Time Tracking

What is time tracking software?

Time tracking software documents how much working time goes into which task. Behind that one term sit two different jobs: legally driven attendance tracking with clock-in times, breaks and overtime, and project-based time tracking where hours are assigned to clients and budgets. Since the 2022 ruling of the German Federal Labour Court, employers in Germany must record working hours systematically, which turned the topic from nice-to-have into a compliance question. Many tools only do one of the two jobs well. If you track for client billing, you need project structures, hourly rates and exports. If you need to satisfy working time law, you need break rules and traceable records. The first question before any tool decision is therefore: what are you tracking for?

Typical use cases

Freelancers and agencies: Track billable hours per client and project, export them as the basis for invoices at the end of the month. What counts here is the connection to billing, such as hourly rates per project and clean CSV or PDF exports.

Teams with project budgets: If a project has a budget of 100 hours, you want a warning at hour 80, not a surprise at hour 130. Team tools show budget consumption in real time and distribute hours across people.

Statutory attendance tracking: Clock-in and clock-out times, break monitoring, overtime accounts. What matters is traceability and simple operation for every employee, not project features.

Self-analysis: Automatic trackers log in the background which programs and projects actually consume your time. That produces more honest data than any manual estimate and suits anyone who wants to understand their working habits.

What matters when choosing

Data ownership: Working hours are personal data, and in teams they are particularly sensitive. Self-hosted tools such as Kimai or Lasius keep everything on your own server, which simplifies any GDPR assessment considerably and makes works council agreements easier to negotiate.

Tracking ergonomics: A tool that demands five clicks per entry will be abandoned after two weeks, and abandoned time tracking is worthless. Starting a timer via keyboard shortcut, browser extension or automatic detection decides the quality of your data.

Export and billing: Whether a tool is fit for practice shows at invoicing time at the latest. Before rolling it out, check that hours can be filtered by client, project and period, and exported in the format your billing needs.

Cost model: Per-user pricing adds up quickly in teams. Open source alternatives cost operational effort instead: a server, updates, backups. Which currency you prefer depends on your technical setup.

Open source vs. commercial

Time tracking is one of the categories with mature open source options. Kimai has been established for years and covers a lot, from solo tracking to team billing; Lasius brings a more modern approach for privacy-critical environments. Commercial SaaS services counter with onboarding, support and ready-made integrations into accounting and project management software. An honest rule of thumb: if you can operate Docker and want data ownership, open source serves you better. If you want to start in ten minutes and need support, the SaaS subscription is what you are paying for.

Frequently asked questions

What does time tracking software cost?

Open source tools such as Kimai are free and run on your own server, available from around 5 euros per month. SaaS services usually start at 5 to 12 euros per user per month; enterprise features such as shift planning cost more. For solo users there are several permanently free apps.

Is time tracking mandatory for freelancers?

No. The recording obligation under German working time law applies to employers with staff. For freelancers, time tracking is still the basis of any billing by effort and the only reliable answer to the question of whether a client is worth it.

Which time tracking is GDPR-compliant?

GDPR compliance depends on how a tool is operated, not on the tool alone: where is the data stored, who has access, is there a data processing agreement? The assessment is easiest with self-hosted solutions, because the data never leaves your own server. With SaaS services, look at the server location and the data processing agreement.

The tools above cover the whole spectrum, from minimalist timers to team solutions with billing. Each detail page shows strengths, weaknesses and suitable alternatives.