Invoices drift from reality when hours are reconstructed from memory at month end. Capture time as you work, grouped by client and project, and reconcile before invoicing. Clockgauge records time against clients, projects and tasks and reports by person, client, project, task or day, with exports for invoicing.
What the problem looks like
It is the last day of the month and you must invoice five clients. You open your calendar, your email and your project notes and try to remember how long each task took. You round up when you feel generous and down when you feel nervous. One client asks for a breakdown and you cannot produce one. Another disputes a line, and you have nothing to show.
Each side of the problem costs money: lost hours you never billed, and goodwill spent defending hours you cannot document.
Why it happens
Billable time is made of small pieces: twenty minutes on a call, half an hour fixing something, an hour of research. They are easy to forget and hard to reassemble. Without a timer, the mind fills gaps with guesses.
Mixed work makes it worse. Switching between clients several times a day multiplies the chance that time is booked to the wrong one.
Fixes that work without new software
- Start a timer or write the time down when you start and when you stop, not afterwards.
- Use one list of clients and projects, with short, consistent names.
- Reconcile weekly, not monthly, while memory is fresh.
- Share a plain summary with the client before the invoice, so surprises are rare.
- Record non-billable time too, so you know the true cost of a client.
See track billable hours for clients.
Where Clockgauge helps
Clockgauge organises work as clients, projects under clients and tasks under projects. People choose a project and a task when they start the timer, and every report can be grouped by person, client, project, task or day. The Reports page shows total time, activity percentage, calls, screenshots and cost for any date range, and you can export to hand to a client or an accountant.
Hourly rates and project budgets are built in, so you can see cost as well as time. See clients, projects and tasks and reports and exports.
What it does not do
Clockgauge does not produce invoices. It gives you the time and cost figures to base them on. Whether to show screenshots to a client is your decision and should be agreed in advance.
Questions people ask
Can I see time by client?
Yes. Reports group by client, project, task, person or day.
Can freelancers use it for their own billing?
Yes. See the page for hourly freelancers and contractors.
Does it produce invoices?
No. It gives you the figures and exports for invoicing in other software.
Try Clockgauge
Clockgauge is an employee and freelancer time tracker that runs on your own computer: timers, consented random screenshots, activity levels, clients, projects and tasks, budgets, payroll balances and reports, paid once instead of per user per month..