What are the ways to track hours?
There are four common approaches, and most people end up mixing two. The difference isn't how accurate they can be, but how much discipline they need and what happens when you forget something.
- Paper, Excel or Google Sheets. You type a row after each task or at the end of the day.
- Start-stop timer. You press start when you begin and stop when you switch.
- Weekly reconstruction. On Friday you fill in the week from your calendar, email and memory.
- Automatic suggestions. Software records what you did and you confirm. More in Automatic time tracking.
The honest pros and cons
No method is free. A spreadsheet costs nothing but needs upkeep every week. A timer is precise, but only if you don't forget it. Reconstructing feels efficient, but short jobs and calls drop out, and those are often billable minutes.
| Method | Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|---|
| Excel or Google Sheets | Free, flexible, already familiar | Typos, no approval, invoicing stays manual |
| Start-stop timer | Precise per task | Forgetting to start or stop, awkward with many switches |
| Weekly reconstruction | Little effort during the week | Small jobs get lost, descriptions get vague |
| Automatic suggestions | Little forgotten, little typing | You still confirm; needs an app on computer or phone |
Which columns does a good timesheet spreadsheet need?
If you use a spreadsheet, set it up properly from the start. One row per task, not per day, and fixed lists for client, project and activity so you can filter and total later.
- Date. One date per row, as a real date, not text.
- Client and project. From a fixed list (data validation), so ‘Smith Ltd’ and ‘Smith’ don't become two clients.
- Activity. For example advice, development, travel or internal.
- Start and end time, or duration. Duration in minutes or as a decimal; times only if you really need them.
- Description. One sentence a client can read.
- Billable. Yes or no. How to decide is in Billable hours.
- Invoiced. A column or invoice number, so nothing is invoiced twice or not at all.
Tip: don't put rates on every row; keep them in a separate table per client or activity. When a rate changes, you don't have to edit hundreds of rows.
When is a spreadsheet enough?
If you work alone, have a handful of clients and invoice once a month, a spreadsheet is fine. You can see everything, and the time spent keeping it up is limited. If you mostly count hours for yourself, for instance for the Dutch hours criterion for self-employed tax relief, a tidy list is often enough too.
Do keep it consistently and keep it safe. A spreadsheet filled in all at once afterwards is weaker evidence than one that grows through the year.
When does a spreadsheet start to break?
The tipping point usually arrives quietly. A second person sends in their own file, someone has to check hours, or you want to see per client what's still to be invoiced. Then you spend more time merging files than on the work itself.
If you employ staff in the Netherlands, the Working Hours Act also requires a proper record of working and rest times, kept for at least 52 weeks. That's a different record from project hours, but it shows how quickly loose files per person fall short.
- Team. Several files, different spellings, versions getting mixed up.
- Approval. Who checked which week? A spreadsheet doesn't show it. See Approving hours.
- Invoicing. Totalling hours per client, applying rates and marking what's been invoiced goes wrong easily.
- Accountability. In an audit you want to show who logged what, when, and whether it was changed later.
How Half5 does it
In Half5 you log hours per client, project and activity, with a timer, by hand or from the “Suggestions” in your timeline. Whether an hour is billable follows from the activity (“Billable” or “Non-billable”). With “Approve hours before invoicing” hours are checked first, and from a report you create draft invoices with “Create draft invoices from report”.
If you want to keep your spreadsheet, export a report with “Export to CSV”, to Excel or to PDF. The CSV has the columns Hours, Minutes, Description, Contact, Project, Activity, Employee, Date, Billable, Invoice status, Status, Leave/absence, Rate, Amount, Cost rate, Cost, Margin and %. You filter beforehand by activity, employee, billable, approval status and invoice status, among others.
Frequently asked questions
Google Sheets or Excel: does it matter?
Hardly, for time tracking. Google Sheets is handier when several people work at once, Excel when you want to work offline. The columns and fixed lists matter more than the program.
Should I record start and end times or just duration?
For invoicing, duration is usually enough. Start and end times help when you need to show working hours or a client asks for them.
Is there a free timesheet template I can use?
You don't need one: a sheet with the columns listed above, fixed lists for client, project and activity, and one row per task covers what most templates do.
Can I keep my old spreadsheet next to an app?
Yes, but keeping both rarely lasts. It's more common to log in the app and export to CSV or Excel when you want to work with the numbers in a spreadsheet.
