What is best tool to track my engineering consulting hours?

Question

What is best tool to track my engineering consulting hours?

NatJones (Industrial)

(OP)

17 Jan 20 03:12

Hello to all! I'm new to this forum community and look forward to engaging with you.

I am a career Industrial Engineer and transitioning to self-employment as an IE consultant. Does anyone have a suggestion on what tool is best to use to track my hours spent on a consulting project?

Thank you

Lomarandil (Structural) · Answer 1 · 2020-01-17 06:13:38

Clockify.me has great features and UI, and is freemium. We do just fine with the base free level.

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just call me Lo.

Ron (Structural) · Answer 2 · 2020-01-17 11:09:19

We use Harvest....a time billing system that is online. Not free, but reasonable and very easy to use.

SandCounter (Mechanical) · Answer 3 · 2020-01-17 12:57:49

I am an employee but I track my time and log my activities for my own benefit. I use a task logger modified from the MS Excel Template library.

Caloooomi (Chemical) · Answer 4 · 2020-01-17 15:00:18

I use Toggl which has a desktop program or can be done via their website. Can separate / report via clients, projects etc.

phamENG (Structural) · Answer 5 · 2020-01-17 15:33:13

I programmed a VBA spreadsheet for the purpose. Enter the project number and hit a start button. When I finish with that project/tast, hit a stop button. Repeat until the end of the day and then hit a button to produce a report. It totals the time for each project (aggregating to a single line item for each) and rounds to the nearest 0.1, 0.25, or whatever your minimum denomination is for charging clients.

It could easily be expanded to handle weekly or monthly reports.

FreddyNurk (Electrical) · Answer 6 · 2020-01-18 05:56:05

What are you intending to use for your accounting system? Would it record hours expended as well?

EDMS Australia

JerinG (Mechanical) · Answer 7 · 2020-01-19 16:31:22

One more vote for Toggl. We've been using it for almost 5 years now and it works for us. And free version. With payed option, you get more features.

msquared48 (Structural) · Answer 8 · 2020-01-20 05:51:55

Personally, I use a dart board, and a good written notebook, along with written notes to the file when I work on the project.

Many of my projects are lump sum and not hourly. The projects do have a standard billing rate, but only for any extra services.

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA, HI)

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What is best tool to track my engineering consulting hours?