For example, projects and time can be synced between apps, timer can be automatically started each day at 8am or when something happens, etc.

Here are some ideas on what you can automate using either Zapier or Integromat.

Start timer at beginning of your workday (and stop it at the end)

If you tend to forget to start the timer when your workday starts, you can set it to start automatically each day so you don’t have to worry whether you’ve punched in the minute you started your day.

If you’re running late or early, you can always click on the running time and change the start time to account for the difference.

Same way, you can set up the timer to stop each workday at 5pm and head home without having the timer keep running long after you’ve stopped working.

Track how much time you spend oversleeping

Want to know how much time you spend sleeping in in the morning? This way, you can also automatically create a timer that you have to stop manually every morning. Call this timer “Sleeping In” so you can see how much time you burn every day by sleeping in.

Start a timer when a meeting starts

If you have a stand-up meeting each morning which you have to enter into Clockify every single day, you can set up Clockify to start a timer automatically.

As a trigger select “Schedule”, choose at what time you want to start a timer, and as action select “Clockify: Start Timer”.

You can set up even more recurring time entries for recurring meetings so that they are automatically added to your time. If for some reason a meeting is canceled, you can just delete that entry for the day.

You can also log your Google Calendar events as new time entries in Clockify right before they start. You’ll never have to manually track your meetings, sessions, and appointments again.

For example, you can integrate Clockify with Google Calendar so a timer automatically starts when an event in the calendar starts. You can also create a full entry without having to bother with the timer by telling Clockify the duration of the event.

That way, at the end of your day, all your meetings and appointments are already logged into Clockify without any work on your end.

Sync new projects and clients between apps

Whenever you take on a new client, you have to create a new client and a new project in Clockify. With Zapier and Integromat, the info from your CRM or project management is just passed to Clockify, and the client and project are created automatically.

For example, when you create a new project in Asana or a contact in Salesforce, Zapier and Integromat can create that project/client in Clockify too.

You can also set connect it to your invoicing tool so that when you start tracking time for a new client, that client is created in your invoicing software.

Sync time between systems

If you have a system from which you record and generates all of your invoices, at the end of the day, you have log into it and manually enter all your time from Clockify. Not an awful process, but after a full day of work, it’s the last thing you want to be doing.

By connecting Clockify to the system, you can automate this repetitive process.

When a project timer is stopped in Clockify, Zapier and Integromat can process that time and automatically log it against the correct project in another tool (eg. Salesforce).

Now, instead of 10-15 minutes logging your time for the day, you spend about 30 seconds to a minute auditing the hours in Salesforce: generate the report in Salesforce, generate the report in Clockify, ensure the hours match, and move on.

The multi-step Zap for this sync would look something like this:

1. Trigger: New time entry in Clockify
2. Action: Data Transformation (get the hours rounded to the correct quarter hour)
3. Search: Salesforce for the related project record
4. Continue if logic: Does the project exist?
5. Action: Create the time entry in Salesforce

Start a timer when you start working on a task

Whenever you move a Trello card (or a task is some other app) from a “To-do” to “In Progress”, timer for that task can automatically start in Clockify.

You can also create a new card in Trello automatically whenever you add a new time entry in Clockify. This way, you can track your completed tasks in Trello, or use it to hand off projects to other team members once you’re finished working on them.

Signal what you’re working on to the team

• You can get messages in Slack channels when tasks are started under specific projects.
• When you’re on the clock, you don’t want to be interrupted? You can notify team members that you are working on something and to wait for the task to be finished rather than interrupting.
• Start the timer when you mention a specific keyword in Slack.
• When you start a timer for some activity, you can set your Slack status to show what you’re working on.
• Want a simple way to notify your team about every new time entry added to Clockify? Zapier and Integromat can watch your Clockify account for new time entries, and then post them to Slack automatically.

Get a digest of new clients delivered to Gmail or Slack

Keep yourself, your team, your boss or client up to date with the project on your plate with a digest of Clockify projects delivered to you in either in email inbox or Slack daily, weekly or monthly.

Simply set up a digest and Zapier and Integromat will quietly add all new projects to a summary that’s delivered whenever you choose.

See what you’ve worked on right in your calendar

You can connect Google Calendar with Clockify via Zapier and Integromat so all entries appear in your calendar. Then you can see what you’ve worked on across the week neatly organized on a timeline.

Clockify’s built-in automation features

• Auto tracker – track how much time you spend across programs, websites, and documents, and then create time entries based on recorded activity
• Integrations – track time you spend on tasks by starting a timer within Asana, Trello, JIRA, and 50+ other apps with the help of Clockify Chrome/Firefox extension.
• Time tracking reminders – get a notification when you forget to start the timer
• Idle detection – discard non-work time from a running timer (time you’ve spent away from the computer)
• Automatic clock-in and clock-out – automatically start the timer when you come to work and stop when you leave (ie. open/close browser)
• Project templates – if you constantly work on the same projects, you can designate as a template and create new ones based on it and have all the tasks and details already set up.
• Timesheet templates – if you work on common activities each week, you can save a list of those activities, and load them up and just enter time next week.
• Automatic lock – if you’re locking timesheets each week or month, you can automate when the lock happens so you don’t have to update the date manually all the time.
• Timesheet reminders – if your team has to track a certain number of hours each day or week, you can set up targets and they’ll get an automatic email reminder if they didn’t log their time (or even if they logged more than they should).
• Alerts – if you working on projects with a clear budget, you can receive email alerts when a project is getting near to its alloted estimate, as well as when you’re over the budget.
• API – if you have some development experience and want to create your own automation (without relying on a 3rd party service like Zapier/Integromat), you can use our open API.

According to statistics, an average freelancer spends $518/month on software.

Here’s a list of popular but expensive software that you can substitute with free alternatives that work just as good as the paid options.

• Replace Windows with Linux Mint
• Replace MS Office with Google Docs/LibreOffice
• Replace Visio with Draw.io
• Replace Photoshop with GIMP
• Replace Lightroom with darktable
• Replace Illustrator with Inkscape
• Replace Premiere/After Effects with DaVinci Resolve/Lightworks
• Replace InDesign with Scribus
• Replace Audition with Audacity
• Replace AutoCAD with FreeCAD/LibreCAD
• Replace Maya/3ds Max with BLENDER
• Replace Sketch+Invision+Zeplin with Figma
• Replace Github/Bitbucket with Gitlab
• Replace Zendesk with Freshdesk
• Replace Salesforce with SuiteCRM
• Replace Mailchimp/Hubspot with Mautic
• Replace Confluence with DokuWiki
• Replace JIRA with Redmine
• Replace QuickBooks with Wave
• Replace Basecamp/Asana with Trello
• Replace Toggl/Harvest with Clockify

Instead of Windows, try Linux Mint

For each computer you and your employees use, you need a legal version of Windows ($200/computer). But, you’ve probably heard about Linux and that you can use it instead of Windows for free.

There are a lot of versions of Linux (called distributions). The most popular and user-friendly one is Linux Mint. Linux Mint looks and feels just like Windows so you’ll be able to settle down quite quickly. If you’re mostly using web apps, you won’t even notice that you’re on Linux.

Pros of switching to Linux: free, no forced updates, no viruses, no invasion of privacy, easier for programming, customization, better app store

Cons of switching to Linux: documents (Word, Excel) with complex formatting may not display properly, most games are not supported, troubleshooting requires more skill, you’ll have to use substitutes for apps that don’t have a Linux version.

Instead of Microsoft Office, try Google Docs or LibreOffice

Linux doesn’t have Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc. Instead, you’ll have to use either LibreOffice or OpenOffice.

Both LibreOffice and OpenOffice are 100% free, work exactly like MS Office, and can read and write Office files with no problem. Cons: they don’t look as nice as Microsoft Office, take some time to get used to, and don’t have a web version.

An even better alternative to MS Office is Google Docs. Google Docs comes with fewer features than Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, which is actually a good thing.

The best thing about Google Docs – and why you should switch – is that there are no files that you send back and forth via emails Instead, you create a document online, send a link, and the other person can open, see, edit things right along with you. Another major benefit is that you don’t have to install anything. You can even use the Google Docs integration with Clockify to see how much time you’ve spent on a particular project.

Instead of Visio, try Draw.io

Microsoft Visio is a diagramming application that lets you create and connect diagrams quickly (you can buy the app for $250).

If you’re making a lot of flowcharts and diagrams at work, you might want to try Draw.io instead, which is absolutely free, easy to use, and works in the browser.

Instead of Adobe Photoshop, try GIMP

Photoshop is the most famous image editing software. It’s so well known that people use it for everything, from photo retouching to web design.

But, to use Photoshop, you’ll have to pay $240/year. If all you want to do is crop an image, delete the background, or change colors, GIMP will do the job. GIMP is actually so full-featured now that if you are a professional, you can fully replace Photoshop with it.

If you’re a digital painter, Krita is the best art software you’re going to get for free.

Instead of Adobe Lightroom, try darktable

If you’re using Adobe Lightroom to manage your photographs, and you’re thinking about switching to free, you’ll find darktable to be exactly what you need.

darktable is an open source photography workflow application/raw developer that manages your digital negatives and enables you to develop and enhance raw images.

Instead of Adobe Illustrator, try Inkscape

If you’re creating logos, illustrations, or some other type of vectors, you might want to check out Inkscape.

Inkscape is sufficient for a good graphic designer and can easily challenge Illustrator in almost everything, plus it’s free.

The only drawback is a steeper learning curve; so if you’re transitioning from Illustrator, you’re gonna need some time to get comfortable.

Instead of Adobe Premiere and After Effects, try DaVinci Resolve or Lightworks

If you want a professional video editing software, but are not a big fan of Adobe’s monthly subscription or Vegas Pro/Final Cut price, try DaVinci Resolve.

DaVinci Resolve has everything: video editing and trimming, multicam support, special effects, transitions, animation, color and audio correction, etc.

If you want something simpler plus 100% free, you can try Lightworks.

Instead of Adobe InDesign, try Scribus

InDesign is a desktop publishing software application for creating flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers, and books. If you’re creating any type of reading material longer than 2 pages that you want to look really nice, you’ll need a good desktop publishing software.

QuarkXPress used to be the most famous, but is now surpassed by InDesign. If you want a free version that’s just as good, try Scribus. You might also want to try Canva, which is web-based and comes with a free plan.

Instead of Adobe Audition, try Audacity

Everyone needs to edit an audio file at some point. Instead of using a paid solution like Audition or Sound Forge, try Audacity.

Audacity lets you record audio, cut and edit audio files, remove noise, boost volume, apply hundreds of effects, and more. If you’re creating videos and want to clean up the audio, Audacity will work great.

Instead of AutoCAD, try FreeCAD and LibreCAD

AutoCAD is the standard for architectural design or engineering. But if you’re just starting out, the license can cost you a lot ($1,575/year). Thankfully, you can use LibreCAD (for 2D) and FreeCAD (for 3D) for free.

Instead of Maya/3ds Max, try Blender

If you’re doing 3D modeling, you’ve probably learned to do it in either Maya or 3ds Max (using student license). But once you start using it professionally, you’ll need a commercial license, which costs around $1,500. If that’s too much, try Blender.

If you’re willing to put in the time to learn it, you’ll find it’s a workhorse and that it does a ton of stuff: from modelling, to animation, to video compositing.

Instead of Sketch+Invision+Zeplin, try Figma

Sketch is the most popular design tool. It lets you create wireframes, mockups, even illustrations. The biggest downside of Sketch is that it’s available only on Mac. So if a designer creates something in Sketch, a developer who works on Linux or a client who’s on Windows can’t open it.

This cross-platform problem is somewhat mitigated by the existence of Zeplin (for designs handoff) and InVision (prototyping and feedback) – all of them additional paid solutions.

What makes Figma so great is that it works in the browser (doesn’t matter what system you use), is free for up to 2 collaborators, and has prototyping and spec inspection built-in.

This means that one designer can create stuff in Figma, another designer can design right alongside, a developer can pick up specs (like dimensions, colors, etc), and a client can track design in real-time and leave notes – all in one tool.

Instead of Github or Bitbucket, try Gitlab

Almost all code collaboration today is done via Git. Github is the most well-known shared Git-repository management system. Downside of Github is that private repos are reserved for paid members.

If you want to collaborate on code without the whole world seeing it, you can install either Gitlab (or even Gerrit) on your own servers and cut costs.

Instead of Zendesk or Help Scout, try Freshdesk

If you have customers that send you emails, you’ll need help desk software. The most popular solutions are Zendesk and Help Scout – the only trouble is that they charge based on the number of users and per month.

If you just need a simple shared inbox for your team, Freshdesk might be the solution for you.

Freshdesk lets you have an unlimited number of users for free. However, if you need some advanced features, you’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan (which can end up costing you more than other solutions).

Instead of Salesforce, try SuiteCRM

Salesforce and MS Dynamics are the most well-known CRM enterprise solutions. There’s also Pipedrive, which is geared to small-medium businesses. But, they all are shamelessly expensive (after all, they’re created by the sales team for sales teams).

If paying $150/user/month sounds too much, try SuiteCRM. Basically, all CRM providers have the same features – the only difference is how they present them. So when you pay for Salesforce, you’re actually paying for their sales and marketing machine (and not the software development).

So, if you don’t want to start using Salesforce’s basic plan only to find out that you actually need a higher one later and end up paying hundreds of dollars a month per user, SuiteCRM might be a less painful route.

Instead of Mailchimp or Hubspot, try Mautic

Commercial marketing automation solutions Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Hubspot can cost quite a lot. But, you can go the open-source route and use Mautic instead.

Mautic is an open-source marketing automation solution that lets you do everything: lead management, automated emails, and campaigns, drip flow, social media monitoring, etc. Downsides: you can’t send one-off newsletters, it’s really complicated to set up, and you need a server where you install Mautic.

Instead of Confluence, try DokuWiki

Confluence is a wiki software and knowledge collaboration tool. It lets your team document processes and share knowledge by creating pages that can be commented on and edited by all team members.

DokuWiki is the same as Confluence, only it’s open-source and free. The only downside is that you need a server where you’ll host the software.

Instead of JIRA, try Redmine

JIRA is the most well-known project management tool for agile software development. If you like the flexibility and robustness it gives you, but don’t like the price (or the brand connotations), look into Redmine.

Redmine is an open-source issue tracker with to-dos, assignees, roles, Gantt charts, and everything else you’d expect from a project management tool. Downsides: it doesn’t have the prettiest interface, needs an experienced person to set up, and takes a bit of time to learn (like JIRA).

Instead of QuickBooks, try Wave

Invoicing and accounting software subscription fees aren’t high, ranging from $15-50/month. Apart from well-known solutions like Quickbooks, Xero, and Freshbooks, you can also try Wave: it’s 100% free, web-based, and includes invoicing, accounting, and receipt scanning.

If you want open-source accounting software that you can install on your computer, you can try Manager.io or GnuCash.

Instead of Basecamp or Asana, try Trello

There are tons of project management apps on the market. While Basecamp is the most polished and Asana the most marketed, Trello is the most popular – and for a good reason: it’s extremely simple, super flexible, a pleasure to use, and gives you all the features you need for free.

Considering all the project management tools on the market, it’s a miracle how nothing comes close to Trello’s value.

Instead of Toggl or Harvest, try Clockify

If you and your team track time, you’ve probably use Toggl because it’s extremely simple and easy to use. But that comes at a very steep price – $10-20/user/month. So if you have a team of 20 people, a simple time tracker can end up costing you around $400/month. Toggl, while insanely simple, is also insanely expensive.

The good news is that you can switch to Clockify, a time tracker that works exactly like Toggl, only it’s absolutely free for an unlimited number of users.

Clockify has the same features as Toggl (even the interface is same), plus a few more (like Timesheet and on-premise version).

To motivate your employees to track time, you need to address their concerns, make the process super simple, and encourage them to form the habit.

Why people resist time tracking

What people say: Tracking is tiresome and hurts productivity

Number one concern is that tracking what you’re working on is a huge drain on their productivity. And they’re right. Tracking anything at all saps time and energy.

For example, if you want to know how your business is doing, you have to track revenue and costs, and this requires effort. Sure, you can boost your productivity by not tracking how much money you make, but nobody complains about it because it’s definitely worth the effort.

So is tracking what you’re working on. It takes time, there’s no way around it. But, if the value of having data outweighs lost productivity, then it’s ok. It’s a fair trade-off: you’re sacrificing a bit of productivity today in order to gain business insight that will help your business in the long run.

What people feel: Tracking makes you feel policed and anxious

When it comes to time tracking, what people say doesn’t matter as much as what they feel. If you can address your team’s emotional concerns, you’ll remove the greatest challenge to time tracking adoption.

At the heart of the problem is fear: how will management use the data?

If someone told you that you need to account for every minute of time spent at work, you’d be anxious too. You’d worry how will someone interpret your breaks, judge you for spending 2h each day on emails and chat, and wonder how come some project took you 3 days.

Another problem are unrealistic expectations. A typical office worker is productive for only 3 hours in an 8-hour workday. The rest of the time is spent on breaks, talking with colleagues, reading news, messaging, snacks, etc.

Once you ask employees to account for every minute and the management can see how much they’ve worked, people will start becoming more self-conscious about their activities – and ultimately stressed out and miserable because of increased expectations.

The truth is, no one be productive for 100% of the time. Even the most productive managers or programmers can squeeze out only 12h of honest productive work per week, at best.

The trouble is, people assume management doesn’t care about this. All they care about are numbers and if they see they can squeeze more work hours, they’d start enforcing stricter rules, fire low performers, and make workplace more stressful – at least, that’s what the people fear time tracking will bring.

People also fear that time tracking can set unrealistic pace and kill creativity and camaraderie. If you have to track every minute of your time, you’ll think twice before you check social media, help your colleague, take a break, or do any other little thing that energizes you and brings joy and relief. Why? If management can see the numbers, everything will start to revolve around who logged more work time, without taking into account what was actually accomplished and how.

Getting people to feel comfortable about time tracking is the biggest challenge.

When we feel fear, it’s easier to clamp up and reject time tracking (or even sabotage it) than it is to go ahead with it. That’s why trust is the most important things when it comes to motivating people to track time. If people don’t trust you, you won’t get accurate business data. And if you want to trust, you have to give it.

Advice on how to motivate people to track time

Explain why

First of all, start by appealing to people’s rational side. You have to give a reason why they need to track time and why it’s important.

• In some industries, time tracking literally puts food on the table (eg. employees are paid by the hour, or the company charges clients by the hour).
• If you have a legal, contractual requirement to log hours (eg. you’ve got funding from government), all you need to do is explain the legal ramifications.
• If you have fixed price projects, tell people that you need to know project profitability so the company can be more successful, plus explain how will that personally affect employees (eg. the company will be able to pay higher salaries to employees or hire better teammates).

Give emotional reassurance

People need to understand that you don’t want to monitor who does what personally. You’ll have to communicate to your team that time tracking is not about spying on people, controlling who spends too much time on breaks, or setting unrealistic goals. It’s simply about tracking where the time goes and spending less of it on non-profitable projects.

The last thing you want is to make people feel bad.

In order to establish trust, give trust. Let people decide if they want to track time using a timer or enter time manually at the end of the day. By letting people self-report the hours worked, you put them in control. By giving people control, you remove the anxiety and distrust.

This is why Clockify doesn’t have employee monitoring features. Sure, checking your employees’ screenshots or how often they move mouse might be useful, but it goes against a healthy work environment.

Make it super easy and convenient

The easier it is to track time, the more likely people will do it.

To make it more convenient, let people track time from wherever, be it from their phone, desktop computer, browser, or within other apps. If someone forgot to start a timer, let them log the time after the fact.

Also, keep the data requirement at minimum. In most cases, you don’t an essay on everything someone worked during one hour minutes, or a super detailed log with 100 different activities each day. The less information you require, the less energy time tracking will expand.

Set up automatic reminders

Or if someone forgot to log the time for the previous day, set an automatic reminder so they get a friendly notification the next day, reminding them to log their missing hours.

Help every employee with a basic set-up

Tracking time in Clockify is extremely simple – it’s just one text field and a button. But no matter how simple it is, people still need some guidance.

Using a new tool is stressful, especially if you’re not that tech-savvy. Even if you are, it’s easier if someone shows you how to do something.

Helping people with the basic set-up isn’t really about teaching them how to use a tool (there are tutorials for that).

Instead, it’s about providing comfort and reassurance, personalizing the experience, showing them what they need vs what they don’t need, be there for casual questions, and meeting them halfway.

 Follow-up and ask for feedback

After everyone is set up, remember to check with them on how the process is going along.

Often, people will have comments on how to make the process smoother, which will further help with the adoption. The easier it is for your team to track time, the more likely it is that they’ll stick with the habit.

This is also a great opportunity to build trust and show your team that you value their feedback and that your real focus is improving the process for everyone (and not just for management).

Make data transparent

Unless people are working on confidential projects, sharing time tracking data and letting people know who works on what is a great way to build trust and motivate people to track time.

If you have a TV or some sort of electronic display in your office, you can connect it to Clockify’s Team Dashboard so people can see in real-time who worked on what.

Have clear guidelines on how to track time

When tracking time, people will be confused on how their time logs should look like. Should they be super detailed? Is it enough to just categorize it by project? Or how to categorize a particular activity X?

In order for reports to be useful, people have to track time under the correct project. So, come up with a simple scheme so people don’t have to spend a lot of time on thinking what belongs where. There’s no greater headache than deciding whether to categorize answering an email as “Communication” or “Project X”.

Also, come up with a list of commonly tracked activities (“answer emails”, “meeting with X”, “record podcast“, etc.) so people can start a timer for that activity with one click. If you ever decide to rename the activities later, you can easily do it in bulk.

Once you have a system, document and share it with others. Outline who has to track time and how, what projects and tags to use and when, and what are the policies regarding late submissions or improperly labeled data.

Having one place where people can check if they’re doing it right and having one source of truth is great for productivity and removing confusion. Also, it’s a great resource for new employees during their onboarding.

Don’t use data against employees

You shouldn’t use the number of tracked hours as a way to punish or reward people. If you do, people will start gaming the system, track hours even when they’re not working, and the whole productivity will go down – not to mention data accuracy.

You also shouldn’t value work by how many hours were tracked, but instead how much work was done. After all, someone who stays overtime isn’t a better employee if they accomplish the same thing as someone who works 8h/day (or less).

This is also extremely important for trust. If you start using the numbers to criticize people, they’ll start seeing time tracking as a weapon and silently revolt.

The best way to use the time tracking data when talking to people is to use the numbers as a conversation starter rather than a quota. A quota is a punishment if you don’t reach a goal. Conversation starter, on the other hand, is an invitation to talk and better understand the needs of your team.

You can have benchmarks for the number of hours per day you expect from your team for different activities. These benchmarks give everyone a clear idea of what is expected of them. However, there are many reasons an individual might fall short of a given benchmark (e.g. getting wrapped up in solving a particularly complex issue), so you should always use time tracking data as a discussion-starter instead of a quota. By discussing stats with teammates, you can understand when and where the team is being overworked and needs backup.

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In the end, time tracking isn’t everyone’s cup of tea – especially if it’s a regime imposed top-down with no good reason. But, by having an open, transparent, and fair process, you’ll gain trust and goodwill that are crucial to adoption.

For more tips, check out the detailed list of 29 time tracking best practices.

Here’s how we use Clockify to solve all our needs – from project management and time tracking to client billing.

How we organize and manage projects

For project management, we use Trello. There we manage all our tasks and to-dos, as each project is a separate Trello board. It’s a very simple but robust project management tool that helps us track what needs to be done and who works on what.

We also have the same projects in Clockify, but we don’t try to recreate tasks from Trello in Clockify. When tracking time, we simply put the name of the Trello card in the time entry’s description, add the card ID at the beginning (so we can later reference it), and attach a project. This way, we don’t have administration overhead but still have all the data we need in reports.

When naming projects in Clockify, we include client name in the name of the project so they’re easier to spot. For instance, if we have a client ACME Inc, we’ll name the project ACME.com or ACME app.

In Clockify, we also have some additional internal projects for which we track time, like: Accounting, Clockify, and a project called COING Related for all the miscellaneous items (like training, presentations, documentation writing, meetings, interviews, etc).

Generally, we prefer to use tags instead of tasks in Clockify to indicate the type of activity (eg. Design, Development, QA). This helps us find out how much time we spend on each type of activity in reports, as tags work across projects (unlike tasks, which are project specific).

How our team tracks time with Clockify

We use Clockify in a trust-based manner. This means there’s no one who checks if you’ve really worked on what you say you’ve worked on. We let the results speak for themselves and not the timesheet; and besides, we wouldn’t hire someone we don’t trust in the first place.

Everyone has a different style of tracking time. Some people track time using a timer because they like the personal accountability that the timer brings. While others enter all their time at the end of the day manually.

Those who enter time manually, some provide a detailed breakdown of their whole day (1.5+2+1.5+4h) while others simply create a one 8h entry where they list the one big thing they’ve worked on the whole day.

How someone tracks time doesn’t really matter, as long as all the 40 hours in a week (including breaks) are accounted for.

If someone forgets to log their targeted 40h, they’ll get an automated email from Clockify each Monday, reminding them to enter their missing hours.

Most of our team tracks time using the web version. However, the people who use the timer prefer to track time from one of the apps (desktop, mobile, or the browser extension).

We generally don’t have strict guidelines on how a time entry should look like. On client projects, there are some rules, due to client request (eg. each time entry description needs to correspond to an item in Trello), while on internal projects the rules are looser.

But what each time entry in the workspace needs to have filled out are the description field and the project field, because: 1) we need to group all time by project for billing, and 2) we need information what someone worked on specifically.

We’ve put those two as required fields so no entry can be created until it has both. Why? Sometimes people either forget to add them, or leave them for later and then forget what the time entry was initially for. This way, there’s a bit more overhead but reports are correct and people don’t have to try to remember what they’ve worked on.

The main reasons why we track time is because, at the end of the day, we need to know two things:

• Who worked on what this month and can they be reassigned to some other project?
• How much to bill the client at the end of the month?

Who can see and do what in Clockify

Although people are free to track time how it suits them the most, there is a point after which all changes and additions are final. At the end of each month, we lock the timesheets for the previous period so all the past entries can’t be edited any longer.

The main reason why we lock timesheets is to preserve data integrity. Once we invoice the client, the data should stay as it is. When we lock timesheets, we can be sure that there are no accidental subsequent changes, and to prevent the situation where the data in Clockify doesn’t match the data in our invoices.

Our team doesn’t have any problem with this because everyone knows that they need to get their timesheet in order before the end of the month, plus there are automatic emails each week reminding them to add the missing time.

The whole time tracking process is trust-based, so there’s no need for time approvals. Instead, the admin can see in real time who tracked how much time; if there’s something wrong, they can directly edit that time in the Detailed report and personally let the team member know about the change if necessary (it’s always a bad idea to automate personal things like this).

If there are no edits and timesheets are locked at the end of the month, all time is automatically considered to be approved.

Everyone in the company can see all time entries and what others worked on. Although Clockify has the ability to limit who can see what time entries, we don’t use that setting because there’s no point in hiding this. People know who works on what either way, and this would add a barrier and increase communication overhead.

We also keep all our projects public, which decreases the bureaucracy for admins. Although we only have one admin who can change other people’s time and manage hourly rates, we do grant manager role on some projects so team leaders can track the status on their project and edit other people’s time on their projects if necessary (without having to constantly contact the owner when they need to make some small fix).

Since we don’t have that many new projects each day, we’ve set “Who can create projects” to Admins. If we had a new project each, we’d set this to Everyone.

Although we have people divided into user groups (designers, developers, administration), we don’t use user groups that much since projects are already public.

Client management and reporting

We have defined hourly rates for each project. This way, we can see at a glance how much money we’ve earned per project, as well as see how much time we spend on billable vs non-billable activities at a glance per week. Of course, because hourly rates are sensitive business information, the “Who can see billable rates” setting is set to Admin.

We’ve set that all new projects are by default billable, and later override that setting for internal projects. When a project is set as billable, all time entries are automatically marked as billable when a project is attached to a time entry. This way, people don’t forget to mark a time entry as billable by accident.

At the start of each month, we lock timesheets for the previous month and run the Summary report:

• We run one report for internal project management purposes, where we group time by user and subgroup by project, to see who worked on what and track workload
• We run a report for each client, where we filter by the client, and group the entries by project and subgroup by description. This way, clients can see a detailed breakdown of what our team worked on if they’re interested.

We export each report in PDF and send to the client for review. There they can see a detailed breakdown of who worked on what and for how long. After they review the time, we send them an invoice with just one line item for the provided service (no need for a detailed line-by-line breakdown as they can see it in the time report).

If we work on a project with different billable rates (eg. $100/h for design and $120/h for coding), we break down a project by task and itemize the invoice for each activity (eg. 10h of design * 100/h).

Before we run any report, we turn on time rounding up to 15 minutes and disable seconds. This way, reports look much cleaner and are easier to review.

We also have our company logo uploaded in workspace settings so each PDF export contains the logo in the corner.

Once the project ends, we archive it so it doesn’t clutter the project page or the project picker.

• Those who fill in timesheets always on time, and 
• Those who fill in their timesheets at the last moment hoping they did it right. 

And, if you’re sitting on the receiving end, you’re probably tired of sending generic message reminders to make your employees send their timesheets on time. 

What if we told you that you can spice your next timesheet or payroll reminder message up with a cool meme? 

Memes make everything funnier, even the tiresome timesheets and payroll reminders! 

So if you want to encourage and motivate your employees to be punctual when submitting their timesheets, here’s a collection of memes you can choose from!

Pick your favorites and make your reminders more fun!  

Timesheet reminder memes

Whether you’re sending a timesheet reminder at the end of the week or 10 minutes before they are due, choose a meme to make your message sound more nonchalant and funny. Here’s what we have in store for you. 

Payroll reminder memes

Sending payroll reminders doesn’t have to be a pain in your neck. Take a look at these payroll reminder memes and use them the next time you have to remind your employees about payroll. 

Time management memes

Some people are naturals at time management and some just aren’t. 

Do you have to remind your employees to track their time regularly? 

Do you have to give them feedback on their poor time management skills? 

Do you want to praise them for being punctual?

Do it with a meme.

Take a look at these time management memes and pick your favorite one! 

An effective way to manage your timesheet reminder

Are you still tired of sending boring reminders? 

If you are, remember that there are amazing time tracking tools such as Clockify, that can and will make your life easier with their automatic timesheet reminders. 

In addition to allowing you to automate your timesheet reminders, Clockify also provides you with:

• Time tracking
• Calendar
• Reports
• Scheduling
• Time off
• Projects
• Expenses
• Invoicing

Don’t wait any longer, try Clockify today!

Running out of memes?

Create your own memes with imgflip’s Meme Generator.

What helps you and your time not break deadlines and run everything smoothly? Are there any interesting memes that we forgot to include in this blog post? Feel free to share your ideas at blogfeedback@clockify.me and we may include them in this one or one of our upcoming blog posts.