Intro Payroll Time Tracking
When picking a time monitoring tool, it’s important to understand the many different types of tools out there. Tools like Mavenlink, Wrike, and Zoho Projects all include robust time tracking features for professional services businesses. However, the time tracking features in such tools are available only as part of larger project management (PM) suites. As a result, you are paying a lot more cash for things like file storage, in-app discussion, progress reports, and change management. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you will find pure play time tracking tools such as Hubstaff (which begins at $5 a month per user) and TSheets, our Editors’ Choice tool for time tracking. Payroll Time Tracking
Attributes and Utilization
Hubstaff’s user interface (UI) is designed with an attractive left-rail blue navigation bar that leaves plenty of room on the side of your screen for data entry and analysis. When you first log into the system, you’ll be taken to the main dashboard, which gives you an summary of the number of hours your employees have worked this day and how many hours they’ve worked over the previous seven days. You’ll also see a list of every member, their most recent tasks, and how active they’ve been over the past week. This is a solid PM data visualization that allows you instantly differentiate between workhorses and do-nothings, and it immediately calls to attention projects that are getting more than enough focus and jobs that are being disregarded.
There are two methods to put in time in Hubstaff: You can construct manual timesheets with past hours worked, or you may use the stopwatch feature on Hubstaff’s native desktop program. Together with the timesheet attribute, you log your hours since you likely did with pen and paper during the analog era of time monitoring. Essentially, you work your shift, you add time to your timesheet, and you sign off on it. This is a fairly standard method of monitoring time. Unfortunately, because Hubstaff doesn’t let you add future time, you can’t use the platform as a shift planner. Administrators can let users manually edit previously submitted timesheets, and they’re able to force users to need a motive to ensure they’re really adding hours that they worked. Admins can also set the system up to let users to begin monitoring time should they haven’t clocked into the machine in a little while.
The next, and most bothersome, way of tracking time in Hubstaff is by using the stopwatch feature. In each solution we analyzed, this element can be found within the boundaries of your web browserevery solution that is, except for Hubstaff. With Hubstaff, you’re required to download a native desktop application that lives within a separate window. In it, you can choose your project, press Start, along with your own timer will begin counting. When you’re done, your action and your screenshots will be sent to the principal hub. The native program will take a photo at random intervals of up to 3 shots per hour based on how frequently the admin wants to spy on workers. Screenshots can be partially blurred not to record sensitive information on each grab, but enough of the display is left unsullied that you’ll still get a sense of whether the screen is on work-related or play-related content. This is an annoyingly complicated and complicated way to manually track time, especially if you’re jumping from task to task through the day. Hubstaff must find a way to bring the stopwatch and also screengrab components to the cloud-based architecture to simplify ease of use.
Tracking time in real time on Hubstaff’s Android and iOS programs is exactly the same as it’s on the desktop app. The mobile apps let admins monitor motions via GPS monitoring. This provides you an overview of just how much motion was done by your employee by capturing location data at distinct stages.
The Schedules tab lets you assign dates and times for employees to do the job. It is possible to set a minimum number of hours to operate, a lunch break interval, and you can make it a recurring shift. The program’s reporting software is terribly basic: You will get access to weekly, daily, job, and penis view reports as well as a”habit” report that allows you filter data from the above reports. When compared to the PM solutions in this class, Hubstaff’s reporting is downright embarrassing so, if your goal is to understand and evolve based on if and how your employees manage time, you’d be better off working with Zoho Projects, our Editors’ Choice for PM.
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Admins receive notifications when they have reached weekly staffing and funding limitations. Invoices are automatically calculated and made based on the time each worker worked, in addition to their associated pay rate. You can set up automatic payroll through PayPal, which lets you automate payments based on time monitored within the tool. Remember: Users do not need to send time for approval, therefore automatic payments will be made whether employees were wrong or right about the number of hours they worked. There’s not any reminder for supervisors to double-check each timesheet before automatic payments go out thus, if you’re worried about making bogus payments, then you can place PayPal payments to manual. Payroll Time Tracking
Cost And Options
Hubstaff was built to provide you with Big Brother-level oversight into when workers are working, what they are doing while they work, and what you really want to cover them when the job is finished. The Basic $5-per-month plan provides you access to simple time tracking tools, a worker payment program supervisor, 24/7 support, and user preferences that may be handled on an employee-by-employee basis. Moreover, this plan enables you to keep track of whether your employees are working by letting you record screenshots while they function in addition to monitor mouse and keyboard action during changes. Of the five tools we tested, Hubstaff is the only tool which offered this level of insight into the way that workers are progressing. Although keyboard and screen monitoring are helpful (albeit over-reaching) attributes for a change screen, Hubstaff’s implementation leaves much to be wanted (more on this later).
The $9-per-user-per-month Premium program includes all you’ll discover in the Basic program, but you will also get access to Hubstaff’s application programming interface (API) to integrate the application with other third party software. The Premium package also comes with a lightweight schedulingtool that gives administrators the capability to assign shifts and assign tasks from inside the console. Premium customers can also use the application to make invoices and create PayPal payments automatically. Clients that pay annually will receive two weeks free (for both price tiers).
Click here to sign up for Hubstaff
Compared to TSheets, its closest competitor in our roundup, Hubstaff is reasonably priced, especially given the extra tracking features that are unavailable in competitive tools. TSheets offers a basic free account, as well as a $4-per-user-per-month accounts that charges a $16 base fee per month for groups who have fewer than 100 users, and a $80 foundation fee monthly for groups with more than a hundred users. The base fee, which Hubstaff doesn’t charge, makes TSheets slightly more expensive than Hubstaff, even in Hubstaff’s Premium degree.
If you’re more interested in those hulky PM alternatives, then you will need to pony up a little more money. Mavenlink’s cheapest plan that includes time monitoring prices $39 per user per month. Zoho’s cheapest time monitoring plan is $25 a month for an unlimited number of users (that is a pretty good deal if you need all of the excess PM attributes ). Wrike’s cheapest time monitoring plan prices $24.80 per user per month.
What Ought to Be Added
Editor’s note: Since our first overview of Hubstaff, the business has released a major update in late 2018 that specifically addressed certain feature weaknesses or omissions, such as adding a internet timer, fleshing out reporting options, and adding action levels and screen monitoring. We are going to be testing these features shortly and you will see the results in an upcoming update to this review.
Aside from its draconian screengrab and keystroke monitoring, Hubstaff doesn’t do an excellent job allowing for deeper change oversight. For example, Hubstaff doesn’t allow advanced monitoring. If you run a trucking company and you are less concerned about the number of hours each trucker drove than the distance driven, then there is no way to handle that in Hubstaff. Users may add notes to a empty text area, but that information will not be mixed into accounts. This means you can’t use it to find out about who’s functioning, how they’re functioning, and what they are generating (aside from the number of hours monitored ). TSheets not only gives you this option, it provides you the ability to create six extra customizable advanced monitoring fields. You can also put in a query for every clock-out (i.e.,”Was there an incident? Yes. No.”) Along with the system forces the user to respond to the queries at the end of each change or they will not have the ability to clock out.
As hardcore as Hubstaff is about monitoring work, the tool doesn’t allow for IP address limitations, so your employees can say they’re working from the office but they can actually be working from a cruise boat in the Bahamas (unless they are using the mobile app to monitor time). This is a standard feature that’s available in virtually every other tool we tested. Hubstaff also doesn’t enable admins to need users to snap a photograph if they report to work. I guess it is overkill to generate somebody take a selfie right before you get started recording their display and tracking their keystrokes, but TSheets enables you to place this as a requirement (which makes sense, particularly if you’re monitoring tasks done out of a computer, like electronic, building, or entertainment work). The software also doesn’t allow users clock via a telephone call, which can be a component TSheets along with other service providers make readily available for workers who don’t have a smartphone.
Tracking Employee Work
We’ve touched on how a number of Hubstaff’s more Enormous Brother-like attributes factor into time tracking. But the platform also offers many of the hallmarks of employee monitoring tools. Hubstaff’s employee tracking features include keystroke logging, URL and program tracking, GPS and location monitoring, and activity screenshots.
As soon as you place your customers and they download the timer program onto their server, the desktop app not only monitors time but will take screenshots randomly or in custom intervals, such as three screenshots each minute. This applies not just to the user’s main display but any connected monitors as well. Hubstaff doesn’t log keys however, it does track the action provided through the mouse and keyboard, giving companies a calculation of just how active the employee is. This data all winds up on the Hubstaff dashboard in the Task tab. This is where you can then pick an individual from the drop-down menu to see their screenshots connected with activity data.
When it comes to application and URL monitoring, Hubstaff goes beyond simply tracking time to see what sites and apps an employee opened or visited and how long they had been there. The Reports section may subsequently run custom questions on vectors such as app usage mapped against time and activity. Hubstaff integrates with project and task management tools such as Asana and Trello to filter reports by specific tasks or projects to track productivity.
One unique employee tracking feature supplied is GPS location monitoring through Hubstaff’s mobile program. While the cellular app can’t take screenshots or catch mobile app and site activity, it lets you track and log location for workers working in the area. While the depth of tracking data and surveillance features can not measure up to a grid application such as Teramind, our Editors’ Choice for employee tracking, Hubstaff includes a helpful selection of attributes for companies that want a bit more oversight. Payroll Time Tracking
Wrap-up
Hubstaff is an easy-to-administer, feature-rich, time tracking tool. If you’re diligent about monitoring employee behavior while on the clockthen there’s no better software available than Hubstaff. You’ll be able to log screenshots, monitor keystroke volume, and path moves via GPS tracking.
Unfortunately, if you’re looking for a platform which goes the extra mile to enable customization, atypical data entry, or a more advanced reporting arrangement, then Hubstaff will not be perfect for you. Additionally, in case you choose a different program, your employees will thank you for not needing them to obtain a secondary app for tracking time–especially when you consider that every other tool we examined makes this potential within the boundaries of their online UI. Payroll Time Tracking
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