The 5 Best Time-Tracking Apps for QuickBooks®

The 5 Best Time-Tracking Apps for QuickBooks®

What is time tracking? Why does it matter? And which time-tracking apps work best with QuickBooks?

Those are fair questions, especially for accounting firms and small businesses trying to manage client projects, control costs, and keep payroll accurate. This post walks through why time-tracking tools are worth adding to your tech stack, and highlights five apps worth your attention.

Key Takeaways

• • Time-tracking apps give managers visibility into where employee hours are going, without requiring constant check-ins.
  • For accounting firms, accurate time tracking supports job costing, transparent client billing, and productivity analysis.
  • QuickBooks® Time, BigTime, ADP, Time Tracker by eBillity, and Knowify are among the strongest options that integrate with QuickBooks.

• Running these apps in the cloud gives your team access from anywhere, on any device.

Why Time-Tracking Apps Matter

Time is a billable resource. For accounting professionals, every hour logged on a client project has a dollar value attached to it. Time-tracking apps bring structure and visibility to that reality, making it easier to manage teams, price services accurately, and keep clients informed.

They show when and where employees work.

PTO, sick days, client meetings — all of these take an employee away from their desk, but each gets billed (or not billed) differently. Easy-to-use time-tracking apps let employees log hours on the go and give managers a clear view of where their teams stand at any moment.

They measure employee productivity.

Tracking time on a project doesn’t mean micromanaging employees. It means getting a clear picture of where work is flowing well and where it’s getting stuck. When a project is running long, time-tracking data helps managers spot the bottleneck and make a case for additional training or a workflow adjustment. It starts the conversation: “How could this process improve?”

They help estimate project costs and set transparent pricing for clients.

Clients want to know how their service provider is spending time on their projects. That transparency matters, and it pays off in trust. Accounting firms and other service providers also benefit by building more accurate job costing estimates over time. When you know how long a similar project took last quarter, your next estimate is sharper. No unexpected invoices. No billing disputes. Just clear, documented evidence of where time was spent.

The 5 Best Time-Tracking Apps for QuickBooks

Choosing the right time-tracking app from a crowded market isn’t easy. To help narrow it down, here are five options that work well with QuickBooks and that Rightworks hosts on its cloud platform.

1. QuickBooks® Time

QuickBooks® Time (formerly TSheets) is an industry favorite because it works exactly as accounting teams expect. Since the TSheets acquisition in 2017, Intuit has tightened the connection between time tracking, invoicing, and payroll so that everything runs under one umbrella.

The web and mobile interfaces are clean and easy to navigate, which matters for teams working across multiple locations or on the go.

2. BigTime

BigTime is an online billing and time-tracking tool built specifically for professional services firms, including accounting, IT, legal, and engineering. Beyond time tracking, it includes a comprehensive project management layer that lets managers assign tasks at a granular level while still capturing billing and reporting data in one place.

3. ADP® Time and Labor Management

ADP® Time and Labor Management is built for organizations that need more than basic hour logging. The platform handles complex time rules, shift management, overtime tracking, and leave policies, making it a practical fit for mid-size to large businesses with varied pay structures or multiple locations. Employees can clock in and out through web portals, mobile apps, or physical time clocks, and managers get real-time visibility into labor costs before overtime becomes a problem.

The platform’s strongest advantage is its connection to ADP’s broader payroll and HR ecosystem. For businesses already working within the ADP environment, that integration reduces manual corrections and keeps wage calculations accurate without extra effort.

4. Time Tracker by eBillity

Time Tracker by eBillity focuses on saving business owners time on invoicing and payroll. It syncs with QuickBooks directly, which makes in-product payroll and class tracking simpler to manage. The app also automates a weekly report showing time spent per project, plus a breakdown of which employees and clients are generating the most return.

5. Knowify

Knowify is built for contractors. It handles job costing, progress invoicing, change orders, and built-in eSignature capture, which covers most of what a construction firm needs to track project time and bill clients accordingly.

Users can create detailed cost estimates per job phase using Knowify’s advanced budgeting tools and translate those budgets into bids without re-entering data. Every job, client, vendor, invoice, and expense syncs automatically, which cuts out double entry and improves accuracy across the board.

Bring Your Time-Tracking Apps to the Cloud

Each of these apps gets more useful when it runs in the cloud. Cloud hosting gives your team access to time-tracking data from any device, any location, without relying on a specific workstation or office network. For accounting firms with remote staff or multiple office locations, that kind of flexibility keeps everyone working from the same source of truth.

If your firm is considering a move to cloud-hosted applications, the guide below is a good starting point.

Download: Is Your Firm Cloud-Ready? The Complete Assessment Guide

For more reviews of popular accounting applications and practical guidance on building a stronger tech stack, subscribe to the Rightworks blog.