WorkTime

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on September 16, 2012

Keeping careful track of your time is critical if you're paid by the hour -- even more so if you're both the boss and the workforce. WorkTime 5 is a robust time-tracking tool that's easy to use, especially when it's time to create reports for billing clients. It monitors and reports your time and activities while you're at your computer, so anyone who needs to keep track of time spent on the computer can use it. WorkTime is shareware that's free to try for 30 days.

When WorkTime's installer finished, a pop-up nag appeared with information about our trial, including a notice that registration removes the nag. We continued our trial and turned to WorkTime's compact user interface, a small square in the lower right corner of our screen. It's a simple tool: just Start and Stop buttons and three editable, browse-able drop-down lists labeled User, Client, and Project. Using WorkTime basically entails three steps: Configuring your User, Client, and Project data; tracking time spent working; and creating a detailed report, including graphs, that you can email or print and send to clients and project managers. WorkTime imported our Windows User name into the User field and displayed Client 1 and Project 1 in the other fields. It started tracking our time as soon as we opened it, displaying counters for each category we were following. Clicking Stop froze the count; clicking Start set the timer running again. The Quick Task option produces tiny widget-like versions of the interface that we could park anywhere. WorkTime has a good Help file, too.

WorkTime's everyday controls are as simple and compact as they can be, which we appreciate, but it's not lacking in features and options. For example, clicking Reports on the View menu produced a sophisticated, customizable tool for creating reports. The Tools menu let us add Notes (only while tracking time, though) and add times manually. Options include client-server and offline modes. Registration comes with free technical support for one year. Contractors, consultants, and professionals who bill by the hour (or minute) will appreciate WorkTime's simple everyday operation and clear, easy-to-generate reports.

Editors' note: This is a review of the trial version of WorkTime 5.21.