Time Tracking — Specification

Time Tracking

Category Description

Time tracking software enables organizations to record, manage, and analyze how time is spent across projects, tasks, and team members. These tools allow individuals to log work hours — via timers, manual entry, or timesheet views — and provide managers with visibility into team activity, project progress, and resource utilization. The core value proposition is replacing manual timekeeping methods (spreadsheets, paper timesheets) with a structured system that improves accuracy, supports billing and payroll workflows, and provides reporting on how time is allocated.

Example Implementations

• Clockify
• Harvest
• Toggl Track
• My Hours

Target Audience

Small to mid-size professional services firms, agencies, consultancies, and freelancers who need to track billable and non-billable hours across client projects. The primary users are employees or contractors who log their time daily or weekly, managers who review timesheets and monitor project progress, and administrators who configure projects, billing rates, and team permissions. The software is typically used in environments where accurate time data is essential for client invoicing, internal cost tracking, or both.

Core Requirements

1. Time entry via timer: Users must be able to start, stop, and resume a running timer associated with a project and/or task. The timer must persist across page reloads (i.e., navigating away and returning should not lose a running timer).

2. Manual time entry: Users must be able to add time entries manually by specifying a date, start/end time or duration, and associating the entry with a project and/or task.

3. Timesheet view: Users must be able to view and enter time in a weekly grid/timesheet format, with projects/tasks as rows and days of the week as columns.

4. Projects and tasks: Administrators or managers must be able to create projects and, within projects, define tasks. Time entries must be associated with at least a project; task association should be optional per the project's configuration.

5. Client association: Projects must be assignable to a client. The system must support creating and managing a list of clients.

6. Billable vs. non-billable classification: Each time entry must be classifiable as billable or non-billable. This classification may be set as a default at the project level and overridden at the entry level.

7. Hourly rates: The system must support configuring hourly billing rates. At minimum, rates must be configurable per project. The system must use these rates to calculate billable amounts on time entries.

8. Time entry descriptions: Users must be able to add a free-text description or note to any time entry.

9. Editing and deleting time entries: Users must be able to edit and delete their own time entries. Managers and administrators must be able to edit and delete entries for users they manage.

10. Basic reporting: The system must provide at least the following reports:

    • Total hours by project for a configurable date range
    • Total hours by team member for a configurable date range
    • Total hours by client for a configurable date range

    Reports must support filtering by project, team member, client, and date range. Reports must be exportable to CSV.

11. Team member management: Administrators must be able to invite users to the organization, assign them to projects, and deactivate their accounts.

12. Timesheet approval workflow: Managers must be able to review and approve or reject timesheets submitted by team members. Team members must be able to submit their timesheet for a given period and see its approval status.

13. Tags or categories: Users must be able to apply one or more tags or categories to time entries for additional classification beyond project and task. Administrators must be able to define the available tags.

Scope Boundaries

• Native mobile applications are not required. The web application must be usable on mobile browsers, but native iOS/Android apps are not in scope.
• Desktop applications (e.g., menu bar timers, desktop widgets) are not required.
• Browser extensions (e.g., embedding a timer into other web apps) are not required.
• Invoicing is not required. The system must track billable amounts but does not need to generate, send, or manage invoices.
• Payment processing is not required. The system does not need to accept payments or integrate with payment gateways.
• Expense tracking is not required. The system does not need to track non-time expenses such as materials, mileage, or receipts.
• Time off / leave management is not required. The system does not need to manage PTO, holidays, or absence requests.
• Scheduling or capacity planning is not required. The system does not need to assign or forecast future work.
• Kiosk / shared device clock-in is not required. The system does not need to support PIN-based clock-in from a shared device.
• Automatic time tracking (recording which apps or websites a user visits) is not required.
• GPS or location tracking is not required.
• Screenshot or activity monitoring is not required.
• Third-party integrations (e.g., Jira, Asana, Slack, QuickBooks, Xero) are not required. An API is not required.
• SSO / SAML authentication is not required. Email/password authentication is sufficient.
• Idle detection is not required.
• Calendar view of time entries is not required.
• Recurring time entries or templates are not required.
• Custom fields on time entries are not required.
• Rounding rules for time entries are not required.
• Locking past time entries (preventing edits after a certain date) is not required.
• Multiple billing rates per user or per task are not required. Per-project rates are sufficient.
• Audit trail of changes to time entries is not required.
• Project budgets is not required.The system does not need to set a time budget (in hours) on a project or track progress against the budget (e.g., hours used vs. hours budgeted).

Spec Metadata

• Version: 1.0
• Created: 2026-03-15
• Last Updated: 2026-03-15
• Status: Final