Hourly time tracking app: Features, limitations, alternatives

If you’re looking for an app that tracks time, monitors employee location, and supports payroll workflows, Hourly is one option to consider.

Although learning to navigate the app may take some time, Hourly combines time tracking with features like payroll tax filing and workers’ compensation support.

But is Hourly the best time tracking solution for your business?

In this article, we’ll explore the Hourly time tracking app’s features and a few reasons why you should consider an alternative. Also, we’ll cover a few fantastic employee time tracking apps you can try instead of Hourly.

Let’s go.

Hourly time tracking app: What is it?
3 reasons to look for hourly time tracking alternatives
6 best hourly time tracking app alternatives

Hourly time tracking app: What is it?

Hourly is a cloud-based project management software used by freelancers and small to medium business owners.

It combines time tracking, payroll management, workers’ compensation, and a host of other features. These features help teams track time, manage payroll-related tasks, and streamline day-to-day workflows.

But that’s not all!

Let’s check out a few more features that make it attractive.

5 key hourly features

Here are some of the key features Hourly offers:

1. Time tracking

Hourly lets employees select the tasks or projects they’re working on to track the time spent on each task or project.

The app offers manual time tracking where employees can enter their work hours at the end of the day. They can also use Hourly’s Time ClockKiosk feature on the iPad, where employees clock in, log out and request leave easily.

With Hourly, you can:

Check who’s working on what in real-time.
Ensure you’re complying with labor laws by tracking overtime hours and breaks.
Collect signed timesheets.

2. Geo-fencing settings

Hourly’s time tracker with GPS tracking lets you monitor your employees’ location along with their time. You can even configure the Geo-fencing settings so that your employees can only clock in and out at specific locations.

Note: Do take your employees’ consent and check the legalities, such as local laws on location monitoring, before tracking their locations.

3. Real-time reporting

Hourly sends employees’ time tracking data and reports to your phone immediately for real-time updates. This reporting feature allows you to check work progress, review workflows, generate invoices, and track productivity.

You can also download the reports at the end of each workday. Hourly lets you download these insightful reports in either Excel or PDF format.

4. Payroll generation

Once you verify your employees’ time tracking data, Hourly runs payroll for you. Along with employee salaries, it also automates payroll tax filing and payments.

You can save and file necessary forms like Employee I-9s, W-2s, and Contractor 1099s using electronic signatures. This will allow the app to file forms and taxes on time, helping you save overhead costs that can accumulate due to miscalculations, inaccurate payrolling, late fees, etc.

5. Workers compensation insurance management

A workers’ compensation insurance plan typically covers medical bills, lost income, and in some cases, deaths.

Private insurance companies or the state provide this insurance through agents or brokers, who also sell the Hourly platform as workers’ compensation insurance.

This way, Hourly teams up with your insurance agents to get you the best insurance coverage and help you out with managing the payments.

All you have to do is pay the insurance amount as the app requires no security deposit or advanced payment. Hourly automatically generates insurance certificates based on the payroll and employee time tracking data.

hourly app Workers Compensation Insurance Management

However, Hourly may not be the best fit for every team. Let’s look at a few reasons some businesses consider alternatives.

3 reasons to look for hourly time tracking alternatives

Here are three reasons why you should look for an alternative time tracking app:

1. Payroll taxes and insurance limited to California

Hourly offers payroll tax filing, workers’ compensation, and insurance plans like CalSavers to companies as well as employees based in California.

This means only companies registered in California can use the full set of features.

Companies in other states and countries can access functions such as time-tracking and reporting but can’t use the payroll tax filing feature.

2. Insufficient tutorials and support pages

Although Hourly has customer support, its manuals and tutorials may not cover all features in enough depth for every user.

Hourly’s support pages don’t provide the ‘how-to’ tutorials on essential functions like reporting, audits, time tracking, etc. It mainly concentrates on workers’ compensation and banking, which applies to only certain users.

As a result, new users or less technical teams may need more time to get comfortable with the app.

3. Lack of transparency in pay breakdowns

Every time you add an employee to your company profile, you need to add details that’ll make up the payroll, such as:

Gross wages.
Bonuses.
Holiday and sick pay.
Allowances.
Overtime.
And other necessary information.

At the end of the month, the app calculates salaries according to the information you’ve entered and only shows the final total amount to be paid.

This can make it harder for employers and employees to review the full breakdown of monthly wages, which may reduce pay transparency.

With that in mind, let’s look at a few time tracking apps you can choose instead of Hourly.

6 best hourly time tracking app alternatives

Here are six alternatives for the Hourly time tracking app:

1. Time Doctor

Time Doctor is a workforce analytics and time tracking platform used by both small businesses and larger organizations.

With Time Doctor, you can track task time, manage schedules, support payroll workflows, and generate productivity reports. Here’s a closer look at some key features.

Key features

A. Interactive and automatic time tracking

Time Doctor offers automatic and interactive time tracking.

In the interactive or manual mode, employees can start and stop the timer according to their work hours.

Here’s how you use it:

Open Time Doctor and enter the task name.
Click Start when you’re ready to begin.
Click Stop when you’re done or need to pause.

With the automatic time tracker, teams can capture work activity without relying entirely on manual time entry.

This feature automatically tracks your employees’ computer usage as soon as they switch on their monitors. It runs silently in the background without disturbing your employees’ workflow.

B. Idle time tracking

Idle Time Tracking is Time Doctor’s inbuilt feature that tracks unproductive hours.

When the tool detects no mouse and keyboard movement for a predefined time, it sends a pop-up alert to the employee, asking them if they’re still working. If the employee ignores the alert, Time Doctor pauses the timer.

This ensures that only productive employee hours are logged in as working time.

Note: Time Doctor only checks if the mouse or keys are in use. It doesn’t support keylogging to protect user privacy.

C. Screencasts (Optional)

To get additional visibility into work hours, you can use Time Doctor’s optional screenshots feature.

Time Doctor allows you to use the following settings:

Off: No screenshot or video.
Video: Continuous video that’s split into three-minute visuals.
Screenshot: Choose a specific time to take random screenshots.

The feature also lets you view the number of mouse clicks and keyboard strokes registered in the time period (three minutes) of the screenshot.

Note: You can also delete or blur the screenshots if it contains any sensitive data like employees’ personal information to protect their privacy.

D. Detailed reporting

Time Doctor generates detailed reports based on tracked time data.

Here are some of the reports:

Activity Summary Report: Reports each employee’s idle minutes, active minutes, manual time, and mobile time during their work hours.
Timeline Report: Shows the time spent on each task, project, and client.
Attendance Report: Tracks when an employee is absent, present, late, partially late, etc., according to their login data.
Web and App Usage Report: Details how much time a team member spends on each website or app.

E. Payroll management

Time Doctor provides payroll management based on fixed salaries or tracked working hours.

It also lets you customize settings like:

Pay rate for each employee.
Payment currency for each user.
Payment type for each employee.
The date range for the payroll.

Other pros

Allow employees to track hours even when their internet is down.
Export reports in either CSV or XLS formats for easy storage.
Give productivity ratings to websites and apps based on the employee’s or team’s roles.
Protect your employees’ data with strict security and privacy policy.
Integrate with tools such as Trello, Google Sheets, and Google Calendar to connect time tracking with day-to-day workflows.
Support payroll workflows with integrations such as PayPal and Wise.
Use Time Doctor on Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems.

Pricing

Time Doctor offers a free 14-day trial that doesn’t require any credit card information. Paid plans start from $7/user per month.

Customer ratings

G2: 4.4/5 (275+ reviews)
Capterra: 4.5/5 (400+ reviews)

2. Toggl Track

Toggl Track is an intuitive and simple time tracking software. The app offers manual and automatic time tracking, free timesheet templates, project estimates, etc., to streamline your work processes.