Best Time Tracking Android Apps

In my opinion, Harvest is one of the best time tracking apps you can get, and the fact that there’s a free version makes it even better. 

Why Harvest

The three main features of this Android time tracking tool are:

• Expense and time tracking – keep track of everything that you purchased for a specific project by simply taking a photo of the receipt. Also, Harvest allows you to track your time while offline – once you have an internet connection again, both your time and expenses will be synced and added. 
• Billing and accounting features – with Harvest’s Android tracking app, you can check invoices no matter where you are, manage and record payments, as well as convert billable hours and expenses into invoices. You can also get paid via different online payment systems, including PayPal. 
• Team’s time management – if your whole team uses this tool, you can check things like how many hours have been tracked altogether or how many of them are billable. 

As I already mentioned, there are two versions of the app – one of which is free. The paid plan costs $12 per user per month (or $10.80 per month if you get billed annually), and allows you to have unlimited users and unlimited projects, contrary to the free version, which only allows for one user and the maximum of two projects. For the sake of this review, I used the 30-day free trial, which, by the way, doesn’t require you to input any credit card info. 

Another thing I really enjoyed is how many apps I could integrate Harvest with. Some of the more popular ones include Slack, PayPal, Teamwork Projects, Quickbooks Online and more. You can also integrate your Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar. 

Finally, I liked the fact that I could create a to-do list in the app in advance. Thanks to it, I could see how much I had to do on the specific day, and instead of having to remember to add a description of what I was doing and for who, I could just click on the timer located next to the task from the list, and the time would be automatically assigned to the correct client and project. 

One thing that I’d say could be a problem especially for project managers, is the fact that there’s no option to batch-assign time. Sure, you can both add and remove time from a specific employee’s timesheet, but if you need to do it to a whole team, Harvest requires you to do it manually.

If you don’t want to commit financially to a time tracking app, then Toggl Track might be exactly what you’re  looking for. 

Why Toggl Track

There are several things I liked about this time tracking tool. I’ve already tried their Windows app (you can read about it here), so I more or less knew what I was getting myself into with the Android app. 

Still, I really enjoyed its intuitiveness, and the fact that you most likely will be able to figure out how to use it without prior training. All you have to do is start the timer and end it when you’re done. After you insert information about which client or project you were working on, you’ll have a clear view of how much time it took you. 

Depending on your needs, you have four pricing tiers to choose from. The first one, as I already mentioned, is free – however, despite that, it has everything you need from a basic time tracking app. The only downside is that it only allows for up to five users, so if you have more employees, or want to share your account with your co-workers, it might not be enough. 

The second price tier is the Standard plan, and it costs $10 per user per month (or $9 if you’re billed annually). Here, you get everything included in the Free plan plus features like billable rates, seeing the tracked time in your calendar, or time rounding for reports. 

The third tier is the Unlimited plan, which costs $20 per user per month ($18 if you’re billed annually). Again, it comes with all the features included in the other two plans, as well as team time tracking reminders and scheduling saved reports via email. 

There’s one more, called Unlimited+, in which you get all the features of the Unlimited plan, with an addition of priority support and managing several workspaces under one organization. The pricing on this one is custom, so if you’re interested in it, you will have to get in touch with them.

While writing this review, I used both the Free version, and the 30-days free trial of the Unlimited plan. I have to say that if you’re planning on using the app for your company, it might be worth investing in the paid version. However, if it’s just for your personal productivity, then the free version of this time tracking app should be enough. 

One thing that I would definitely consider a con is possible sync issues. While I personally haven’t experienced them, I stumbled upon several reviews written by customers that mention how when switching from device to another, their latest time tracking data wasn’t synced. Definitely something to keep in mind if you work on several devices at the same time. 

Also, the app is not a good choice for companies that want to use it as a way to manage work, as you can’t plan things in advance. You also can’t see what others do on their computers, nor does it have GPS tracking, as it’s not employee monitoring software. 

The third time tracking app that I can recommend to anyone looking for more insight into how they or their employees spend time is Clockify. 

Why Clockify

Clockify has several different features that I liked. First of all, it’s very simple to use – all you have to do is click the time tracker symbol once you start working, and click it again once you’re done. If, for some reason, you don’t have internet access, you can still use the app to track time on your Android mobile devices, and once you regain internet connection, your offline time log will be synced, so that you don’t lose anything along the way. 

What’s more, thanks to the calendar view, you can compare the time you or someone else has planned for completing a task, and how much it actually took them. Thanks to its reporting features, specifically the detailed reports, you and your team can see where the time goes, and how effectively you use it. 

The Clockify time tracking app is also equipped with the automatic time tracking feature – once you spend more than 10 seconds on a website or a program, the mobile app will record the usage. To activate this feature, you need to download the app, go to the A icon that appears at the very top and click the “Start recording” button. 

With Clockify, you can choose one of the five pricing tiers: 

• Free – Clockify has a free version that allows you to track time, create a timesheet, see how your team is using their time or communicate with them through direct messages and channels. Contrary to some other free time tracking apps, Clockify allows you to add unlimited projects, as well as unlimited users. 
• Basic –  this option costs $3.99 per month per user when billed annually or $4.99 if billed monthly. It has all the free features, plus the ability to add time for others or bulk edit the tracked time, as well as provides you with a time audit. 
• Standard – this version costs $5.49 per month per user when billed annually or $6.99 if billed monthly. Some of the features unique to this plan include requesting time off, automatic email notification when someone forgets to track time, rounding up to the closest X minutes or assigning manager roles to team members so that they can approve timesheets and manage projects. 
• Pro – this plan costs $7.99 per month per user when billed annually or $9.99 if billed monthly. Features that you won’t find in other, cheaper plans include scheduling employees and planning resources, adding labor costs to projects and users, setting time and money budgets, project performance prediction and more. 
• Enterprise – the final paid plan costs $11.99 per month per user when billed annually or $14.99 if billed monthly. With this version, you can eliminate user-managed passwords, move your workspace to a custom URL by choosing a subdomain through which your employees will be able to log in to Clockify, or get direct access to your employees’ accounts. 

One thing I wish this Android time tracking app had is an automatic shut down feature. During my testing, I forgot to stop the timer once, and it ran throughout the whole night, until I switched it off the next morning. It’s not a deal breaker, but just something that I think might be useful to the users.