Time and attendance apps allow you to easily track the exact hours and time off of employees so you can pay your staff accurately.
From endless piles of paperwork to tracking down employees to record their hours, tracking your employees’ work hours can be a complete hassle.
Time and attendance apps allow you to automate and precisely track your team’s time so you pay them exactly what they deserve.
I’ve done extensive research on time and attendance apps on the market and lined up my top 6 picks to help you find the one that best fits your company’s needs and budget.
Here is a quick overview of the top time and attendance apps:
If you don’t have the time to read through our research, jump down to our quick comparison table.
Our Top Picks
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Best all-in-one time and attendance apps
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Good for monitoring team performance
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Good for detailed time reports
Why trust us?
Our team of unbiased software reviewers follows strict editorial guidelines, and our methodology is clear and open to everyone.
See our complete methodology
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Tools considered
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Tools reviewed
6
Best tools
chosen
How I Chose the Best Time and Attendance Apps
To give you a more specific look into how I narrowed down my list, these are the key functions and features I looked for when reviewing time and attendance apps:
Important core features
- Scheduler: The app should come with an easy-to-use scheduler to create employee schedules, and the time clock should integrate with it directly.
- Mobile time clock: The software should allow your employees to clock in and out of their shifts from their phones.
- Geofencing: This feature ensures that employees are marking attendance from the correct location, especially useful for remote or field workers.
- Absences management: The best time and attendance apps track employee absences automatically.
I looked for usability features, including:
- Ease of use: The time attendance app is easy to set up and offers an intuitive user experience.
- Customizability: The app should suit your team structures and shift types.
- Quick login: Employees need to be able to log in quickly and easily clock in and out from their work sites.
- Price: It should be cost-friendly and suits your budget.
- Support:Good customer support is key to help you with any product issues.
I also checked for other key product features, like:
- Automated alerts and reminders: Automated alerts are crucial to keep teams up to date. For instance, the app should notify managers when an employee works overtime and should alert employees when a leave request is approved or rejected.
- Customizable reporting: The app should offer customizable reports on attendance trends, absenteeism, late arrivals, and other relevant metrics.
- Payroll management: It’s important for time and attendance apps to allow you to export data for payroll or integrate with payroll software.
The 6 Best Time and Attendance Apps of 2024
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Connecteam — All-in-one time and attendance app for the deskless workforce
Connecteam is the best online time and attendance app that lets you track your employees’ work hours and manage timesheets in one place.
Why I chose Connecteam: use Connecteam on a daily basis and found that it’s the best time and attendance app out there.
Connecteam offers a single-touch time clock, GPS tracking, job-specific time tracking options, automated timesheets, absence and time off management, streamlined payroll processing, and more.
In addition, the app has exceptional customer service, a user-friendly interface, additional employee management features, and a highly customizable platform that can be adjusted to suit your unique business needs.
Here are Connecteam’s key time and attendance features:
One-touch timeclock for easy time tracking
I’m a big fan of Connecteam’s GPS-enabled time clock. It’s easy to use and incredibly accurate.
When employees open the app, they’ll see the Time Clock icon right on the first screen. When they click on it, they can clock in by tapping the blue Start Shift button. To clock out, they just need to press the same button labeled End Shift.
If employees are scheduled to work multiple jobs or shifts, they can switch between them in the time clock and their hours for each job or shift will be recorded onto timesheets.
Employees can also use the time clock to clock in and out of scheduled breaks.
You can also set up a kiosk station on a single device if employees work in the same location.
GPS tracking
Connecteam offers several GPS tracking features to ensure your team is exactly where they should be while clocked in.
With your preferred settings, you can choose to log your employees’ exact location when they clock in and out or track their real-time location throughout their workday. You can also set up a digital geofence around job sites to limit the area from which staff can clock in and out.
This way, you can prevent employees from clocking in before starting their shifts and eliminate potential time theft.
Job-specific time tracking options
As an admin, you can decide what to track time for. For instance, you can record work hours spent on specific jobs, locations, or clients.
You can use different viewing options from your admin dashboard and see exactly how much time is spent on a specific project or client. This way, you can further gain valuable insights into how you’re allocating your resources. This data is also particularly useful for billing and invoicing purposes.
Automated timesheets
The app automatically logs all tracked time on a digital timesheet. From here, you can view and review all recorded data, such as total hours worked per day and during a set payroll period, overtime, time off, and breaks. The app also makes it easy to spot and correct potentially costly payroll mistakes by highlighting discrepancies.
You can also set up pay rates for each employee or job and calculate work hours, breaks, and overtime automatically.
Staff can also review their personal timesheets from within the app, request edits, and submit their approval before you process payroll.
Absence & time off management
With the time off feature, you can set up your company’s time off policies for any type of absence – paid or unpaid – and manage employee time off requests submitted through the app accordingly.
The app will then automatically calculate and process the absence based on your predefined policies, notify the relevant employee of the status of their request, and keep a record of the process. This spares you unnecessary back-and-forth, manual calculations, or scattered processes.
Intuitive drag-and-drop shift scheduler
Connecteam offers an intuitive drag-and-drop employee scheduling tool so you can create shifts and simply drag employees’ names to them. With the shift scheduler, you can automatically assign shifts based on employee qualifications, preferences, and availability.
You can also take advantage of scheduling templates to make the process even faster. Use Connecteam’s premade scheduling templates or customize your own however you need. You can also create and automatically assign recurring shifts.
Additionally, Connecteam has automatic shift conflict alerts that let you know immediately of any scheduling errors. This helps you reduce labor costs by avoiding double scheduling, assigning the wrong employee to a shift, or assigning an employee who’s scheduled for PTO.
Integrations
I had people that we would just schedule for work and hope and pray that they show up. And now, we have an average of a 90-95% attendance rate.
Key Features
Pros
Intuitive and easy to use
All-in-one solution
Great customer support
Budget-friendly
Cons
Needs internet or wifi access to work
Pricing
Free-for-life plan availablePremium plans start at $29/month for 30 users
See Connecteam's Attendance App in Action
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Timely — Best for monitoring team performance
Timely is an AI-powered time tracking app that allows you to track your team’s time and performance on a single dashboard.
Why I chose Timely: Timely is a great automatic time tracker that puts a lot of emphasis on user privacy. It doesn’t work like an employee time clock, but instead runs in the background on employees’ personal devices.
Accurate time keeping
Timely automatically tracks time to the second. It runs in the background of whatever software or apps your team works on to automatically record the time they spend in each. I like that it eliminates the need for manual timesheet entries and provides you with accurate timesheets to track working hours.
I particularly like that Memory Tracker feature, which allows you to easily sort out how much time was spent on various projects or tasks at a later time.
Simplified task allocation
I found Timely’s Workspace Capacity feature is particularly useful. It provides a clear overview of ongoing projects and who’s working on what, making it easier to allocate tasks based on current workload and availability.
You can instantly visualize your team’s workload, identify over or underutilized resources, and better understand your team’s performance patterns so you can better balance work distribution.
Categorize time entries with tags
I really like Timely’s tag feature. It lets you categorize time entries with specific keywords or labels. When you’re logging time or going over the Memory Tracker’s automatic entries, you can add tags like “Client A,” “Research,” or “Design” to each time block.
This way, if you or an employee is working on multiple projects or you need to break down your work by activity, you just assign the right tag to each entry. Later, you can filter time records by these tags to see exactly how much time employees spent on each project or activity. It’s a straightforward process: select a time entry, add a tag from your list, or create a new one.
Integrations
- ClickUp
- Asana
- FreshBooks
- Google Office
- Microsoft Office
- Expensify
- Harvest
- Jira
- Hubspot
- And more
Timely has been super easy to use, and the help guides are very explanatory. I think I have only had to contact the Timely team 2 or 3 times in the 3 years I have been using Timely. It has made my business work so much more smooth with less admin required from me.
Sometimes, the program does not run fast enough when prompted initially. Also, some lagging occurs from time to time. There is a delay sometimes in connecting via the app, too, but not too often.
Key Features
- Overtime documentation
- Timesheet sharing
- Performance reviews
- Invoicing
Pros
- Desktop and mobile access
- Good customer service
Cons
- Text and SMS not included in pricing
- App is only available in English
Pricing
Starts at $16/user/month, for 6-50 users Trial: Yes Free Plan: No
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Hubstaff — Good for detailed time reports
Hubstaff is a workforce management tool that offers time tracking, productivity monitoring, automated timesheets, and GPS location features designed to help businesses manage their teams more efficiently.
Why I chose Hubstaff: Hubstaff offers two time-tracking tools: an employee hours tracker that runs in the background of software or apps and tracks how long employees spend on projects and an employee time clock.
Employee hours tracker
Hubstaff’s employee hours tracker accurately monitors the hours each team member works by capturing the start and end times of work sessions within specific software and apps.
Employees can manually start and stop the timer as they begin and complete tasks, or set it to track time automatically when they turn on their devices. This feature provides real-time data on who is working at any given moment and how long they’ve been at it.
Hubstaff tracks different aspects of employee work hours, including regular time, work breaks, and overtime.
Time clock app
I like how easy Hubstaff’s time clock app is to use. Employees can clock in and out of jobs right from their phones and includes GPS location tracking to verify where employees are working.
The app also supports geofencing, so you can create digital borders around job sites to make sure employees clock in and out of work from their job sites instead of from somewhere they’re not meant to be.
However, it would be useful if the time clock app offered a facial or biometric verification tool to prevent buddy punching.
Hubstaff also enables businesses to establish rest and meal break policies that ensure compliance with labor laws. For instance, I could set up and enforce a policy for a paid 20-minute rest break and another for an unpaid 30-minute meal break.
Automated employee timesheets
It’s really convenient that Hubstaff automatically converts all tracked time into digital timesheets. Each timesheet displays a detailed breakdown of total hours worked, categorized by day, task, or project. You can review, approve, or amend timesheets easily, too.
Online time reporting
Hubstaff offers the ability to create detailed work reports, which I found really useful. Hubstaff’s online time reporting feature lets you create reports about employee work hours, project progress, and employee activity.
You can customize reports by selecting specific time frames, projects, team members, or tasks to gain insights into how time is being spent. Reports also include visual aids like charts and graphs to help you easily interpret the data collected through time tracking.
You can also export reports in various formats, such as PDF or CSV, for further analysis or record-keeping.
Integrations
Some of Hubstaff’s integrations include:
- Monday.com
- Asana
- Trello
- Slack
- FreshBooks
- QuickBooks
- Wise
- Salesforce
- Zendesk
- And more
The customer service at Hubstaff is second-to-none. They are super responsive and attentive to our account. The clarity in the dashboard and ease of use of the app and online tracking tool is superb. It was extremely easy to implement in our team and get team members onboard.
Aside from screenshots being taken a tad too often (which can feel invasive for users), the one improvement I’d suggest is more of a real-time update on the dashboard of reported hours. Sometimes there is a delay in an employee’s time reporting causing discrepancies between managers and workers.
Key Features
- Detailed reports
- Online timesheets
- Geofencing
- Expense tracking
Pros
- Productivity management
- Good reporting feature
Cons
- Limited payroll options
- Productivity tracker has some bugs
Pricing
Starts at $4.99/user/month, 2 users minimum Trial: Yes — 14-day Free Plan: Yes — For one user only
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Sling — Good for break and overtime management
Sling is an employee management app that offers scheduling, time tracking, and communication features for small and medium-sized businesses.
Why I chose Sling: Sling offers an efficient employee time clock and scheduler that is intuitive to use and has a gentle learning curve.
Employee time clock
If you work with field or remote employees, Sling’s time clock is a good option. The interface shares Sling’s color palette of blue and white and employees can clock in and out right from their mobile devices using the Clock In button.
Sling tracks all aspects of employee hours, including regular time, overtime, and holidays. It also helps you monitor employee absences and offers geofencing capabilities to ensure employees are where they should be when clocking in and out of work.
I really like that once you enable the time clock, you can customize the app to your liking. For example, you can turn on or off the early clock in or automatic clock out features.
You can also schedule breaks for your employees during their shifts. If you do this, employees will be given the option to clock in and out of their breaks using the Start/End Break button once they clock into work that day. If you schedule an employee for a paid break and they don’t clock back in on time, they won’t be paid for the extra break time they took.
One downside about Sling that I discovered is that the time clock is not offered with the free plan.
Task tracking and communication tools
Sling allows managers to send direct messages to employees or create group chats in real-time, which helps reduce misunderstandings and encourages a collaborative work environment. The software also offers an updates feed for announcements and alerts.
In terms of task management, Sling offers a straightforward way to organize and assign tasks. Managers can create tasks, set deadlines, and assign them to specific team members. The software provides clear visibility into task statuses so you can easily track progress. I like that employees can mark tasks as complete and add comments or notes, too.
I was really impressed that the communication tools integrate with Sling’s task management feature. This makes it possible for employees and employers to speak directly about tasks within the task feature.
While the tools are user-friendly and effective, I found that they don’t offer the depth of features found in some specialized project management software. However, for businesses looking to enhance their internal coordination and productivity, Sling’s communication and task management tools are a solid choice.
Integrations
Some of Sling’s integrations include:
- Salesforce
- Gusto
- Zoho Projects
- Redbooth
- Podio
- Redmine
- ClickUp
- Asana
Key Features
- Employee time clock
- Scheduling
- Timesheets
- Time off management
- Task management
- Employee documents
Pros
- Offers a free plan with extensive features
- User-friendly and intuitive to learn
Cons
- Limited customizations
- High per-user pricing
Pricing
Starts at $1.70/user/month Trial: Yes — 15-day trial Free Plan: Yes — Up to 50 users
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Buddy Punch — Good for time off management
Buddy Punch is a time tracking and scheduling app that also comes with payroll capabilities.
Why I chose Buddy Punch: Buddy Punch offers an accurate time clock that workers can use right from the field. The app allows you to manage paid and unpaid time off and track employee absences.
Field employee time tracking
I found Buddy Punch to be a solid tool for tracking employee hours. The software offers an intuitive interface that makes clocking in and out straightforward. Employees can clock in using various devices, including desktops, tablets, and mobile phones, which adds a level of flexibility that’s crucial for businesses with remote or on-the-go staff.
Like other mobile time clocks, Buddy Punch offers GPS tracking so managers can see the location from which employees are clocking in and out, ensuring they are where they need to be. It also offers a webcam feature that adds another layer of verification and helps to prevent buddy punching.
Another neat feature is that employees can monitor employees’ routes during their workday. The route map also has clickable breadcrumbs so managers can determine when an employee was at a specific location.
Employee scheduling and time off management
The feature integrates smoothly with the time clock, allowing for a seamless transition between scheduling and tracking hours. Employees can view their schedules from any device, which enhances accessibility and ensures that everyone is kept in the loop. The ability to set up notifications for upcoming shifts or changes is particularly useful for avoiding any confusion or missed work times. You can also create recurring shifts to further streamline the scheduling process.
However, some users might find the initial setup for the scheduler a bit time-consuming, especially for larger teams.
Employees can easily submit requests for vacation, sick leave, or other types of time off directly through the app and the software tracks both time off and attendance accurately. You receive notifications when someone requests time off and can quickly approve or deny requests, ensuring that all time off is accurately tracked. The feature also allows you to customize time off policies and accrual rates, making it adaptable to different company policies.
Integrations
Some of Buddy Punch’s integrations include:
- Zapier
- Paylocity
- Paychex
- Gusto
- QuickBooks
- SurePayroll
Key Features
- Time clock
- Timesheets
- Calendar
- Time off management
- Scheduling
- Expense tracking
Pros
- Efficient time card approval
- Flexible overtime and break policy
Cons
- No HIPAA compliance
- Live chat isn’t available 24/7
Pricing
Starts at $3.99/user/month + $19 base fee/month Trial: Yes — 14-day Free Plan: No
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Harvest — Best for flexible time tracking
With Harvest, you can use the stopwatch to track time as you clock in or out or manually enter hours.
Why I chose Harvest: Harvest is a straightforward time tracking and client invoicing app. I appreciate it’s intuitive user-interface and how easy it is to start and stop the timer.
Employee time tracking
After testing Harvest’s time tracking features, I found it has several strengths. The interface is clean and intuitive, making it easy to start and stop timers with just a few clicks. The app is designed to handle detailed project and task tracking so users can break down their work and see exactly where time is being spent.
Harvest offers several methods for tracking time, including a manual entry system, a timer, and the capability to allocate time to specific projects. I was glad to see that Harvest has the option to manually add start and end times in case users forget to start a timer.
I like that Harvest allows you to add notes to time entries so users can provide context for their logged hours. This is particularly useful for billing clients or for project management purposes.
However, there are a few areas where Harvest could improve. For instance, the mobile app, while useful, can be somewhat sluggish at times and lacks some of the functionality found in the desktop version. While the tool offers a free tier, it is quite limited and may not be sufficient for larger teams or more complex projects.
Invoicing, payments, and estimates
I found Harvest’s invoicing, payments, and estimates features to be quite effective in streamlining the financial aspects of project management. Creating invoices was straightforward, allowing me to quickly convert tracked hours into billable invoices, ensuring that all billable time was accurately captured without any hassle.
The integrated payments system was particularly impressive, too. Clients can pay directly through the invoice, which significantly speeds up the payment process. Harvest supports various payment gateways, too, providing flexibility for different payment methods, which is a great plus.
I also tested the estimates feature, which made it easy to create and send estimates to clients. This provides clients a clear picture of projected costs before starting a project.
Integrations
Some of Harvest’s integrations include:
- Xero
- Brightpod
- Edge
- Zendesk
- Nifty
- Slack Reminder
- Trello
Key Features
- Time tracking
- Expense tracking
- Task management
- Invoicing
- Reporting dashboard
Pros
- Clean interface and easy navigation
- Option to generate invoices and share them with clients through email
Cons
- Per-user pricing can be costly for larger teams
- Customization and reporting capabilities are limited
Pricing
$10.8/user/month Trial: Yes — 30-day Free Plan: Yes — Up to 1 seat & 2 projects
Compare the Best Time and Attendance Apps
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Starts at just $29/month for the first 30 users
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Starts at $16/user/month, for 6-50 users
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Starts at $4.99/user/month, 2 users minimum
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Starts at $1.70/user/month
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Starts at $3.99/user/month + $19 base fee/month
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All-in-one time and attendance app for the deskless workforce
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Best for monitoring team performance
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Good for detailed time reports
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Good for break and overtime management
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Good for time off management
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Best for flexible time tracking
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| Available on |
What is a Time and Attendance App?
A time and attendance app is software that is used to keep track of employee hours. It helps organizations better manage the time their employees are spending at work, ensuring accuracy and efficiency in the payroll process.
These apps allow for flexible time tracking, enabling employers to make sure employees are clocking in and out properly, as well as reporting any overtime or tardiness.
Managers can also quickly see who is where in the organization at any given moment. With its cloud-based technology, it offers employers greater visibility into employee activity and easier financial management.
Most attendance tracking apps allow businesses to:
- Digitally and accurately track employee hours and attendance
- Ensure employees are clocked in at the right location with a GPS timestamp
- Manage overtime and time limitations with alerts and notifications
- Quickly run payroll
- Manage employee absence and PTO requests
How Does a Time and Attendance App Work?
Time and attendance apps utilize a variety of technologies to accurately track employee hours. This includes using a digital clock-in system or biometric scanning. Employees will log in with a unique ID, such as their name or badge number, then clock out upon leaving work.
The software then automatically compiles the data into an easy-to-read report that managers and business owners can use for payroll purposes. Additionally, some time and attendance apps offer additional features such as scheduling capabilities, shift tracking, geo-fencing and even GPS tracking.
In addition to tracking employee hours, many applications allow for easier communication between employees and employers by offering automated notifications when shifts are changed or canceled. This can help reduce confusion and ensure employees are notified when necessary.
Time and attendance apps also usually come with comprehensive reporting tools that enable employers to gain insight into productivity levels, absenteeism trends, labor costs analysis and more.
What Are the Benefits of a Time and Attendance App?
Reduces manual errors
Reducing manual errors saves your company time and money. With time tracking and attendance software, you can send accurate invoices to clients. In addition, with accurate and exact payroll, you increase employee satisfaction and productivity.
Ensures regulatory compliance
The Fair Labor Standards Act requires businesses to keep accurate records and an automated time tracking and attendance app allows businesses to easily and efficiently keep track of all data. Gone are the days of lost or misplaced paperwork; now everything can be stored on an app.
Provides oversight of employee working hours
A time attendance app provides complete oversight of their employees’ hours. In addition to time tracking, managers can track projects and manage reporting. With real-time data, business owners can make better, more informed decisions.
Eliminates buddy-punching and time theft
With a time attendance app, you can easily curb overtime with automatic notifications and reminders. In addition, employees can no longer clock in for their friends. If the time attendance app you choose has geofencing capabilities, then employees can’t even clock into their job unless they’re in the designated location.
FAQs
Is it possible to cheat an attendance app?
While we’d like to think the answer is no, it is possible. Some time and attendance apps that do not have a GPS location stamp or geofencing capabilities allow employees to have the ability to clock in before they have actually reached the job.
If you are concerned about time theft and want to reduce these costs, it would be beneficial to sign up for a time attendance app that has these features, even if it may be an additional cost. For example, Connecteam has geofencing, so employees can’t clock in before reaching their job sites.
How much should an attendance app cost?
While this question depends on what other features you may be looking for in a time attendance app, the short answer is anywhere between free and $20. With Connecteam, you can sign up for the free plan and easily track up to 50 employee attendances!
Remember, one of the benefits of attendance apps is that they help you save money, so even the very best attendance app should be affordable!
Why should I invest in an attendance app?
The benefits of accurately tracking your employees’ hours are endless. A time attendance app is the best solution for reducing costs from manual errors to increasing employee productivity and satisfaction. What business owner wouldn’t want clear and complete oversight of their employee hours, attendance, and payroll? Lastly, making sure your business is in compliance with all laws and regulations regarding overtime is made extremely easy with a time tracking and attendance app.
The Bottom Line on Time and Attendance Software
Regardless of industry type and company size, there are countless benefits of using time and attendance software.
Review the options above and test out the products with a free trial. When you find an option that works best for your business, stick with it. It’ll be the best business decision you’ll make!