you can use to monitor your remote workers and ensure they’re always productive.
What Is Remote Time Tracking Software?
Remote tracking is the process of tracking and checking what and how your employees are doing on a particular project or teamwork. It is the act of tracking when your employees are checking in and out when they take breaks, and how much time they spent working during their work hours. At the same time, remote tracking software is a tool that can help you keep tike of remote employee working behavior. By tracking your employees’ or teams’ working hours or behaviors, you can come in at the appropriate time when you notice that a team member or employee is slacking off or experiencing burnout. This can improve the productivity and morale of the team and company.
Why Do You Need to Track and Monitor Employees Working from Home?
Before we talk about the software you can use to track your team, let’s show you why it is important to track your employees or team. Here is why it is important to track and monitor your team:
1 Accountability
As a business owner, you aim to make a profit, and you can’t have that with an employee slacking off. Every business has its daily goals or target. Working offline might make it possible for people to give excuses for why they couldn’t finish their work or meet the daily target. However, with a time-tracking app, you can easily see how much time an employee spends on a particular task, website, or app. This way, you can issue a strong warning to any employee who is manipulating working time hours. This ensures that they’re motivated enough to produce results regularly.
2. Organize Your Projects
By tracking your employees’ time, you can simplify projects, break them down into smaller tasks, assign them to employees, and set priorities so your whole team knows what they should do next. Also, you can track how much time was spent on each project and task, which can be used to improve project estimates and increase profitability through detailed reports.
3. Accurate Billing and Payroll
This is necessary, especially when remote workers work on multiple projects. By tracking every hour they spend on each project, you will be able to separate billable hours from non-billable hours, which you can do with a time-tracking tool like Time doctor. This will make billing the clients much easier. Aside from billing purposes, time recording ensures that employees get accurate paychecks. By using a time tracker, remote workers note down what projects they have worked on and for how long.
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4. Improve Employees’ Productivity
Tracking your remote workers’ project and task, help keeps them on their feet. If remote workers knew somebody was tracking their progress, they would be compelled to work because of the fear of getting fired or getting a query. All of these can lead to more productivity and a better result because employees will be motivated to work.
5. Keep Records
Record keeping is very important when it comes to employee management. With tools like Insightful, you can take random and on-demand screenshots of your employees’ screens. This way, you will know exactly what your remote team is working on when they work, and for how long.
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Features of A Good Time Tracking Software
1. Simple User Interface
The software or tool you choose to use needs to be easy to use and access. Look for a tool with a clean and uncluttered interface without unnecessary and confusing elements. The easier the employee monitoring software is for your team members to use, the less resistance there will be to implementing it.
2. Integrations
The time tracking software should be able to integrate well with other software like Canva, Email, Google Drive, Slack and payroll, and accounting software. Look for time-tracking apps that will integrate well with other management and productivity apps.
3. Accountability
For time tracking, you need features that will help you keep employees on task without being invasive and intrusive. Look for features such as GPS tracking, detailed reports, and IP address locks.
4. Privacy
Remote work time tracking might seem invasive and intrusive to employees’ privacy. That’s why you need to choose an application that is transparent and respects people’s privacy. For example, insightful is a time-tracking software that only monitors employee activities while they’re working for you. They also have a privacy page where you can read up on their privacy policy before purchasing.
Billing and invoicing: Another thing you should look for is software that allows you to generate invoices for billable hours, so you can pay remote workers according to the hours they have worked
Top Ten Time Tracking Software for Remote Workers
1. Time Doctor
Time Doctor is one of the best time tracking software out there to monitor and track your remote team. With time, doctor, you can instantly check the attendance, engagement, and workflow of the entire remote team. The app also helps to increase productivity by providing insights into how time is spent by employees. With it, businesses notice an instant increase in efficiency. Time doctors can also integrate well with other tools that you use for your remote work. Subsequently, the tool is also good for project management and organization. If you are still doubting the efficiency of the time, the app is used and tested by big industry giants like Apple, Ericsson, and PwC.
Features
- Helps check attendance, engagement, and workflow of remote employees
- It has distraction alerts to help you focus entirely on the task or project
- It comes with screenshots and a screen that helps users see what’s being worked on in real-time
- There is also a website, app, and chat monitoring.
- It is available on the web, tablet, and mobile, which gives you a variety of options
- It also comes with an online timesheet
- Project management and budgeting
- Integrate well with different tools
Pricing
- It comes with a 14-day trial
- Basic plan which comes at $70 per user/year
- Then a standard plan of $100 user/year
- And a premium plan of $200 user/year
2. Time analytics software
Time analytics is another software that can help you track each minute across multiple clients, projects, and tasks. With time analytics, you can create timesheets that don’t just track billable time, but also make it easier to work smarter. The app helps companies or businesses track and monitor their employees spending their time working on different tasks and projects. Furthermore, the software helps in improving employees’ productivity, tracking billable and non-billable hours to monitor daily business activities.
Features
- The software helps manage timesheet information for easy accessibility
- You can also handle the issue of billing and Invoicing with Time Analytics software
- It comes with Mobile Time Tracking features which let you track users with a mobile device
- Project tracking and management
- Time Analytics also integrates well with tools like Excel, which makes it easy to create invoices
- It helps users to track billable and non-billable hours to make better estimations and quote clients accordingly
- Employee management
- Reporting
Pricing
- It comes with a free plan
- A starter plan with $4/month
- Optimum plan at $6/month
- Premium plan at $12/month
3. Clockify
Clockify is a Time Tracking Software used by millions of people worldwide. It is used by businesses and companies to track work hours across projects. With Clockify, you can measure and track productivity, attendance, and billable hours. Furthermore, Clockify works across various devices like desktops, tablets, and mobile.
Features
- Time reporting and tracking give insights into the time employees spend on each activity to note where time is wasted and where it can be saved and put to good use.
- It also comes with a timesheet which helps track time spent on specific tasks and projects throughout the week
- Attendance Tracker
- Productivity Tracker
- Record and invoice expenses
- Activity Log
- Time Tracking Invoicing
- Time Billing App
Pricing
- A basic plan of $ 3 .99 per user/month billed annually (or $4.99 if billed monthly)
- Standard plan of $ 5 .49 per user/month billed annually (or $6.99 if billed monthly)
- A pro plan of $ 7 .99 per user/month billed annually (or $9.99 if billed monthly)
- An enterprise plan of $ 11 .99 per user/month billed annually (or $14.99 if billed monthly)
4. Hubstaff
Hubstaff time tracking software is used by businesses to track the work hours of their remote employees with screenshots features. You can also use the app to schedule, monitor, report, track GPS, generate invoice invoicing, and automate payroll. The software also integrates well with over 40+ tools, so you can rest assured that you can use it with some of your remote work tools.
Features
- It comes with customizable screenshots in which you see employees work in real-time.
- Its time tracking features is smarter and better streamlined for any type of businesses
- It is available on the web, desktops, tablets, and mobile. It can be downloaded on the desktop, Android and iOS.
- Employee monitoring to see what apps and URLs your team visited while tracking time.
- Online timesheets
- With Hubstaff, you can record your employee’s work time and view online timesheets to optimize your team’s performance.
Pricing
- Free plan at $0 For one user only
- Desk Starter at $5 per user/month/
- Pro at $8 / per user / month
5. Monday.com
Monday.com is a time tracking software with a lot of great and exciting features. It is used and trusted by over 125,000+ companies. Apart from its time-tracking features, it also comes with task management, content management, and project management features. Like other time-tracking software mentioned above, Monday.com can be used to track employees’ activities by task, projects, or clients so you can improve productivity.
Furthermore, the software works on many devices like Windows, Mac OS, and Linux computers plus a mobile edition that is available on iOS and Android mobile devices and can be downloaded on Apple stores and Google play store respectively. It also integrates well with remote tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Excel, and many more.
Features
- Time Tracking
- Project management
- Content management
- It integrates well with Zoom and Microsoft team
- Available on ios, web, and Android
- Task management
Pricing
- Individual $0 free forever plan
- Standard: $10 seat /month
- Basic $8 seat /month
- Pro $16 seat / month
- Enterprise plan: Contact admin
6. Timely
Timely is a time tracking software solution tool that embeds the use of AI technology in tracking employees’ work progress. This tool, through its Ai technology, has helped over 5,000 companies across 160 countries. It comes with features like time tracking, project management, team management, billing, and payroll.
Features
- Track your employee’s time
- Track projects and teams
- Integrates well with tools like Zoom, Google calendar, outlook
- Capture every billable detail
Pricing
- It comes with a starter plan of $10/per user
- A premium plan of $18/user
- And an unlimited plan of $26/per user
7. Toggl
Toggl is another time tracking software used to detect if remote employees are working. The tool has over 5 million+ users and integrates well with over 100+ tools. It is also available on the web on the web, mobile devices like phones, and even your watch.
With Toggl, you can make payroll and quarterly reporting easy with intuitive time tracking and accurate time reports for growing teams.
Features
- Team management
- Project management
- Timesheet management
- Integrates well with over 100+tools including Zoom, and other remote tools
- Make payroll and quarterly reporting easy with intuitive time tracking and accurate time reports for growing teams.
- Tracking and reporting.
- It is available on desktop and mobile
Pricing
- It comes with a starter plan of $9/user per month
- A premium plan at $18/user per month
- Then, an enterprise plan at $49/user per month
8. Insightful
Insightful is a time tracking software used for employee monitoring, productivity analytics and automatic time mapping. The software can help companies and businesses track remote workers’ work hours and access their daily productivity reports to get insights into how your team works best. With Insightful, you can track when your employees are checking in and out when they take breaks, and how much time they spent working during their working hours.
Features
- Track Time spent on projects and tasks
- Project and Task Management
- Employee Activities Tracking
- Take screenshots of what your employees are doing in real-time
- Productivity Tracking
- Apps and Websites Usage
- Time and Attendance
- Real-Time Monitoring
Pricing
Employee monitoring $ 8 monthly per employee or visit the website
9. Harvest
Harvest is another time tracking software that integrates with several project management and other remote tools. With Harvest, you can track your employee’s productivity and also get valuable insights. Furthermore, it is also tested and trusted by over 70,000+ companies like Deloitte, Yale, Amnesty International, and so on.
Features
- Time Tracking
- Reports and analytics to create reports across projects.
- Invoicing and Payments
- Integrates with tools like Asana, Basecamp, Trello, Slack etc.
- Reminders
Pricing
- It comes with a free plan
- Then a pro plan of $12 per month
10. RescueTime
RescueTime is a time management and analytics tool used by remote workers who want to be more efficient and productive. With RescueTime, users can keep track of time spent on applications and websites so they know the amount of time their employees spent on a platform and what tasks they performed. Also, you can prevent distraction with distraction alerts and focus on the given task and objectives.
Features
- Time Tracking
- Screenshot and recording
- Activity dashboard
- Alerts/notifications
- Automatic time capture
- Employee database
- Idle time monitoring
- Mobile access
Pricing
- It comes with a 14day free trial
- Then a monthly plan which consists of a Lite plan which goes for free and a premium plan of $12/user
- It also has an annual plan which consists of a premium at $78/user.
Conclusion
Remote work is getting popular amongst businesses and companies due to the advancement of the Internet and technology. Employers want to make sure that each employee is working correctly and according to the company’s goals. The best way to do this is by using a time tracking software that will not only track the employee’s task and project, but it will also prevent time theft, which is common amongst remote workers. Implementing daily time tracking in your company can help improve productivity and keep your remote team in check.
