Time tracking in Excel or an app: compare convenience, control and costs

Download the free Excel template for time tracking

For anyone who wants to get started quickly with time tracking without immediately taking out a software subscription, we provide a clear worksheet. You can download our Excel template for time tracking (.xlsx) right away. This file is set up to record hours worked per day and per project and contains the following fixed columns:

• Date: The calendar day on which the work was carried out.
• Client: The name of the customer.
• Project: The specific assignment or task description.
• Start time: The time at which the work begins (entered in 24-hour notation).
• End time: The time at which the work ends.
• Break (hours): The non-billable rest time, entered as a decimal number (for example 0,5 for 30 minutes).
• Billable: An indication of whether the hour worked may be invoiced to the customer (yes or no).
• Hours worked: The net number of hours, calculated by a formula as (Eindtijd - Starttijd) × 24 - Pauze.
• Hourly rate: The agreed hourly rate, exclusive of VAT, for this specific assignment.
• Line amount: The total amount for this line, calculated by a formula as Gewerkte uren * Uurtarief if the line is marked as billable.

Our basic template performs these calculations automatically, but has a number of clear technical boundaries:

• The template only calculates shifts that fall within the same calendar day. Split work that runs past midnight into separate days; the template does not handle night shifts.
• Empty input rows stay empty. The formulas only show results when start and end times are filled in correctly, so your worksheet stays clear.
• No automated audit trail or role-based cell protection is built into the worksheet. Data can be overwritten by anyone with edit rights.
• You enter client names and rates manually. Only Billable has a dropdown list. There is no direct synchronisation with a receivables ledger or accounting package.

If you are looking for other standard layouts from Microsoft itself, you will find comparable basic set-ups via the Microsoft Excel time tracking templates. Where a spreadsheet mainly acts as a manually maintained worksheet, specialised software supports the wider administrative workflow.

Comparison: weekly registration in a spreadsheet versus a time tracking app

To see what the difference means in day-to-day work, we look at a typical working week of a business services provider. We compare how our Excel template performs against the capabilities of modern time tracking apps in five key administrative areas.

1. Recording breaks and rounding

In a spreadsheet you enter breaks manually as a decimal number. A break of 45 minutes, for example, has to be entered as 0,75 hours. Anyone who accidentally enters 0,45 calculates a break that is too short and unintentionally invoices too much time. Many time tracking apps solve this with built-in start-stop timers, break buttons or preset rounding rules, such as automatic rounding to blocks of 5 or 15 minutes.

2. Corrections and traceability

If you change a start time afterwards in our basic template, that entry immediately overwrites the earlier value. In a standard worksheet you cannot see who made the change or what the original value was. Specialised time tracking software can keep a change history. Administrators can also lock periods after approval, so employees cannot simply change closed weeks.

3. Multiple projects and rate management

If you work for several clients with different arrangements, you have to look up in a spreadsheet yourself which rate applies. If a rate changes each quarter, you have to make sure earlier entries do not change by accident. Time tracking software often stores rates in a central data table linked to projects, roles or specific employees, with an automatic rate history.

4. Approval processes within a team

Our Excel template contains no approval flow. Checking within a team happens through ad hoc communication, such as email or verbal consultation. In a professional time tracking app, an employee submits the weekly timesheet digitally at the end of the week. The project manager or team leader receives a notification to approve the hours or send them back with an explanation.

5. Handover to invoicing

At the end of the month you filter and total the billable hours. You can copy them across or use a CSV import if your invoicing software supports it. With dozens of project lines this takes time and copying errors can occur. Many time tracking apps can export time entries as a CSV file or pass them on directly to draft invoices in the accounting system via an integration.

Selection criteria: Excel template versus time tracking software

The table below gives an overview of functional characteristics. This overview serves as a checklist of possible features that you can test with software suppliers during a demonstration or trial period.

Costs and time spent: a neutral fictitious worked example

A spreadsheet seems free when office software is already available within your organisation. On the other hand, manual checking and handover take up working time from staff and administration. We illustrate this with a neutral fictitious worked example that is not tied to specific supplier prices.

Suppose a consultancy with four employees works on assignments for third parties every week. The administrative routine runs as follows:

• Requesting spreadsheets every week, checking breaks and correcting input errors takes the back office an average of 2 hours per week.
• At the end of the month, filtering billable lines and entering them manually on sales invoices takes another 2 hours per week on average.
• Over a working year of 46 working weeks, the manual process in this fictitious scenario takes 184 hours. At an internal cost rate of € 40 per hour, this represents an annual internal time value of € 7.360.

If this same fictitious company uses a time tracking app with subscription costs of, say, € 8 per user per month, the direct licence costs for four users come to € 384 per year excluding VAT. If the weekly checking and approval in the software still takes 30 minutes per week (23 hours per year at € 40 = € 920), the total annual process cost is approximately € 1.304.

This fictitious worked example shows that moving to software is not only about licence costs, but above all about cutting back repetitive manual checking work. The actual outcome differs per organisation and depends on your internal processes and hourly rates.

Selection guide: when is Excel enough and when do you switch?

Whether you choose a spreadsheet or software depends on the scale of your work and how you invoice hours to clients.

When a spreadsheet is perfectly fine

For a self-employed person who tracks hours for a limited number of clients and works at one fixed rate, our Excel template is often more than enough. You get instant insight, have no subscription to manage and can produce a simple breakdown to go with your invoice. The file is not a statement that you meet tax evidence requirements.

When a basic time tracking app becomes more convenient

As soon as you work with several colleagues, team members want to record time on the road via their smartphone or you make arrangements across different projects, a standalone file quickly hits its limits. A time tracking app prevents files from getting mixed up and ensures everyone records hours in the same way.

When integrated project software is useful

Do you work with project budgets, fixed-price contracts with extra work charged on a time-and-materials basis, or do you want to manage team productivity? Then integrated project administration is the answer. You see in real time how much budget remains and convert approved hours into invoices without intermediate steps.

Exploring software options for time tracking

Within the range of business software there are various solutions. In our overview of time tracking software you will find several providers ranked by functionality:

• If you are looking for a clear system focused on time recording and project allocation, take a look at the profile of Project Hours for practical entry and export options.
• If you also want to keep track of leave requests, public holidays and absences in one system alongside time tracking, Timebutler can act as a central staff overview.
• For agencies that want to unite the whole route from quotation and planning to hours accounting and invoicing, Gripp offers a broad platform for project management.
• Business services providers with complex rate structures and a need for modular project reporting can look into Vertec for in-depth management of hours and billability.

Ask software suppliers for a trial version or demonstration in advance. That way you check beforehand whether mobile entry works smoothly and whether the export options fit your invoicing process.

Check the first row

The download contains a fictitious working day from 09:00 to 17:00 with 0,5 hours of break. That is 7,5 hours. With Billable=Yes and a rate of €90, that gives €675 excluding VAT. If you choose No, the time worked remains and the billable amount becomes zero. The formulas are prepared up to and including row 25. For extra lines, copy both the hours formula and the amount formula.