Timesheet software for service businesses: how it works and which to choose

Timesheet software is an application in which each person records the hours they worked, usually in a weekly grid of days against clients, projects and tasks, and then submits the week so a manager can approve or reject it. The approved timesheet becomes the record that invoices, project cost and, in some companies, payroll rely on.

Time tracking software is about capturing hours while the work happens: a start/stop timer, or automatic capture of apps and websites. A timesheet is about the week as a whole. Is it complete, is every hour on the right client, and has someone accepted it? Many tools do both, so the useful question is which half you need more.

• Time tracker: records time as it happens. The unit is an entry: a task, a start and an end. It answers “how long did this take?”
• Timesheet: collects one person’s entries for a period, usually a week, and moves through submit, approve or reject, and lock. It answers “is this week right, and can we invoice and cost from it?”

If you mainly need a timer, our guide to the best time tracking software compares the options. This guide is about the weekly record and its approval.

A search for timesheet software leads to three different kinds of product. They overlap, but each is built around what happens to the hours after they are entered.

1. Timesheets for client work. Hours go against a client, project and task, with a billable flag, so they can be invoiced and costed. Harvest, Clockify, Toggl Track, TimeCamp, My Hours, Paymo and actiTIME sit here. This is the type agencies, studios and consultancies need.
2. Employee timesheets for attendance and payroll. Clock-in and clock-out, overtime and a link to payroll matter more than clients. Connecteam’s pricing page, for example, lists a payroll integration (QuickBooks, Gusto, Paychex, Xero (AUS), ADP) from its Basic plan, a flat $29 a month on annual billing for the first 30 users. Hubstaff (Team) and Time Doctor (Standard) also list payroll on their pricing pages. Searches for “employee timesheet software” and “timesheet software for small business” often mean this type.
3. Timesheets inside work management or business management software. The timesheet sits next to the tasks, so nobody copies hours from one tool to another. ClickUp lists Timesheets on its Business plan ($17 per user a month billed annually). Asana sells a Timesheets and Budgets add-on per user and shows no price for it on its pricing page. Productive puts billable time approvals on its Professional plan ($25 per user a month billed annually, minimum 3 seats); submitting timesheets for approval and locking time are on Ultimate. PLYNTUM belongs here too: hours sit on tasks, next to clients, invoices and project cost.

Choose the type by what the hours are for: an invoice and a margin, a payslip, or a project plan.

For a business that sells hours, eight features decide whether a timesheet tool helps or only stores numbers. Check each one on the plan you would actually buy: many vendors put approval, reminders or invoicing on a higher plan than the entry price.

• Weekly entry by client and project. A grid of days against tasks, where each task already belongs to a project and a client. An entry that says “Tuesday, 8 hours” can be neither invoiced nor costed.
• A timer and manual entry. A start/stop timer for desk work, and manual entry for the meeting nobody timed. Check whether entries can still be changed after the week is submitted.
• Billable flag and rates. Each entry is billable or non-billable, with a rate per person, project or client, so the billable share of the week is visible.
• Reminders. An email or notification when someone has not logged time or not submitted the week. Clockify lists targets and reminders on Standard, Toggl Track lists team reminders on Premium, and My Hours lists tracking reminders on Pro.
• Submit, approve, reject. The person submits the week; a manager approves it or sends it back with a note. Check who can approve: anyone with a manager role, or only the person’s direct manager.
• Locking. A submitted or approved week cannot be quietly changed. Without a lock, approval is a formality.
• Exports and integrations. A CSV or Excel export of hours, or a sync to payroll and accounting. Toggl Track lists CSV and XLSX export from Starter; Connecteam lists an exportable timesheet on its free and Basic plans and payroll integration from Basic.
• Mobile entry. Starting a timer or adding a missed entry from a phone, and approving from one. More in the section on timesheet apps below.

Some teams also need rounding rules, for example to the nearest 15 minutes, or overtime calculations. If you bill in fixed increments, check these on the vendor’s own page.

A shared spreadsheet is a fair start for one to five people who trust each other’s numbers. Our free weekly timesheet template has the minimum fields: client, project, task, billable or not, hours for each day and a total for the week. As the team grows, the spreadsheet fails in predictable ways:

• Files multiply. One file per person per week, and nobody can say which version was approved.
• Hours are typed twice. Once in the sheet, then again into the invoice or the project budget.
• Names drift. “Northwind”, “Northwind Ltd” and “NW” are three different clients to a formula.
• Missing days do not show. An empty cell looks the same as a day off.
• Edits leave no trace. A number changed after approval looks like any other number.

When two of these apply, move the hours into software where they sit on tasks and the week can be locked.

Employers in Georgia also keep the official monthly working time record form (tabeli) set by Order No. 01-15/ნ. A project timesheet does not replace it, and PLYNTUM does not produce it. Our guide to filling in the Georgian timesheet form explains it column by column.

Nine timesheet tools and PLYNTUM, read on each vendor’s own pricing page on 24 October 2026. The price is for 10 users on the plan where the vendor places timesheet approval, per month, on annual and then monthly billing, before tax. PLYNTUM is priced per workspace with members included; the others are priced per user.

How we compared. Every figure comes from the vendor’s own pricing page, read on 24 October 2026 (clockify.me, toggl.com, getharvest.com, hubstaff.com, timedoctor.com, timecamp.com, paymoapp.com, myhours.com, actitime.com). “Not on its pricing page” means the page does not say; it does not mean the feature is missing. Harvest’s prices start “from”, and extra invoices, projects, clients and tasks are billed by use at rates the page does not show. Paymo’s annual figures equal its current promotional monthly price. TimeCamp’s plan cards also show higher prices; we used the figures in its comparison table. Prices change, so check the live page before you buy. PLYNTUM is our product and follows the same rules.

What the table shows:

• Cheapest approval for 10 people: Clockify Standard ($54.90), then TimeCamp Ultimate ($59.90). actiTIME’s only paid plan costs $60, but its pricing page does not itemise approval.
• Approval, invoicing and reminders on one plan: Clockify Standard and My Hours Pro.
• Invoicing on every plan: Harvest, though approval needs Enterprise.
• Payroll rather than client invoices: Connecteam, Hubstaff Team or Time Doctor Standard.
• PLYNTUM Core ($120): for approval alone it costs more than Clockify, TimeCamp, My Hours, Hubstaff and Time Doctor and less than Harvest Enterprise, Toggl Track Premium and Paymo Pro; actiTIME’s pricing page does not itemise approval. Per-workspace pricing cuts both ways: 6 people on Core pay the same $120, while a per-user price falls as the team shrinks. PLYNTUM is worth comparing when you want the approved week next to tasks, clients, invoices and project cost in one workspace.

For the cheapest options at 5, 10 and 25 users, see our research on the cheapest time tracking software.

A timesheet app earns its place when the work happens away from a desk: on a shoot, at a client’s office, between meetings. Four things matter more than the app icon:

• The timer starts and stops on the right task, not on a generic “work” timer.
• A missed entry can be added later, against the right client and project.
• The week can be submitted from the phone, and the approver can approve or reject from one.
• A reminder arrives at the end of the day. My Hours lists a daily tracking reminder in its mobile app on every plan, including Free.

Most tools in the table list mobile apps on every plan: Clockify, Toggl Track, Harvest, Hubstaff, TimeCamp, Paymo and My Hours. actiTIME lists a free mobile app with its paid Online plan, and Time Doctor names mobile apps among its platforms. PLYNTUM has no native iOS or Android app: it works in the phone’s browser, so there is nothing to install.

Approval turns a list of entries into a settled record. The usual cycle has four steps. The person submits a complete week. A manager approves it, or rejects it with a note saying what to fix. A rejected week opens again to be corrected and resubmitted. An approved week locks. Approved time is the hours that have passed this check, not raw tracked activity.

Three habits make approval work:

• One approver per team and a fixed day, for example Monday before noon, while people still remember the week.
• Reject with a note. Never edit someone’s week silently.
• Watch the billable share week to week, not only the total.

In PLYNTUM, approval comes with Core. Any manager can approve any person’s week in one step, and submitted and approved weeks lock. A worked week and a price comparison are on our timesheet approval software page, and the full weekly routine, with what to check and a checklist, is in the timesheet approval process.

On hourly work, the invoice line is approved billable hours multiplied by the agreed rate. On fixed-fee work, the same hours, valued at each person’s cost, show whether the project made money. Either way the timesheet has to be complete and approved before month end, or both the invoice and the margin rest on guesses.

Tools handle this differently. Harvest, Clockify (Standard), My Hours (Pro), TimeCamp (Starter), Paymo and Hubstaff list invoicing on their pricing pages, and actiTIME describes PDF invoices built from hourly rates and recorded time. In PLYNTUM, you write invoices with free-form lines on every plan, in GEL, USD or EUR, and share them by link, email them from PLYNTUM when the workspace’s email sending is set up, or save them as PDF from the print view. Recurring invoices come with Core. From Core, approved, billable hours from approved weeks can also become a draft invoice, priced at the billable rates set in PLYNTUM, one line per project and rate; you edit the draft and issue it yourself.

Project cost in PLYNTUM counts every logged hour, approved or not, so approving every week keeps cost and approved time the same. Our guide to time and billing software walks through one client’s month, from hours to invoice.

Hours usually go missing through gaps, not bad faith. The week is rebuilt on Friday from memory, short tasks go unlogged, and internal work, calls and email are left out because they seem to belong to no project. Each unlogged hour is a cost you still pay and, on hourly work, revenue you can no longer invoice.

• Log time daily, at the end of the day, not on Friday.
• Run the timer on the task, so the entry carries the client and project with it.
• Use reminders if your tool has them: Clockify Standard, Toggl Track Premium and My Hours Pro list them.
• Approve every week. A manager scanning a weekly timesheet spots an empty Wednesday sooner than a month-end report does.
• If typing is the problem, consider automatic capture. TimeCamp lists an AI Time Tracker on its free plan, billed separately by token usage.

PLYNTUM has no reminders and no automatic capture today, so the daily habit and the weekly approval do the work. What the gaps cost is worked through in our article on unlogged hours.

PLYNTUM is business management software for agencies and service companies. The timesheet is one part of it, next to tasks, clients, invoices and project cost.

• Every plan: a start/stop timer on a task, or manual entry in the weekly timesheet. Time is kept to the minute, with no rounding. Each hour belongs to a task, the task to a project and the project to a client. Non-billable time can be marked.
• From Core: billable rates. Each person submits their week, a manager approves it or rejects it with a note, and submitted and approved weeks lock.
• Cost: project cost counts every logged hour, approved or not.
• Leave: leave requests with manager approval, and vacation and day-off balances, on every plan.
• Phone: works in the mobile browser; there is no native app.

Prices are per workspace with members included: Launch $55 a month ($44 billed annually) for 5 members, Core $150 ($120 billed annually) for 10, and Scale $450 ($360 billed annually) for 25. Approval starts on Core. Launch has a 7-day trial with no card, and there is no free plan. See time tracking in PLYNTUM and pricing.

• No reminders for missing timesheets. If chasing people is the main problem, Clockify Standard, Toggl Track Premium and My Hours Pro list reminders.
• No timesheet or hours export. Hours stay in PLYNTUM. CSV exports for your accountant cover invoices and payments, expenses and payroll, and the payroll CSV is based on salaries, not on timesheets.
• No payroll from timesheets. For hourly payroll, use a tool with a payroll integration, such as Connecteam (from Basic) or Hubstaff (Team).
• No automatic capture. Hours are entered with the timer or by hand. Private desktop capture is in development, with no release date.
• No rounding rules. Time is kept to the minute. If you bill in 15-minute increments, round on the invoice.
• No invoices from unapproved time. From Core, PLYNTUM drafts invoices only from approved, billable time, and you issue them yourself. Harvest has invoicing on every plan.
• One approval step. There is no multi-level sign-off, and approval does not follow reporting lines: any manager can approve any person’s week.
• No native mobile app. The mobile browser only.
• No official Georgian form. PLYNTUM does not produce the monthly working time record form; fill it in separately.
• Not the cheapest for approval alone. For 10 people, Clockify Standard, TimeCamp Ultimate, My Hours Pro, Hubstaff Team and Time Doctor Standard cost less.

1. Monday: clients, projects, tasks. Add only the clients and projects you are working on now, with their open tasks. Old work can wait.
2. Monday: the rules. Decide what counts as billable, who approves each team’s hours and on which day. Write it in one paragraph and share it.
3. Tuesday to Friday: log daily. Everyone logs time against tasks, with the timer or by hand, before leaving each day. Keep last week’s spreadsheet only for comparison.
4. Friday: submit. Each person submits their week.
5. The next Monday: approve. The approver approves each week or rejects it with a note; rejected weeks come back the same day.
6. Compare and stop. Compare the approved hours with what the spreadsheet would have shown, then retire the spreadsheet. Write the month’s invoices from the approved billable hours.

In PLYNTUM the 7-day trial is on Launch, which has no approval step: log the first week on Launch, then move to Core to switch on submit and approve. Employers in Georgia keep filling in the official monthly form alongside.

Every price was checked on the vendor’s own pricing page on 24 October 2026. If something has changed, tell us at info@plyntum.com and we will correct it.

• Clockify pricing
• Toggl Track pricing
• Harvest pricing
• Hubstaff pricing
• Time Doctor pricing
• TimeCamp pricing
• Paymo pricing
• My Hours pricing
• actiTIME pricing
• Connecteam pricing
• ClickUp pricing
• Asana pricing
• Asana Timesheets & Budgets pricing
• Productive pricing

• Timesheet approval software for small service teams
• Free timesheet template: weekly hours by client and project
• How to fill in the Georgian timesheet form (working time record)
• Approved time