Posts Tagged ‘freelance timsheets’

“What gets measured gets done, what gets measured and fed back gets done well,  what gets rewarded gets repeated”“
– John E. Jones – Noted leadership trainer

In the past I have talked about timesheets, recording time and tracking this against your projects.   Whilst timesheets can be a pain, they can provide really useful information.   In fact, as I type this now, I have a timesheet widget running that is recording the time I spend on the blog, checking that it does not take me over my ‘blog budget’.

The advantage of timesheets is when it comes to chargeable work.   If you quote that something is going to take you 5 days to complete, tracking time allows you to see how good your estimate is.  If it actually takes 6 days, you know in future that you need to increase your time estimate, and hence will make a profit rather than a loss.

Last week I found a new system for recording time called Toggl (yep, the “e” is missing in the name).    It’s a time recording system that allows you to toggle between activities – rather like the toggle of a chess clock (I guess that’s how it got its name).  

The reason I recommend this service is based not only on the fact that it is FREE (always good), but that it has time recording systems based on the cloud (where everything is stored), a Windows desktop recorder, an iPhone app and a Googles App.   No matter where you are or what you are doing, recording your time takes seconds.

The web site provides a multiple array of stats, graphs, reports, and interfaces.   There are also Pro (paid) features for printing timesheets with your logo, invoicing based on hourly rates, etc – but the Free is all I need.

Now if only it could interface directly with Freeagent for pulling in projects and sending out time, then my world would be complete.