You can minimize Klok Pro to a floating bar with a comment pane.Some time trackers, such as RescueTime, work by tracking your active windows to show how you spend your time on your computer, minute-to-minute. If you prefer to enter time data manually (and visually), Klok Pro ($16, free limited version available) is a time tracking application that looks like a calendar at first glance. You set up your projects, subprojects, and even sub-subprojects if you want, and track them using a built-in stopwatch or by dragging them out to a calendar.
Projects are arranged as a tree along the left-hand side of the window. Each project and subproject can have its own color and hourly billing rate. You set your own hierarchy, so if you need to track billable hours for multiple clients, the top level of your project tree can contain those clients, and the second level would contain the projects you do for each client.
To log your work on a project, drag it from the tree, drop it on the calendar and resize it to show how long you've worked for. If you're just starting now and want to use Klok Pro as a stopwatch, you can drop the project onto the target area that says "Drop here to work on." This is a neat feature, but it confused me when I was just starting out with Klok Pro: I tried dropping a document file on it, thinking Klok Pro would launch Word and start logging time for that project. It doesn't work that way--the only thing you can drop on that target is a project from the tree. That area does come in handy once you start working, because you can collapse the Klok Pro interface and leave just the timer visible and on top of all other windows, showing who you're billing at the moment and for what.
Klok Pro supports multiple projects and subprojects.Klok Pro is an Adobe AIR application, and like so many AIR apps, it doesn't try to emulate the native Windows look, instead going with its own dark theme. This dark background makes the colored blocks of projects stand out on the calendar, creating a striking look. Klok Pro can also pull in appointment data from Google Calendar or Microsoft Exchange, and you can click individual appointments to confirm them and log them as billable hours.
Klok Pro's dashboard display shows where your time went.Besides the calendar view, Klok Pro also has a dashboard view that shows you where your time has been going over a given period: You can see how many hours you've logged each day and for what top-level projects, as well as a pie chart showing the percentage of time you've dedicated for each top-level project (or client).
Klok Pro can produce Excel-compatible timesheets for billing.If you get paid by the hour, producing timesheets for billing is crucial, and Klok Pro can easily export timesheet data to Excel, including a subproject breakdown and billing totals. It also has a feature (currently in beta) for producing invoices right from the app as HTML files, or using Xero or Blinksale.
Klok Pro keeps time tracking relatively simple, but offers features powerful enough for users juggling multiple projects for multiple clients, and who need to charge for time spent in meetings and not just in front of the computer.
Note: This download takes you to the vendor's website, where you can download the Adobe Air app.
--Erez Zukerman
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Toggl's Web interface is very simple to get started with.If I had to describe Toggl with a single word, it would be "simple." This is one of the easiest time tracking solutions I've seen to date--even simpler than tracking your time using an Excel sheet. The Web interface features a large text box captioned "What are you working on?" similar to the one used on work log service IDidWork. You can just type in whatever you are doing, and hit Enter to start tracking. A counter appears (accurate down to the second), the Start button transforms into a Stop button, and that's all there is to it.
Toggl offers clear, clean reports that can be filtered per employee, project, or tag.Toggl's desktop client is available for everyone, even if you use the free version of the service. At 24MB, it is a large download: That's because it is actually a version of the Chrome browser. Chrome uses multiple processes for stability, and when you run Toggl's desktop client it, indeed, spawns two processes. Killing one of these exposes Chrome's "Aw, Snap!" error page within the client, showing its innards. The only disadvantage to it being an instance of Chrome is that it is a large download with a large memory footprint (23MB in RAM on my system). If you're already using Chrome as a Web browser, worry not: The desktop client doesn't conflict in any way.
Toggl's desktop client provides access to all task details.Toggl offers three types of reports: Summary, Detailed, and Weekly. The Summary and Detailed report can be produced for any time span, while the Weekly report can be produced for any single week. Reports show where your time went, and can be filtered by user, project, and tag. Reports can be exported as CSV or PDF files, and are easy to understand. The Summary and Detailed reports include a daily bar graph showing how long you've worked each day, and the Summary report also features a handsome pie chart showing at a glance what projects took up your time. Toggl can also be used in a team scenario (the free plan supports up to five users per team), and reports can show how each member of the team is using their time.