Top 5 Jira Time Tracking Add-Ons for Billing Clients: A Comparative Review

 

Accurate tracking of billable hours is crucial for maximising profitability in service-oriented organisations.

 

Unfortunately, JIRA does not provide all the additional functionality that an organization needs to accurately track hours and bill clients. That is why the solution is found in the Atlassian marketplace where a number of time-tracking apps are readily available at different functionality levels and price points. The question then becomes which one to choose and how to effectively differentiate between the available options.

 

This comparative review will look at five popular time-trackers available on Atlassian. We will compare them side-by-side for important functionality as well pricing options for smaller and bigger teams. We will also look over some questions that your organisation needs to ask before choosing a time-tracking add-on.

 

Questions to Ask

 

When searching for a Jira time-tracking app, here are 8 essential questions to ask: 

 

  1. Will time-tracking be quick and easy for team members to do? 

 

It is important that time-tracking is intuitive, quick and easy for team members to do as this will increase compliance and ensure you get timely and accurate time tracking done on a regular basis. 

 

  1. Will team members be able to mark their hours as either billable or non-billable in a quick and easy fashion? 

 

Your organisation needs to catch all billable hours in a reliable way. To do this, it is important that you have the functionality within your time-tracker to mark hours as either billable or non-billable immediately.

 

  1. Will it be easy for team members to log hours against a particular client/project/account? 

 

This is particularly important when your team members are working on multiple client projects, as is usually the case. Logging hours against the correct account is crucial for accurate invoicing and billing purposes.

 

  1. Will team members be able to log non-work time such as vacations, PTO, overtime, sick leave, admin, meetings etc.?

 

Being able to log time not spent on work tasks will give you visibility over whether teams and individuals spend their time correctly, whether there are missing hours and whether the hours spent are spent in the most efficient way. Having a detailed overview of time spent at a glance is a powerful tool for managing teams productivity better. In turn, this leads to increased billability and budget utilisation and by extension it maximises profit. 

 

  1. Can we track if the invoiced work was done in an efficient way?

 

When you have team members working on clients projects, you want to make sure you are invoicing accurately and that time is spent efficiently. Also, you want to be able to keep an eye out for abnormalities. Did a ticket take longer than estimated / necessary? Was the time spent reasonable? Having an add-on with good reporting options will help you keep track of efficiency, ensure clients are billed correctly and enable you to troubleshoot when needed.  

 

  1. Can we track missing hours that people forgot to log?

 

Even the easiest, most intuitive time-tracking process will leave gaps for error when team members are busy or simply forget to log worked hours. This is why you want your chosen Atlassian app to enable them to log forgotten hours easily.

 

  1. Can we track if billable hours were missed to be invoiced?

 

Report that shows one column logged hours, billable hours, and a column of invoiced hours. If you do invoicing from an external system it’s hard to feed into it. Mark worklogs as invoiced manually within the add-on.

 

  1. Can we track teams total utilization and billable utiliztion rate? 

 

Team billable utilization rate is a percentage calculated by dividing the number of billable (direct) hours by the total amount of hours worked. It is a sign of organisational health and ideally you’d want it to be between 70% and 80%. Having a clear overview of your teams’ billable utilization rate will help you manage their productivity better and spot problem areas early.

 

  1. Is it possible for users to submit timesheets for approval to their managers and team leaders?

 

Some Jira time-tracking add-ons offer the possibility for team members to submit timesheets for approvals to their managers so information can be double-checked and errors caught more efficiently. If this is something important to your work process, look for a solution that offers it.

 

Top 5 Jira Time-Tracking Apps - A Comparison Table

 

Now that we’ve discussed what important functionalities a truly reliable Jira time-tracking app should cover, we’ve plotted our top 5 picks against them in the below table, along with their pricing information. This will help you make a more informed decision on which add-ons are worth trying and most likely to fit your unique needs. Here are a few words for each solution:

 

Tempo Timesheets

 

Pros: Tempo is probably the best known and most popular Jira time tracking app. It has extensive functionality and a sleek UI. 

 

Cons: It comes at a higher price point so if budget is a consideration, there may be good alternatives available if you don’t need to use all of the extra features of Tempo.Approval mechanism allows only one Approver not multiples

 

Timescale 

Pros: Timescale is a relatively new addition to the market. It  has proven itself as a reliable and cost-effective alternative to Tempo. It is packed with functionality, constantly updated, yet affordable for large and small teams alike. It has a true focus on service based organization, and reporting on billable hours and clients

 

Cons: As a new player there are still some missing extra fine tune configurations

 

TeamPlanner 

 

Pros: Employee profiles, time tracking, timesheets, leaves, holidays, billing rates, costs, and clients in one.

 

Cons: There is no time table representation of the time logged. That gives additional overview when user logs their time.

 

Clockwork 

 

Pros: Flexible time tracking options - automatic, clocked and manual

 

 

Cons: No Timesheet Approval mechanism 

 

Activity Timeline

 

Pros: Manages Time Tracking and Resource Planning in one. A lot of reporting

 

Cons: A bit of outdated UI/UX

 

Functionality

Tempo Timesheets 

Timescale

TeamPlanner

Clockwork

Activity Timeline

Quick and easy time tracking

Billable and non-billable hours tracking and reports

worklog attributes alternative available

Time-tracking and reporting against Accounts/Clients

worklog attributes alternative available

custom fields alternative available

Team billable utilization % reporting 

Tracking time on non-JIRA tickets/issues (other activities)

Using Jira Issues

Using Jira issues

Timesheet Approval Mechanism

Teams Timesheets and adding missing hours

External Calendar Integration

Price for up to 10 users (monthly)

paid

free

free

free

paid

Price for 50 users (monthly)

226$

75$

75$

60$

125$

Price for 200 users (monthly)

771$

240$

225$

220$

425$

*Prices are taken for Jan of 2025

 

 

In conclusion

 

We hope this comparison review has helped you think more in-depth about the features and functionality you need in a time-tracking Jira app to meet your organisation’s needs. A reliable time-tracking tool can help you bill clients accurately, expedite the invoicing process, enable your teams to track time quickly and efficiently and allow you better productivity management and visibility over team and project health. A superior reporting ability will provide you with a much-needed overview of how, where and how efficiently time is spent across your teams and organisation.

 

4 comments

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Wojciech Wardaszko [HeroCoders]
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August 12, 2024

Hi, @Miron Ivano _Timescale_ 

Thanks for featuring our Clockwork in your article.

I just wanted to say that you got a couple of things wrong, especially in the table comparison.

With Custom Worklog Attributes, it is totally possible and very easy to track billable/non-billable time and to track against specific customers.
For billable, you just create a checkbox-type worklog attribute called Billable and set it as checked or unchecked by default, depending of which type of work gets more worklogs. We sure hope it's Billable with all our customers ;)!
For tracking time against clients, you create a single-select-list-type worklog attribute and provide a list of your clients. I believe it's usually prudent to make it a closed list to avoid duplicate entries with different spelling, but if someone needs to keep the list open that's also an option. I'd also make this attribute a required one and add Internal or Ourselves as one of the clients.

We also support Internal Activities, which are meant to track non-work time.

I hope this helps!

Cheers

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Bill Sheboy
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August 12, 2024

Please move this marketplace product, comparison article from the Jira area to App Central:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/App-Central/gh-p/app-central

 

For more information, please see:

Atlassian Community online guidelines | Marketplace + Solution Partners | App Central

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Marketplace-Apps-Integrations/Atlassian-Community-online-guidelines-for-Marketplace-and/ba-p/689723

 

Thank you,
Bill

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Annie_DevSamurai
Atlassian Partner
August 13, 2024

Hi @Miron Ivano _Timescale_ 

Thank you so much for the shoutout to our TimePlanner in your blog! We really appreciate the feature.

And I'd love to clarify a couple of things: 

  1. Our app is named "TeamBoard TimePlanner" or simply "TimePlanner," not "TeamPlanner" as mentioned in your post.
  2. Regarding the Cons you mentioned: Currently, our app supports users in reviewing their time logs through the Chart in Reports or the Customizable Dashboard, which allows data to be displayed according to their preferences.
  3. For External Calendar integration: We already had it in our plan and will support this feature to users very soon. 

Screenshot 2024-08-13 at 17.14.56.png

 

Once again, thank you for featuring us, we truly appreciate it! Your article will be very helpful for users.

 

Very Best

Annie - TeamBoard TimePlanner team

This feature is already in our plan, and we will be supporting it for users very soon

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Emily _ DevSamurai
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August 13, 2024

Hi @Miron Ivano _Timescale_ ,

Thank you for giving our TimePlanner a shoutout 🙌 This is really insightful. Also, as our co-worker @Annie_DevSamurai has pointed out, TimePlanner offers even more features that you might find interesting when it comes to having an overview of the data. Customizable Dashboard is one of them. 

Either way, this is such an honor, and I look forward to reading more articles from you 🔥

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