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What Are Mobile Time Tracking Apps Used for?
Company employees and freelancers use mobile time-tracking apps to track their work hours. This includes clocking in and out, tracking daily, weekly, and monthly work hours, and tracking their hourly rate or summing up their total wages for a certain payment period.
Managers use time tracking apps to track and monitor employee activities under their supervision, create work schedules, and track the whereabouts of remote and field workers. Moreover, managers use these apps to send timesheet reminders to employees to perform their daily time tracking duties per the company time tracking policy.
Some mobile time tracking apps are free to use but have limited functionalities, while other apps require monthly subscriptions or a one-time annual payment to access all of their features and/or remove ads or other spam from the interface.
Mobile time tracking apps are used for more than just replacing paper timesheets or other types of manual time tracking methods. They are advanced HR technology tools that help companies to become more efficient, compliant, and productive in their field of operation.
Advantages of Mobile Time Tracking Apps
Track Working Hours Remotely
When a company uses mobile time tracking apps, workers can log their work hours remotely with just a single tap on their smartphones. Using the app, employees can:
- Start, stop, or pause their time tracking instantly.
- Add projects, tasks, or tags to their app time logs.
- Add their favorite time logs.
- Write custom descriptions for each time log.
Improve Work Organization
Managers can edit the projects and add new to-do lists and tasks to the app interface. By doing this, managers can keep a close eye on every project at all times. The app also allows managers to:
- Create new projects.
- Add team members to work on those projects.
- Create to-do lists and add new tasks to new or ongoing projects.
- Oversee the project budget and the total project hour count.
Create Mobile Time Reports
Managers can create detailed reports regarding the time and the billable amount that was spent on completing tasks and projects. This makes mobile time tracking apps ideal for quick check-ups regarding project progress.
Managers can:
- Create a custom date range.
- Include the total work hours and the billable amount for a certain period.
- Filter the reports by project, task, team, or client.
- Create reports on the go.
Send Timesheet Reminders
Managers can set up frequent timesheet reminders that help the rest of the team submit their timesheets or start tracking their work hours on time. The reminders can be optional as well as automated and will pop up as a notification to selected employees.
Reduce Human Errors
Mobile time tracking apps keep the human error factor, i.e., the manual input, at a minimum as employees only have to press the play/pause prompt to start tracking their work hours. Moreover, some apps can automatically separate regular hours from overtime hours without much manual input on the employees' part.
Avoid Learning Curves
Mobile time tracking apps require little knowledge to operate, and one of their greatest benefits is that they are easily implemented in any type of work environment. This is due to their overall simplicity and the ever-growing presence of smartphone culture.
Disadvantages of Mobile Time Tracking Apps
Battery
Smartphone devices are powered by a battery, and if the battery runs out, employees won’t be able to accurately track their work hours since their phone is dead. This can be mitigated with a company phone charging policy, which should state that phones must be charged while at work.
Forgetfulness
Employees can make a mistake from time to time and forget their phones at home, resulting in them being unable to track their work hours. Here, too, the company phone policy can make it mandatory for employees to have their smartphones on them at all times during work hours.
