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Spreadsheet time tracking kills A&E project profits. You know the drill: hours logged weeks late, site visits that never make it to invoices, and project budgets that blow past their limits before anyone notices. Generic time trackers make it worse: they ignore how design phases actually work, force you to enter data twice, and hide what projects really cost.
Every A&E firm deals with this. Principals discover unbilled weeks of work during invoice prep. Project managers watch budgets hemorrhage without real-time warnings. Finance teams spend hours reconciling timesheets with QuickBooks. Under-recorded time routinely costs architects thousands in donated labor, and 50% faster billing processes directly impact cash flow and team morale.
You need time tracking that thinks like an A&E professional. Phase-level budgets, real-time dashboards, and direct QuickBooks sync: tools built for how you actually work, not how software companies think you should work. Whether you're chasing predictable profits, managing project resources, or tired of reconciling timesheet chaos, the right platform makes your time data as reliable as your construction drawings.
What Makes Great Timekeeping Software for Architecture & Engineering Teams
If you're still hunting through color-coded spreadsheets on a Friday night, you already know the cost of bad time data: surprise write-offs, tense fee negotiations, and an uneasy feeling that projects are burning cash when they should be building profit. The problem isn't your effort; it's the tool. Missed or forgotten hours routinely translate into lost revenue, and underbilling can erode margins on even the best-designed projects.
Great timekeeping software fixes those leaks by thinking the way A&E projects actually run: phase by phase, team by team, dollar by dollar. You need four core capabilities that transform reactive guesswork into proactive control:
- Phase-based time tracking tied to budgets shows exactly where scope is slipping at the "schematic design" or "construction administration" level, so you can correct before the overage becomes a change order debateÂ
- Real-time budget-versus-actual visibility lets project managers see burn rates the way structural engineers read load paths: continuously, not once a monthÂ
- Direct sync with QuickBooks or similar accounting systems eliminates duplicate data entry and accelerates month-end closesÂ
- Fast team adoption on any device ensures logging time isn't effortless won't happen consistently
Together, these features replace reactive guesswork with proactive control. You spot overruns early, invoice with confidence, and build a historical cost library that sharpens future proposals. Think of it as upgrading from tracing paper to BIM for your financials: the clarity changes everything.
The platforms ahead each tackle these essentials differently, from Monograph's end-to-end practice management to flexible trackers like Harvest and QuickBooks Time.
Monograph: Integrated Practice Management for End-to-End Clarity
Most A&E firms juggle Revit schedules, Excel budgets, and QuickBooks invoices just to answer one question: are we making money on this project? Monograph eliminates that three-system shuffle. Built by practicing architects and engineers, it handles project phases, consultant coordination, and multi-rate billing without forcing you to adapt your workflow to generic business software. Reviews consistently mention the "A&E-native" approach: the system thinks like a design practice, not like a law firm.
The signature MoneyGantt™ feature makes project health visible at a glance. Think of a standard Gantt chart with a financial layer underneath each task bar. As your team logs hours against design phases, the bars shift color to show budget-to-cash progression in real time. Like spotting a structural beam approaching its load limit, you can see budget problems before they become profit killers. That visual intelligence connects directly to project forecasts and staffing decisions through Monograph's automation.
Time tracking happens inside the project workspace where designers actually work. Hit "Log" on the phase you're developing, and those hours flow directly into invoices connected to QuickBooks Online or Stripe. No more Friday afternoon reconciliation between three different systems: client bills, retainers, and reimbursables populate automatically.
For principals, Monograph provides the financial visibility that spreadsheets promise but never deliver. Live dashboards show utilization, burn rate, and margin for every active project. The platform tracks firms averaging 21% revenue increases in their first year: numbers that make sense when you stop underbilling because you finally know what projects actually cost.
Monograph works best for A&E firms tired of managing three systems to track one project. It replaces spreadsheet chaos with integrated project, financial, and resource intelligence you can trust.
Harvest: Flexible Tracker with Lightweight Project Budgets
If you need time tracking that won't derail your team's creative flow, Harvest delivers exactly that. Start a timer, tag it to a project, and get back to work: no learning curve, no feature bloat. You can set project budgets and get alerts when hours pile up, which beats discovering overruns during monthly reviews.
Harvest connects to over fifty apps right out of the box, including Asana, Trello, and QuickBooks. Your logged time flows directly into existing workflows without manual transfers between systems. Teams consistently report getting five people tracking time within an hour of setup, and the mobile app handles field notes during site visits: essential when you're managing punch lists across multiple job sites.
The simplicity comes with trade-offs. Harvest tracks time by project or task, but it doesn't break down A&E phases like schematic design versus construction documents. Invoices work fine for basic billing, but you'll need separate tools to see true project profitability. Compare this to Monograph's MoneyGantt™ and real-time financial dashboards: Harvest prioritizes simplicity; Monograph provides depth.
Choose Harvest when your projects follow straightforward structures and you want reliable time tracking without complexity. If you're coordinating multiple consultants across detailed project phases, you'll need more robust tools. But as a clean step away from spreadsheet chaos, Harvest works exactly as advertised.
QuickBooks Time: Seamless for Firms Already on QuickBooks
Field engineers need time tracking that works when cell towers don't. QuickBooks Time handles this with GPS-stamped entries that sync the moment your phone finds signal again: no more chasing down forgotten site hours or wondering if that inspection time got logged.
The mobile app doubles as a job site kiosk, letting crews clock in with a PIN instead of fumbling with phones in work gloves. Once those hours hit QuickBooks, labor costs appear directly next to your original estimates, giving you real-time visibility into how site supervision or punch list work is affecting project budgets. No spreadsheet transfers, no manual reconciliation.
Project schedules flow both ways: update a shift in QuickBooks Time and every team member sees it instantly on their mobile calendar. This cuts the constant texting that happens when site schedules change. Geofencing automatically reminds staff to clock in when they arrive on site and clock out when they leave: protecting both payroll accuracy and your liability exposure. For firms running multiple inspection points daily, this automation often recovers billable hours that slip through manual tracking.
The trade-off? QuickBooks Time won't give you phase-level budget visibility. If you need to track schematic design separately from construction administration, you'll need another system for that detail. But if your priority is capturing every field minute and pushing it straight into QuickBooks without manual data entry, this keeps your entire team and your books synchronized.
BigTime: Advanced Billing & WIP Management
If your projects live and die by precise labor codes, change orders, and work-in-progress tracking, BigTime delivers the heavy-duty functionality you need. Its timesheets break hours down by project, task code, and cost code, then roll everything into live WIP and utilization reports. That level of granularity gives you the same confidence you'd have double-checking a steel connection before a concrete pour: every detail tracked and accounted for.
BigTime shines on billing day with complex fee structures that convert straight from approved timesheets:
- Retainers, time-and-materials, and fixed fee with phase caps flow directly into draft invoicesÂ
- Detailed backup for every task code provides complete documentationÂ
- Built-in WIP aging finally answers "How much revenue is still sitting in unbilled hours?"Â
- Customizable approval workflows let project managers sign off before hitting the general ledger
The software connects with QuickBooks, Sage, and ADP, so accounting avoids re-keying data. The trade-off is complexity: the interface requires training time, and per-user pricing runs higher than lightweight trackers.
When you're juggling multi-discipline teams, detailed cost codes, and month-end WIP meetings, that horsepower matters. BigTime works best for engineering-heavy A&E firms that treat project accounting like structural analysis: systematic, data-driven, and essential for both safety and profit.
My Hours: Budget-Friendly Tracker with Template Library
If you're still copy-pasting hours between half-finished spreadsheets, you know exactly how billable time disappears and monthly reports become weekend projects. Spreadsheet chaos kills profit and wastes time: every underbilled hour proves it. Switching to a full practice management platform feels excessive when you're running a two-person studio or working solo. My Hours fills that gap.
You get familiar building blocks without the headaches. Their library of free timesheet templates works like downloadable sheets but formulas don't break when you sneeze. Unlimited projects on the free plan mean you never archive active jobs to stay under some arbitrary limit. Simple dashboards turn logged hours into clean reports you can export for clients or project files. Log time once, tag the project, move on: no midnight calculations required.
The limitations matter for larger teams. Manual invoice handoffs replace automated accounting integrations in the basic version. While vacation tracking isn't included in the free tier, role permissions offer more customization than basic options. For larger A&E practices, vacation tracking may still be a gap compared to some specialized trackers. But when you're running lean, that simplicity works. My Hours gives you spreadsheet familiarity with built-in accuracy. It bridges the gap between amateur-level tracking and the phase-based systems you'll need when your practice grows.
Timesheets.com: PTO, Expenses, and Customer-Rated Support
Friday afternoon, payroll is due, and you're piecing together PTO balances from one spreadsheet, mileage logs from another, and timesheets from somewhere in between. That admin scramble steals hours you could spend on design reviews or site coordination. Timesheets.com gives you one place to track both project hours and the HR details that keep your team running.
The platform handles paid-time-off the way architects and engineers actually use it. Each time an employee logs vacation or sick leave, their accrual ledger updates automatically. No manual reconciliation of balances. With clear PTO visibility, you can forecast staffing gaps before they derail a deadline.
Mileage and expense capture integrate directly into daily time entry. Field inspectors snap a photo of the odometer or receipt, attach it to their timesheet, and move on. No more end-of-month expense hunts or client disputes about who drove where. Scheduling is handled through a dashboard with drag-and-drop calendars that display team schedules and allow easy rescheduling. You can track leave and time-off requests, and monitor timesheet data to assess project needs, though some details like on-site status and overall project coverage are shown in separate dashboard sections rather than within the calendar itself.
Timesheets.com also exports clean reports for payroll and billing, closing the loop between project tracking and finance. If you're weary of duplicate data entry, an all-in-one system like this reduces that burden dramatically.
For operations leaders who need HR-level controls without giving up project insight, Timesheets.com delivers. It keeps the people side and the project side of your practice on the same page, so you can focus on delivering great work instead of chasing paperwork.
Clockify: Best Free Entry-Level Option for Micro-Firms
When you're running a two-or-three-person studio, every dollar saved on software is a dollar you can spend on better drawings or keep in your own pocket. Clockify sits at the top of nearly every "best time tracking" roundup for architects and engineers: its free plan covers unlimited users, unlimited projects, and full access to the core timer, all without a credit card.
You launch a browser timer, punch in a short description, and Clockify starts logging seconds against the project. If you use Slack or sketch in Figma, you can connect Clockify via third-party tools like Zapier to start and stop timers, though this requires leaving your workflow or using an external setup. The mobile app mirrors the desktop experience, so hours captured on a site visit land in the same timesheet as those logged at your desk. No more Friday-afternoon guesswork about where your time went.
Clockify's simplicity is also its ceiling. You can tag entries by project or basic task, but you won't see the phase-by-phase burn-down that helps A&E teams spot trouble early. There's no native invoicing, and budget dashboards are single-layer views, so you still need spreadsheets or another tool to reconcile design development overruns with construction-administration fees. You'll face the same pitfalls that plague generic trackers: manual reconciliation, limited budget insight, and the risk of underbilling.
For micro-firms just moving off spreadsheets, the benefits outweigh these limitations. Clockify gives you frictionless, everywhere-accessible time capture and the breathing room to build disciplined habits before investing in an A&E-specific platform. Once your projects grow more layered or you simply want phase-level profitability at a glance, you'll need to graduate to a tool that thinks like an architect or engineer, not just a stopwatch.
Decision Matrix: Match Firm Needs to the Right Tool
You know the drill: tracking time across three different systems while coordinating with consultants and chasing project budgets. Here's how to cut through the noise and pick the right tool for your practice.
Run through this checklist based on what's actually breaking in your firm right now:
- Need integrated invoicing and phase-based budgets: Monograph
- Already living inside QuickBooks and want mobile punch-ins: QuickBooks Time
- Require deep task codes, WIP reports, and multi-rate billing: BigTimeÂ
- Must capture PTO, mileage, and expenses in the same ledger: Timesheets.com
- Just need a free, no-frills starter with unlimited users: Clockify or My Hours
Identify your biggest pain point first, then score the runners-up. Use a simple 3-2-1 system: three points for "must-have," two for "nice-to-have," one for "future consideration." The highest score wins a pilot run.
Before you commit, consider rollout time and team buy-in. Monograph and BigTime replace multiple spreadsheets, so plan for data migration and team training. QuickBooks Time integrates fastest if your books already live in QuickBooks. Tools like Clockify roll out in an afternoon but you'll outgrow basic reports quickly.
Pick one, roll it out firm-wide, and spend more time on actual project work instead of hunting through timesheets.
Turn Logged Hours into Profitable Projects
Precise time tracking is the structural system behind every profitable A&E practice. When hours flow from the field or studio into a dedicated tracker, you avoid the spreadsheet black hole that hides budget overruns and missed billing. Firms that track time daily uncover 25% time saved in administration, especially when teams log by phase rather than just by project. Better tracking means faster invoices, steadier cash flow, and fewer late-night scrambles to justify scope creep.
Each platform tackles this challenge differently. Monograph connects time, money, and schedule in one dashboard. Harvest keeps things simple for straightforward projects. QuickBooks Time brings GPS precision to field crews already using QuickBooks. BigTime handles complex WIP reporting. My Hours and Timesheets.com offer affordable entry points with PTO and expense tracking. Clockify lets micro-firms start without upfront costs. Match these strengths to your workflows and growth plans.
Stop Chasing Missing Hours
Every minute you spend reconciling timesheets is a minute stolen from actual project work. While you're hunting through spreadsheets, your competitors are using integrated tracking to spot budget problems before they become profit killers.
The right timekeeping software eliminates the Friday afternoon scramble and shows you exactly which projects are profitable. Pick timekeeping built for architects and engineers. Pick Monograph.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between time tracking and practice management software?
Time tracking captures hours worked on projects. Practice management software includes time tracking plus project budgets, invoicing, consultant coordination, and financial dashboards. If you're tracking time in one system and managing budgets in another, practice management software eliminates that double work.
Do I need different tracking for field work versus office work?
Yes, field work requires GPS tracking, offline capability, and rugged mobile interfaces. Office work benefits from desktop timers and integration with design software. The best solutions handle both environments seamlessly, like QuickBooks Time for field crews or Monograph for integrated project management.
How long does it take to implement timekeeping software?
Simple trackers like Clockify or Harvest can be running in a few hours. Integrated platforms like Monograph typically take 2-4 weeks for full deployment, including data migration and team training. The key is choosing software that fits your existing workflows rather than forcing you to rebuild everything.
