TimeTracker Lite

Professionals who charge their clients based on fixed hourly rates need to be able to track the actual time spent working on certain projects as accurately as possible. Without a specialized application to make things easier, however, this task can be quite tedious.

TimeTracker Lite is a simple program that offers a solution, as it enables you to organize multiple projects and keep a close eye on the amount of time invested in each of them.

Once you have created your first project, you can begin adding individual tasks by accessing the Time Sheet. Each activity can be assigned to a particular project, and the application displays a helpful visual representation of the data. However, the entries are not color coded, so it may be difficult to differentiate between tasks related to specific projects.

The Month view can give you a better overall idea of how your activities have been organized over the course of a whole month. However, you can only see how much time has been spent on various tasks, and not the projects you have worked on.

When adding a new project to the database, you can specify how many work hours it will involve, as well as its estimated cost. Unfortunately, though, the application does not take advantage of this information in any way.

For instance, it would have been great if TimeTracker Lite were capable of calculating fees based on fixed hourly rates and notifying you when the predicted project costs have been exceeded.

After specifying where the data should be saved, you can create backups with just a couple of mouse clicks, and the program even reminds you to do so when you shut it down.

The time tracking information can also be exported to an XLS file and printed or processed with various spreadsheet applications.

TimeTracker Lite is a straightforward program that enables you to organize your projects and calculate how much time has been spent on various tasks. It lacks some important features, however, and the GUI is somewhat outdated.