Although I now use IRIS and am paying for the time and fees module I am still using excel to record time as not fully set up the time and fees module on IRIS and will probably be February before do it and post on historic time from the start my my financial year, 1 July.

When I was looking at options before moving to IRIS www.tbookman.co.uk seemed an attractive option.  Know of another accountant locally who uses IRIS but uses tbookman for their time recording.

There's a free software called Paymo that logs everything your computer screen sees.  As techy as I am, I actually bought an appointment book from Smile (Dental Association) that gives 15 min increments, 2 A4 ages to a week - Monday to Saturday... 

Thanks all, love the dental appointment book idea Michelle!

Mike

I use an app called TimeClock Pro on my phone (CyanogenOS - which is an Android variant, but it's probably also available for other platforms).

It costs three or four squids, and allows you to set up all your clients, as well as different types of task - setting charge out rates and fixed prices as you deem appropriate. There's also an expenses screen, presumably so you can recharge things to clients where necessary, but I don't use that.

Once set up, it's a simple matter of calling up the app, select the client and task type you're about to work on and hit start - and hit finished at the other end of the job. You can switch clients at any point (rather than stopping one and starting another) and so on.

All I do come month end is look at the time records for the month for each client, and create my invoices based on what I've recorded in the app.

The only flaw with it being an app on the phone is if you forget your phone - which I have been known to do if I'm rushing out. Then it's a matter of keeping a mental note and adding the time record when you next have it to hand.

I did consider writing something to do a similar job, but running behind a log-in on my website - which would solve the problem of forgetting the phone, because no matter where I'm working, or what I'm working on, I invariably have internet access. However, people might interpret that as somehow being pro-cloud (even though "my website" isn't really "cloud" - it's just a single [shared] server, and would be running something I'd have put together myself)

So for that reason, and the can't-be-bothered factor, means I stick with TimeClock Pro. :)

There's a free version (without the "Pro" in the name) - but it's very limited (only one client can be set up IIRC).

I use Hours Keeper which sounds similar to Time Clock. It does also produce an invoice but I'm not keen on the format and it isn't easily changed so I stick to my accounting software for that

I've used Hourguard by NCH software for years. It tracks multiple clients and projects and is free, unless you have to upgrade to the 'pro' version to get technical support.

RS