The best time tracking software for accountants helps accurately monitor the time spent on your clients and jobs and offers strong project management, reporting, and billable hours tools. With it, you can rest easy that your numbers are correct and that billing and income reporting will be simpler and faster.
Of the 26 solutions we scored, here are our top 10 recommendations:
- Paymo: Best overall time tracking software with strong collaboration tools
- Hubstaff: Best for large accounting firms
- AccountSight: Best for consultants in the accounting field
- Clockify: Best for small accounting teams
- Harvest: Best for freelance accountants
- TimeCamp: Best for accounting firms with remote and in-office employees
- Trackabi: Best for midsize accounting companies
- Time Doctor: Best for accounting firms with mostly remote employees
- Time Tracker by eBillity: Best for accountants with weak internet connections
- FreshBooks: Best for accounting solopreneurs
- Best Accounting Timekeeping Software Compared
- Paymo: Best Overall Time Tracking Software for Accountants
- Hubstaff: Best for Large Accounting Firms
- AccountSight: Best for Consultants in the Accounting Field
- Clockify: Best for Small Accounting Teams
- Harvest: Best for Freelance Accountants
- TimeCamp: Best for Companies With Remote & In-office Employees
- Trackabi: Best for Midsize Accounting Firms
- Time Doctor: Best for Companies With Mostly Remote or Outsourced Accounting Employees
- Time Tracker: Best for Accountants With Weak Internet Connections
- FreshBooks: Best for Accounting Solopreneurs
- Why You Need Accounting Time Tracking Software
- What to Look for in Timekeeping Software for Accountants
- Bottom Line
Best Accounting Timekeeping Software Compared
| Our Score (out of 5) | Free Option | Paid Plans Monthly Pricing* | Generate Invoices | Track Project Expenses | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 4.85 | ✓ | $5.95–$24.95 per user | ✓ | ✓ |
| Visit Paymo | |||||
 | 4.75 | ✓ | $7–$10 per user | Costs extra | ✓ |
| Visit Hubstaff | |||||
 | 4.60 | ✓ | $8–$10 per user | ✓ | ✓ |
| Visit AccountSight | |||||
 | 4.43 | ✓ | $4.99–$14.99 per user | Costs extra | ✓ |
| Visit Clockify | |||||
 | 4.43 | ✓ | $12 per user | ✓ | ✓ |
| Visit Harvest | |||||
 | 4.26 | ✓ | $3.99–$10.99 per user | Costs extra | ✕ |
| Visit TimeCamp | |||||
 | 4.23 | ✓ | $20–$25 per five users | ✓ | ✓ |
| Visit Trackabi | |||||
 | 4.21 | ✕ | $7–$20 per user | Costs extra | ✕ |
| Visit Time Doctor | |||||
 | 4.20 | ✕ | $15 to $25 (base fees) + $9–$30 per user | ✓ | ✓ |
| Visit Time Tracker | |||||
 | 4.18 | ✕ | $23–$70 per user | ✓ | ✓ |
| Visit FreshBooks | |||||
*All providers except Clockify offer discounts on yearly billing.
Paymo: Best Overall Time Tracking Software for Accountants
Paymo’s collaboration tools are essential for accountants as they streamline project management, document sharing, and communication. With features like task management and deadlines, accountants can efficiently manage their workload and ensure timely completion of assignments. The centralized document management system and real-time communication tools facilitate seamless collaboration among team members, enhancing productivity and accuracy in financial document handling.
Paymo not only lets accountants track working hours, but it also has invoicing, expense, and project management tools to help provide deeper insights into the business while helping monitor revenue and costs. This platform also lets you create multilingual invoices, which use more than 85 currencies and let you get paid faster by automating payments with PayPal, Payoneer, Stripe, and Authorize.net.
It earned 4.85 out of 5 on our rubric, getting perfect scores on almost all criteria except popularity due to its low number of user reviews and ease of use (no live phone support and has limited integration options).
Paymo has a bright interface that works on multiple platforms. (Source: Paymo)
- Free: Up to 10 users, unlimited projects, 100 tasks, 3 project templates, 250 time entries, 3 invoices, 3 time reports; calendar and board views, file versioning, integrations, time tracking
- Starter ($5.95/user/month): Free + unlimited clients, up to 100 tasks, project templates, up to 500 time entries, unlimited invoices, estimates, and expenses, integrations, in-app tech support, 25GB storage
- Small Office ($11.95/user/month): Starter + unlimited everything, meta task board, recurring tasks, active timers, in-app tech support, 50GB storage
- Business ($24.95/user/month): Small Office + free onboarding and training, schedule and workload tools, Gantt charts, leave management, priority support, online remote assistance
Hubstaff: Best for Large Accounting Firms
Hubstaff is an all-in-one time tracking and employee monitoring solution that is excellent for large accounting companies. Apart from this, Hubstaff also snagged a spot in our best employee monitoring solutions guide. Its paid plans offer scheduling, invoicing, and payroll for unlimited teams and payments. It also has a free plan that’s useful for individuals, as it has both time tracking and reporting functionalities. With it, you can set a schedule to automatically send reports to yourself, your client, or even stakeholders so that everyone is updated.
In our evaluation, Hubstaff earned 4.75 out of 5. It got perfect marks on pricing, time tracking tools, reporting, security and data privacy, and project management features. It took a hit for lacking phone support, having some billing features only in paid plans, and complaints of glitches in the mobile app.
In addition to standard time tracking, Hubstaff can see routes employees take. (Source: Hubstaff)
- 14-day free trial
- Time Free: 1 user, time tracking, timesheets, limited reports, limited payment
- Time Starter ($7/user/month; min. 2 users): Free + unlimited reports, 1 integration, 24-hour support
- Time Pro ($10/user/month; min. 2 users): Starter + unlimited teams, unlimited payments, limited public API, time off & holidays, scheduling and attendance, invoices, payroll, client and project budgets, time sheet approvals, daily and weekly limits, expense tracking
- Enterprise (Custom): Pro + VIP support, concierge setup, unlimited Job sites, HIPAA compliance
AccountSight: Best for Consultants in the Accounting Field
AccountSight proves to be an invaluable solution for professional services companies, consultants, and accountants, offering a comprehensive set of features tailored to their specific needs. Its resource planning feature enables efficient allocation and management of resources, ensuring optimal utilization and streamlined workflows. With AccountSight, users can effectively plan, track, and collaborate on projects while efficiently managing their resources, resulting in enhanced operational efficiency and improved project outcomes.
Apart from time tracking, expense recording, and invoicing functionalities, it also features top-notch time sheet management capabilities compared to other software on our list. Moreover, it seamlessly integrates with QuickBooks Online products and PayPal, ensuring smooth financial management and payment processing.
With an overall score of 4.60 out of 5 in our evaluation, it received top ratings for pricing, billable hours, reporting, and security and data privacy. AccountSight lacks employee productivity monitoring, which both Hubstaff and Time Doctor offer. While some users appreciate its user-friendly interface, the limited user feedback impacted its popularity score.
AccountSight’s interface is more dated than others on our list but highly rated by users. (Source: AccountSight)
- Free: Includes one user, five clients, and five projects; includes unlimited invoicing
- Basic ($10 per user monthly): Includes a 2–5 user pack; unlimited clients, projects, and invoices
- Small Group ($9 per user monthly): comes with a 6–20 user pack; includes unlimited clients, projects, and invoices
- Enterprise ($8 per user monthly): comes with a 21–100 user pack; includes unlimited clients, projects, and invoices
Get discounts when you pay annually. Note that this offer may change at any time.
Clockify: Best for Small Accounting Teams
Clockify is a popular cost-effective and feature-rich time tracking software. It earned the second spot in our best freelancer time tracker guide—but it’s also an excellent choice for employers with budget constraints who need to manage their accounting teams effectively. It offers paid plans on a per-user pricing scheme, making it suitable for small accounting teams that are still establishing themselves. These plans not only include basic time tracking features but also provide additional tools such as billing, labor costing, and expense management. With Clockify, you can start small and scale up as needed, ensuring a flexible and affordable solution for your accounting team’s needs.
In our evaluation, the system earned an overall score of 4.43 out of 5. It got perfect marks on pricing, time tracking functionality, project management features, and security and data privacy. It could have gotten perfect scores for ease of use if not for its limited integration options. Clockify also took a hit for billable hours tools, as its invoicing and budget-to-actual hours tracking cost extra.
You can track time with a timer or load it manually and mark billable hours. (Source: Clockify)
- Free time tracking with unlimited seats and projects
- Basic ($4.99/user/month): Administration, including time audits, add times for others, bulk edit, project templates, import time sheets
- Standard ($6.99/user/month): Basic + Timesheets and Billing, including time and PTO processing, manager roles, targets and reminders, invoicing, QuickBooks integration
- Pro ($9.99/user/month): Standard + Productivity and Profit, including scheduling, expenses, labor costing, budgets, alerts, GPS tracking
- Enterprise ($14.99/user/month): Pro + single sign-on, custom domain, custom accounts, audit log
Get a 20% discount when you pay yearly.
Harvest: Best for Freelance Accountants
Harvest stands out for its invoicing and billing because it offers integration with Stripe and PayPal. It offers free time tracking, invoicing, and expense reporting for one user and two active projects. The free plan is ideal for freelance accountants who don’t need to give other users access to their data.
Although Harvest earned a lower spot than Clockify on our guide to the best time tracking software for freelancers (because of some pricing and popularity distinctions), we recommend it for freelance accountants due to its built-in invoicing capability, even with its free plan. This platform also integrates with other popular software like QuickBooks, Google Workspace, Trello, and Slack, so you can easily export hours. It lets you take photos of receipts for expenses, and the app works great with Android and Apple.
With a 4.43 out of 5 per our evaluation, it stands out for billing features and project management tools. It doesn’t have an app monitoring feature, taking its time tracking features score down. It also does not currently integrate with or provide any payroll tools, plus you can’t add fields to create custom reports.
Harvest’s time tracking interface is clear and simple. (Source: Harvest)
- 30-day free trial
- Free: 1 seat and 2 projects
- Pro ($12/seat/month): Unlimited seats, unlimited projects
TimeCamp: Best for Companies With Remote & In-office Employees
TimeCamp, like Clockify, offers a free tier with unlimited projects and user seats. Its automated time tracking feature captures time and assigns it to the right client or project, which helps with project tracking and management. It’s an essential tool for companies with both in-office and remote employees because of its GPS, productivity, and project management tools. So while you can still monitor how remote employees spend their working hours, you can also check employees that are required to report on-site through GPS tracking.
Scoring 4.26 out of 5, TimeCamp earned perfect marks in pricing, security and data privacy, and reporting. It also rated high in time tracking functions, billable hours tools, and job labor costing features, given its productivity, invoicing, and online payment tools. It scored low in popularity because of its limited number of reviews. It also doesn’t have an expense tracker, bringing down its score for project management features.
With TimeCamp, project managers can view a member’s productive and non-productive times.
- Free plan: Track time for unlimited projects for an unlimited number of users; also comes with project templates, bulk edits, PDF exports, and integration with one software
- Starter ($3.99/user/month): Unlimited tasks, Excel reports export, attendance, time-off, overtime tracking
- Basic tier ($7.99/user/month): Starter + unlimited integrations, billable time, budget and estimates, apps and websites tracking, projects archiving, management roles, scheduled email reports, custom report, unlimited tags, unlimited subtasks
- Pro option ($10.99/user/month): Basic + billing rates, labor costs, invoicing, client payments, timesheet approvals, and custom user roles, SSO login, 2-factor authentication, screenshots, mandatory tags
- Enterprise package (custom-priced): Pro + personalized training, private cloud implementation, and a self-hosted service
Annual pricing comes with a 10% discount.
Trackabi: Best for Midsize Accounting Firms
Trackabi offers project management, invoice, leave management, and time tracking tools. It’s notable for using gamification in time tracking to help improve motivation and engagement among employees. With it, you can also create employee and client directories to help save essential information such as contact details. We’ve chosen it for small to midsize companies as it provides great tools at bundled and affordable plans. Unlike Clockify, which has per-user pricing, Trackabi’s plans are priced per five employees—so midsize businesses can get more from these plans.
Trackabi got an overall score of 4.23 out of 5 based on our evaluation. It got perfect marks for pricing, time tracking features, security and data privacy, and project management functions. It scored low for reporting as it didn’t allow custom reports. Its ease-of-use score was brought down because it doesn’t have training videos on its website. It’s also not as popular as other software here on the list.
Trackabi offers both desktop and mobile apps to help track time. (Source: Trackabi)
- Starter ($0): time tracking with activity monitoring and idle detection, leave management, personal and company dashboards, time reports, invoices, payments tracking, assign projects to teams, and up to five users per company, one company per account, 30 active projects, three teams, and up to two achievements
- Business ($20 per five users): Starter + screenshot capturing, incomplete time sheet email reminders, user activity logs, unlimited companies, and up to 50 users, 150 active projects, 50 active clients, five user roles, 10 teams, 10 achievements
- Business Plus ($25 per five users): Business + up to 100 users, 300 active projects, 100 active clients, 10 user roles, 20 teams, and 20 achievements
- Enterprise (custom): Business Plus + unlimited users, active projects, clients, user roles, teams, and a dedicated server in Europe or North America. You also get priority support and custom domain name
Get a 20% discount when you opt for annual billing.
Time Doctor: Best for Companies With Mostly Remote or Outsourced Accounting Employees
Time Doctor, launched in 2012, was primarily designed for businesses with remote employees. Aside from time tracking, it offers helpful tools for monitoring your employees’ productivity. With Time Doctor, managers can reduce the time spent supervising employees. You can see the time spent on meetings, calls, website usage, and other activities via its reporting and screen monitoring tools, thus allowing you to pinpoint time-wasting activities and ensure you’re billing clients for actual time spent on projects.
Based on our evaluation, Time Doctor earned an overall score of 4.21 out of 5, with perfect marks for reporting and security and data privacy. It also got high marks for time tracking functions, billable hours tools, ease of use, and popularity. It didn’t get a higher score for pricing due to its lack of a free plan, while its project management tools score suffered because it doesn’t have an expense tracker.
Time Doctor lets managers create projects and tasks and assign them to a team or user.
- Basic ($7 per user): Time tracking; tasks and projects; unlimited screenshots; activity tracking; three-day support, one group per department
- Standard ($10 per user): All in Basic + app and URL tracking, payroll, 60+ integrations, 24 hour support, up to 3 groups per department
- Premium ($20 per user): Additional features include client login access, VIP support, concierge account setup, video screen captures, 24-hour support, unlimited groups
Get two months free when you pay yearly.
Time Tracker: Best for Accountants With Weak Internet Connections
Time Tracker by eBillity is a cloud-based time tracking software designed to streamline your workflow. With it, you can effortlessly record and input your team’s actual working hours, facilitating streamlined payroll processing, client invoicing, and overall productivity enhancement. What sets eBillity’s Time Tracker apart is its ability to continue logging hours even when you’re offline, as long as you’re utilizing its mobile applications. Once your internet connection is reestablished, the time data will seamlessly synchronize with your account, ensuring accurate and up-to-date information.
The provider got an overall score of 4.20 out of 5, with perfect scores for project management tools and data and security. Time Tracker got high scores for most criteria except for popularity because there aren’t plenty of user reviews.
- Time Tracker ($9 per user plus $15 base fee): Time tracking; GPS and geofencing, time clock kiosk, time sheet approvals, employee schedule, free mobile app, real person support
- Time Tracker Premium ($15 per user plus $25 base fee): All in Time Tracker plus job costing, project tracking, expense tracking, client invoicing, client invoice portal, online payments
- LawBillity ($30 per user; no base fees): Time Tracker Premium features plus realization reports, ABA codes, legal invoicing format, trust accounts, conflict checker
Save 20% when you pay yearly.
FreshBooks: Best for Accounting Solopreneurs
FreshBooks is an accounting software that offers a comprehensive suite of tools, including expense management, invoicing, and financial reporting. In addition to these core functions, FreshBooks also provides convenient features such as online payment processing and other accounting-related capabilities. We find FreshBooks’ Plus plan to be an excellent tool for solopreneurs as it makes handling a business more convenient.
Although primarily an accounting platform, FreshBooks also includes a time tracking feature to help you manage your productivity. The FreshBooks time tracker operates through a simple timer system. Once activated, the timer will begin recording hours, regardless of the specific task you’re engaged in.
Whether you’re working on accounting tasks, managing projects on platforms like Trello or Asana, or addressing customer service inquiries on Freshdesk, the FreshBooks time tracker will consistently keep track of the time spent, ensuring accurate tracking of your activities.
FreshBooks lets you easily create invoices from time tracked. (Source: FreshBooks)
- Lite (best for freelancers, $23 per user): Includes unlimited invoices for up to 5 clients, track unlimited expenses, send unlimited estimates, receive payments with credit cards and bank transfer, run tax reports, mobile apps for Android and iOS
- Plus (best for the self-employed; $43 per user): All in Lite plus unlimited invoices for up to 50 clients, track expenses automatically, capture receipt data, send unlimited proposals and estimates, set up recurring bills and client retainers, financial, accounting, and business health reports
- Premium (best for businesses with contractors; $70 per user): everything in Plus and unlimited invoices to unlimited clients, bills and payments tracking, project profitability tracking, custom email templates and signatures, automatic expense tracking, and more
- Select (best for businesses with employees; call for a quote)
Why You Need Accounting Time Tracking Software
Using time tracking and billing software for your business is highly effective in streamlining work for accountants. Aside from providing transparent and accurate data on time spent for clients and projects, it also helps monitor costs, revenue, and business growth.
Here are the reasons you should consider using time tracking software for accountants:
- Automate workflow: The software automatically records time spent on billable and non-billable work—plus, it’s easier to compute overtime hours. Instead of manually creating invoices, you can do that with the software in a few clicks. Timekeeping software can minimize data entry and reduce repetitive tasks. This way, you save time and energy, which could have been spent on more important tasks for your business.
- Measure profitability: To determine profitability, you want to track the hours and the costs spent on projects or clients. Without accurate monitoring, it’s difficult to pinpoint which clients and projects are unprofitable. With time tracking software, you can easily manage hourly rates and calculate profits.
- Manage productivity: If you want to learn about how employees use their time at work without constantly asking them what they’re up to, then you need a timekeeping software. With it, you can determine how much time goes into the tasks and where the rest of the time goes. You’re also confident that the numbers you send to your clients are correct.
What to Look for in Timekeeping Software for Accountants
It can be overwhelming to choose from different time tracking software. To help you, here is the list of features you need in an accounting time tracking software.
- Track billable and non-billable hours
- Create projects and tasks and assign them to users
- Assign budgets and estimates to projects and tasks
- Adjust billing rates for projects, clients, or users
- Create and send invoices for work done to clients
- Allows you to create custom reports to provide better business insights
- Automatically monitor productivity by providing accurate time spent on apps, web usage, and other activities
How We Evaluated the Top Accounting Time Tracking Software
We looked at 24 timekeeping solutions and narrowed our list down to the top seven. We compared each product’s pricing and ease of use. We also looked for essential features like time tracking, project management, invoicing, reporting, and the ability to provide productivity insights. Also, we considered the providers’ integration options with third-party software like payroll and accounting solutions. Based on our evaluation, Paymo is the best time tracking software for accountants. It earned an overall score of 4.85 out of 5, with perfect marks for pricing, time tracking, billable hours, project management, security and data privacy and reporting features. It also got almost perfect scores for ease of use, security and popularity. To see our full evaluation criteria for the best free time tracking software, click through the tabs in the box below.
We evaluated each time tracking software based on its ability to track time for specific clients or projects. Plus points were given to those with digital time sheets that can be exported, break options and PTO tracking, and app and activity tracking ability. Paymo, Hubstaff, Clockify, Trackabi, and FreshBooks got perfect scores in this criterion.
We awarded more points to the time tracking software that allows accountants to track billable and non-billable hours, compare budget versus actual hours, generate invoices to bill clients, and adjust billing rates and currencies per client or project. Some points were given if the paid plans had such functions. Paymo, AccountSight, and Harvest obtained perfect marks.
We looked for software that allows accountants to create projects, divide them into tasks, and assign them to users. We gave points to software that lets you view time spent and track expenses on various projects. Only Time Doctor and TimeCamp didn’t get perfect scores while the rest got 5 out of 5.
We selected providers with a free plan and transparent pricing for its paid tiers. Extra points were given to providers with paid subscriptions that are priced at $10 or less per employee monthly. Paymo, Hubstaff, AccountSight, Clockify, Trackabi, and TimeCamp all earned perfect scores.
Aside from having access to standard and pre-built reports, users should be able to create their own reports and view information within their organization. Only Paymo, Hubstaff, TimeCamp, and Time Doctor got perfect scores here.
Users found the software on our list easy to use, so we also considered solutions that can be set up in a day, has live phone support, training or videos available, and multiple third-party integration options with payroll and accounting systems in particular. None got perfect scores but Time Doctor and Clockify got the highest score of 4.5 out of 5.
We looked for solutions that offer robust encryption methods such as SSL/TLS encryption. The software should also provide role-based access controls, allowing administrators to define user permissions and restrict access to sensitive data. Those with two-factor authentication also got points as it adds an extra layer of security. We gave perfect scores to all providers in this guide.
For this criteria, solutions with an average score of 4.5+ stars from online user reviews on sites like Capterra and G2 got high marks. Plus points were given if the software has 1,000 or more reviews on third-party sites. We also looked for complaints of glitching in the mobile app. Of our list, only FreshBooks had a perfect score.
Bottom Line
The best timekeeping software for accountants offers a variety of tools to help you track time on a project and make employee management more efficient. It should help ensure productivity, accuracy, and efficiency in your business by easily managing projects, creating invoices, monitoring expenses, and creating reports. Whether you’re a self-employed accountant or running an accounting firm, time tracking software is essential for transparency, time management, workflow automation, and managing the financial aspects of your business.
Overall, we found Paymo to be the best overall time tracking software for accountants. It maxed our rubric for time tracking features, billable hours tools, project management functionality, and pricing. It has a feature-packed free plan for up to 10 users, while its paid plans offer advanced tools at reasonable prices.
