Time Tracking Like a Pro with Timely
Over the years we’ve used several time tracking apps to help us bill our clients and provide insights in how hours are spent. Two years ago we started using Timely and stuck with it because it’s everything we are looking for.
As your team grows you’re able to take on multiple projects at the same time. Working on several projects simultaneously aids us to prevent a creative fatigue, we love being able to switch between projects to spark our creativity. Naturally more projects also means more administration, so finding a suitable solution for proper time tracking was crucial to our business.
Focus is key
A little back story is needed to clarify why Timely works best for us. Yummygum started as a full-service company that designed and coded products, we even built (simple) MySQL databases back in 2010. Besides enjoying the design phase more than programming, it was clear to us the future of our company was in design. After taking the plunge and switching to a design-only agency we noticed an increase in clients we actually wanted to work with, many more projects, a decrease in headaches and an increase in fun + happiness.
For us, it was one of the best decisions for Yummygum. Instead of doing everything right, we want to do everything perfectly. Focus is key.
Providing the total solution isn’t working (for us)
Many time tracking applications offer a wide range of features to handle your full financial administration, from tracking hours to generating estimates and invoices. While that may seem like a really good idea, none of the apps (like Harvest, Ballpark, Toggl and Hours) we’ve used nailed the User Experience for this (huge) process.
An app would either have great time tracking abilities, but would lack in creating invoices. Or it offers a lot of creative freedom when creating invoices, but lacks team support for time tracking. There is always something wrong with these total solutions. When you’re trying to do too much, you can’t excel in all areas. Keeping your feature set limited forces you to be exceptionally good in that area.
Why we choose Timely
Timely combines a very clean interface with a minimal, yet powerful feature set for time tracking. Create a project and you’re good to start tracking your time. It’s also easy to export time reports for clients or internally for your accountants or human resource department. The User Experience is simple and effective, it just works.
The app works fine for freelancers, but there is also a great system in place for when you’re expanding your enterprise with more people. Because of the intutive User Interface our new employees know how to use it within one day. At this point we have 6 people using it.
Timely tries to be an app that compliments (or improves) the business flow you already have in place, instead of a complete take over. We’ve been creating our invoices and estimates with GrandTotal (another app that does one thing well) for years because it offers the perfect balance between power, ease-of-use and creative freedom.
Timely hits the nail on its head by focusing on time tracking, no more, no less. Do one thing and do it well. Another bonus is that they really listen to their customers.
Ready to try Timely?
Sign up for Timely and get 2 months for free with this code: yummygum2015
Originally published at blog.yummygum.com.
