Job Time Tracking

Best Job Time Tracking Apps for Jewelers

It’s difficult to track your time per job due to distractions of taking phone calls, answering customer’s and colleague’s questions, and petting your beloved furry friend; I get this.

It’s even worse if you keep Twitter, Facebook, Google +, Instagram, or your what ever your flavor of social connectivity open. My personal fix: use an app for that.

Yea, that’s right, you’ve heard it before: There’s an app for that.

If you’re really having trouble controlling your distractions, there actually is an app called SelfControl -how fitting- that will close down social apps and websites while you work.

Closing the door and not answering your phone are still your responsibility. Claim your space and your time to be as productive as possible in as little time as possible. Work smart while you work hard; that’s the saying, right?

For job time tracking for us jewelers, here is my go-to app that keeps me honest by tracking the time I spend on a job, so I’m not guessing.

Sometimes I surprise myself with how long it actually takes, and sometimes I surprise myself with how quick I get it done.

It goes both ways. I use the OfficeTime app on my iPhone.

OfficeTime.net does offer a desktop/laptop version for a one time fee, but I just use the iphone app.

With this app, I’m quickly able to add a price per hour for different types of jobs or services, add different projects, and add notes about the projects, which I can then simply export to a spreadsheet. For my contract employer, I print out the details for them, and for my own collection, I record the time for my labor in my pricing formula.

When I need to take a call, let the dog out, get the mail, or some other off-job duty, I simply swipe my phone and tap the pause button.

The ONLY downside to this amazing app is that when you restart a project from a pause, it picks up at the time you stopped it. Therefore, say you’re doing a project and spread it out over a period of 3 days and it took you 6 hours to complete. Instead of showing 3 separate days and the appropriate times you worked on it, it will show the correct start time and then the end time will be 6 hours from the start time. Not truly a big issue, unless you have a need to report the exact times you worked on the piece. For most of us, only the actual time it took is needed.

So, OfficeTime is what I use, but in case you are interested in other apps, I’ve gathered up a few for your perusal:

https://www.marketcircle.com/billingspro/

and http://www.proworkflow.com/ if you’re working on projects for an employer, or have a team helping you, or on collaborative projects.

For more project management resources, check out Project Management and Workflow Help for Jewelers.