@Georgg@drollins@davidneedham Thank you for the additional insight into your practices! I will include your feedback when bringing this up to the team!
@Georgg We have just released our first set of APIs! More information can be found on our Developer Portal. While we only have basic APIs available right now, we are looking to build upon this in the new year!
Very much agree with what @davidneedham stated. Time tracking doesn't have to be complex or extremely feature rich, just have basic abilities:
Choose Client
Choose Project
Choose Task
Choose date (in case something needs to be logged for a previous day)
Timer (with the ability to manually enter or change the time if the timer wasn't running or running too long)
Notes (the most important thing besides time on the invoice)
Submit/Log time
Once time has been recorded into the system:
The ability to manually generate invoices within a chosen date range, time tracking data gets pre-populated based on a set hourly rate
The ability to set up automated/recurring invoices with the time tracking data (less important but a huge time-saver for certain businesses)
My suggestion would be to start very simple then build upon it. There's no pleasing everyone. There are so many freelancers and small businesses that want to leave Freshbooks and don't have any other legitimate time tracking + invoicing + accounting options. There are also a lot of people that would love to leave Quickbooks Online because it's pretty terrible for time trackers.
ps. ChronoMate is great usability example for the timer itself. Very simple and works very well for Freshbooks Classic.
Bump! I also am a current Freshbooks user and would really like to switch to Wave, but not having time tracking integration is a deal breaker for me. Please add this!
I saw another user say they use Toggl along with Wave... can anyone shed some light on this and how that works? Its not integrated directly I don't believe, so I am curious as to your workflow.
After the recent Freshbooks price increase announcement (grrr...) I am planning to switch to Wave, like others in this thread. One thing I like about Freshbooks is that I can track time there and very simply add all unbilled time for a client to an invoice. Really easy and all in one app.
I am in total agreement with the desire to time-track in Wave! I currently use Harvest for time-tracking due to how easy it is to create an invoice based on tracked time. I haven't figured out a good/non-manual workflow between Harvest and Wave. Time tracking integrated into Wave would be huge! Pretty please?
@Ignite_Design that user may have been referring to our Zapier integration. In short, Zapier links together tons of web services, which include Wave and Toggl. Each service would have a defined set of Triggers, which act as a "start command", and a set of Actions, which acts as a resulting action.
For example, you could get Zapier to "listen" to Toggl, and every time a new time entry is made, a new invoice in Wave is created.
@Erik Erik, It's nice to have the ability to integrate, but not everyone wants to provide additional details and information to multiple companies to do a task. Using Zapier would then mean your data and login information is passing through 3 different companies.
It would be great if it was just built-in as a lot of other applications of this type already do. Any insight into if and/or when that may occur? That would have a lot to do with expanding use or staying with Wave.
+1 for Time Tracking capabilities. As a tech that drives around a bit, it would be nice to track both drive time and onsite time via smartphone applications. Then, as it logs your time, those logs would be available to add to an invoice at the end of the month. Would even be cooler if recurring invoices could automagically pull time that has been logged for that particular client. I know time tracking is HUGE for a lot of contractors. Can't wait to see this functionality.
I also agree with NOT wanting to use Zapier and have to cobble together multiple systems. Inevitably, something will break along the way and it's a nightmare to resolve...not to mention the whole data exposure risk thing...
Totally agree with @mgallant about reasons for not using Zapier. This thread has been going on for almost a year now. @Erik or someone else, please let us know if you have any intention of adding time tracking or not in the next year so we can move on either way. Seems like you could drastically broaden your reach of paying subscribers with it, but what do I know
Count me in on time tracking. I have been using Wave for a little more than a year and this and simple mileage tracking are the two missing features that keep me browsing for alternatives. These seem like simple and basic items that could be easily implemented without much effort and would provide your users with great value.
I was about three clicks from migrating to Freshbooks for this reason. After reading these forums and seeing the numerous folks on Freshbooks looking to move to Wave, I've decided to wait. But, I won't wait long.
As stated by many here, I would pay a small upcharge for access to these features as long as they were easy to use and saved me time and energy that should be applied to growing my business.
Hi @RHJ@mgallant@JeA@coconspirator,
Thank you for reinforcing the value of a time tracking feature.
At this moment, we do not have any committed plans to deliver time tracking as an in-built feature of Wave. However, having made our first steps in delivering a public API last December, we will be rolling out new API resources through 2019, and actively engaging with other app providers to create integrations to Wave. Some of the first conversations that are already ongoing are with time tracking apps, which we would like to see integrating to our platform for both invoicing and payroll.
I'd love to be able to give you a timeline, but given that this depends upon both our delivery and third parties to integrate, I can't do so at this moment. Your feedback is very helpful, however, as we excite timesheet app vendors about the opportunity to integrate to Wave and serve Wave customers!
Hope that is some help.
I’m amazed how many ‘just like me’ businesses have come from FreshBooks to Wave!
The timer/timesheets feature Fresh offered was convenient, as mentioned (above).. when you’ve got multiple clients/projects that are being recorded, the input can then generate an invoice without oversight.
We use TSheets which is an awesome time and location tracker for our employees. It provides reports that work with our payroll company. We LOVE LOVE wave and would like to keep wave but we need TSheets more to keep track of where our employees are. We are a mobile swim business and do everything without an office. Any integration you can come up with will prevent us from going to quickbooks. If you had the integration with Tsheets we would probably move our payroll to wave
Adding yet another vote for time tracking. We also switched over from Freshbooks and I really miss the time tracking feature.
The big thing for me was the ability to forget about it. I created the projects and scheduled it to bill monthly for anything I had logged. All I had to do was remember to track my time and I knew the invoices would be sent out when they needed to be. Now I'm having to manually send them out and I don't even want to know how much lost time/money that has cost me because I have been horrible at remembering to do it.
MinuteDock has the ability to export to Wave so we have been using that, but I would love for it to be part of Wave, or for the integration to be automatic.
+1 for time tracking
Even just having a place to log time that would then generate an invoice on demand would help. I am using Excel to keep track and then copy/paste details in notes with a line item for total hours now. Very manual process...
Toggl has a very nice time tracking feature. I'm a startup business trying to decide between Wave and And.Co, and although I love your invoices, I may have to use And.Co for the time tracking. Calendar integration would be nice, and so would syncing with Toggl. Best case would be if there was a Wave version of time keeping so it was all in one place though.
@cbartonnh@dpieski@Brighteyed_Beckie thanks for adding your voices to add to what PaulC noted up thread, this is definitely an area where our API resources can help us potentially expand our offering, and feedback like this helps us understand what that should look like for our customers. Thanks for taking the time!
@Brighteyed_Beckie do you mind expanding on what you mean with "contract capability"? Do you mean a tool within Wave where you could draft contracts and have them attached to your invoices for managing projects/having better documentation? Any and all details about your desired workflow is helpful!
@Ryan_W Yes. I mean where I can send them a contract proposal and sign it electronically, and they can agree and sign electronically. I have copies of contracts I've sent through other services and it's really easy to tailor from client to client
@Brighteyed_Beckie gotcha, okay that's what I figured but I wanted to be sure. We don't support this at the moment, although if you send your invoices through the Gmail/Yahoo/Outlook options, you can attach everything (contracts included) in an email to your client. We're working on making invoice attachments a feature, but at this time there aren't any plans to include contract templates in Wave. Of course, if this changes we'll be sure to draw your attention to it in-app!
+ 1 for time tracking
I currently use the app "HoursTacker" and manually add tracked time to my Wave invoices. It is quite cumbersome but it does work. I would love something that integrates with Wave more seamlessly. I looked at Freshbooks but I didn't like their time tracker at all. Also, I like the look of the Wave invoices much more than the look and feel of the Freshbooks invoices (strictly my opinion)
@Clearwood97 Thanks for the feedback that you've provided here and the app that you use as well. This could be something that we implement in the future, but still, no concrete or immediate plans in doing so. I appreciate your patience/understanding while we look into planning of adding this feature in the future.
Chiming in here to request a simple time tracker. I currently use Freshbooks and I'm looking for something with better expense tracking/sorting. QB has nice auto sorting bank data but overall it's too cumbersome and expensive for what I need. Wave looks great but I need a simple time tracker.
For my business I work for many different studios, each get a profile. There are multiple projects for each client. I track hours per project and Freshbooks auto generates an invoice based on that imput. The timetracker itself is very simple, a row of text fields to quickly enter numbers (not a 5 click process of opening windows for each day like in QB)
A simple and quick way to track time per project, per client, and generate invoices off that would be golden.
I’m another one on the fence about using Wave without time tracking! I’m a relief (substitute) veterinarian, and I currently use the Hours Keeper app. I clock in and out under whichever client (clinic) I am working for. Then I can create an invoice and choose any shifts I want (or all of the un-invoiced ones). I just don’t really like their invoice format, and I’d love to have that integrated with the rest of my accounting. I keep looking at Wave and then going back to piecing together multiple apps because they do what I want them to.
Comments
@Georgg @drollins @davidneedham Thank you for the additional insight into your practices! I will include your feedback when bringing this up to the team!
@Georgg We have just released our first set of APIs! More information can be found on our Developer Portal. While we only have basic APIs available right now, we are looking to build upon this in the new year!
Another person looking to switch from Freshbooks.
Very much agree with what @davidneedham stated. Time tracking doesn't have to be complex or extremely feature rich, just have basic abilities:
Once time has been recorded into the system:
My suggestion would be to start very simple then build upon it. There's no pleasing everyone. There are so many freelancers and small businesses that want to leave Freshbooks and don't have any other legitimate time tracking + invoicing + accounting options. There are also a lot of people that would love to leave Quickbooks Online because it's pretty terrible for time trackers.
ps. ChronoMate is great usability example for the timer itself. Very simple and works very well for Freshbooks Classic.
Thanks for the thoughtful and thorough feedback @JeA! Feel free to keep it coming!
Bump! I also am a current Freshbooks user and would really like to switch to Wave, but not having time tracking integration is a deal breaker for me. Please add this!
I saw another user say they use Toggl along with Wave... can anyone shed some light on this and how that works? Its not integrated directly I don't believe, so I am curious as to your workflow.
After the recent Freshbooks price increase announcement (grrr...) I am planning to switch to Wave, like others in this thread. One thing I like about Freshbooks is that I can track time there and very simply add all unbilled time for a client to an invoice. Really easy and all in one app.
I am in total agreement with the desire to time-track in Wave! I currently use Harvest for time-tracking due to how easy it is to create an invoice based on tracked time. I haven't figured out a good/non-manual workflow between Harvest and Wave. Time tracking integrated into Wave would be huge! Pretty please?
@Ignite_Design that user may have been referring to our Zapier integration. In short, Zapier links together tons of web services, which include Wave and Toggl. Each service would have a defined set of Triggers, which act as a "start command", and a set of Actions, which acts as a resulting action.
For example, you could get Zapier to "listen" to Toggl, and every time a new time entry is made, a new invoice in Wave is created.
You can learn more here: https://zapier.com/apps/toggl/integrations/wave
@ali_d a similar workflow is present for Harvest as well!
@adriancarr thank you for chiming in! I will also add your voice to the conversation!
@Erik Erik, It's nice to have the ability to integrate, but not everyone wants to provide additional details and information to multiple companies to do a task. Using Zapier would then mean your data and login information is passing through 3 different companies.
It would be great if it was just built-in as a lot of other applications of this type already do. Any insight into if and/or when that may occur? That would have a lot to do with expanding use or staying with Wave.
+1 for Time Tracking capabilities. As a tech that drives around a bit, it would be nice to track both drive time and onsite time via smartphone applications. Then, as it logs your time, those logs would be available to add to an invoice at the end of the month. Would even be cooler if recurring invoices could automagically pull time that has been logged for that particular client. I know time tracking is HUGE for a lot of contractors. Can't wait to see this functionality.
I also agree with NOT wanting to use Zapier and have to cobble together multiple systems. Inevitably, something will break along the way and it's a nightmare to resolve...not to mention the whole data exposure risk thing...
Totally agree with @mgallant about reasons for not using Zapier. This thread has been going on for almost a year now. @Erik or someone else, please let us know if you have any intention of adding time tracking or not in the next year so we can move on either way. Seems like you could drastically broaden your reach of paying subscribers with it, but what do I know
Count me in on time tracking. I have been using Wave for a little more than a year and this and simple mileage tracking are the two missing features that keep me browsing for alternatives. These seem like simple and basic items that could be easily implemented without much effort and would provide your users with great value.
I was about three clicks from migrating to Freshbooks for this reason. After reading these forums and seeing the numerous folks on Freshbooks looking to move to Wave, I've decided to wait. But, I won't wait long.
As stated by many here, I would pay a small upcharge for access to these features as long as they were easy to use and saved me time and energy that should be applied to growing my business.
Hi @RHJ @mgallant @JeA @coconspirator,
Thank you for reinforcing the value of a time tracking feature.
At this moment, we do not have any committed plans to deliver time tracking as an in-built feature of Wave. However, having made our first steps in delivering a public API last December, we will be rolling out new API resources through 2019, and actively engaging with other app providers to create integrations to Wave. Some of the first conversations that are already ongoing are with time tracking apps, which we would like to see integrating to our platform for both invoicing and payroll.
I'd love to be able to give you a timeline, but given that this depends upon both our delivery and third parties to integrate, I can't do so at this moment. Your feedback is very helpful, however, as we excite timesheet app vendors about the opportunity to integrate to Wave and serve Wave customers!
Hope that is some help.
The timer/timesheets feature Fresh offered was convenient, as mentioned (above).. when you’ve got multiple clients/projects that are being recorded, the input can then generate an invoice without oversight.
Hope it’s in the works, wave 🤙🏽
We use TSheets which is an awesome time and location tracker for our employees. It provides reports that work with our payroll company. We LOVE LOVE wave and would like to keep wave but we need TSheets more to keep track of where our employees are. We are a mobile swim business and do everything without an office. Any integration you can come up with will prevent us from going to quickbooks. If you had the integration with Tsheets we would probably move our payroll to wave
Adding yet another vote for time tracking. We also switched over from Freshbooks and I really miss the time tracking feature.
The big thing for me was the ability to forget about it. I created the projects and scheduled it to bill monthly for anything I had logged. All I had to do was remember to track my time and I knew the invoices would be sent out when they needed to be. Now I'm having to manually send them out and I don't even want to know how much lost time/money that has cost me because I have been horrible at remembering to do it.
MinuteDock has the ability to export to Wave so we have been using that, but I would love for it to be part of Wave, or for the integration to be automatic.
Hi @KMRtech @artofswimming . Thanks for sharing your sentiments here. Always love to hear how added features will help your business.
Hi @BlueCurtain Thanks for the advice on what you use for time tracking, I'm sure our other users can make good use of this in the mean time.
+1 for time tracking
Even just having a place to log time that would then generate an invoice on demand would help. I am using Excel to keep track and then copy/paste details in notes with a line item for total hours now. Very manual process...
I would like timetracking for my law firm. Everything I do is by the tenth of the hour, or for some contracting work I do, by the quarter hour.
Toggl has a very nice time tracking feature. I'm a startup business trying to decide between Wave and And.Co, and although I love your invoices, I may have to use And.Co for the time tracking. Calendar integration would be nice, and so would syncing with Toggl. Best case would be if there was a Wave version of time keeping so it was all in one place though.
@cbartonnh @dpieski @Brighteyed_Beckie thanks for adding your voices
to add to what PaulC noted up thread, this is definitely an area where our API resources can help us potentially expand our offering, and feedback like this helps us understand what that should look like for our customers. Thanks for taking the time!
@Brighteyed_Beckie do you mind expanding on what you mean with "contract capability"? Do you mean a tool within Wave where you could draft contracts and have them attached to your invoices for managing projects/having better documentation? Any and all details about your desired workflow is helpful!
@Brighteyed_Beckie gotcha, okay that's what I figured but I wanted to be sure. We don't support this at the moment, although if you send your invoices through the Gmail/Yahoo/Outlook options, you can attach everything (contracts included) in an email to your client. We're working on making invoice attachments a feature, but at this time there aren't any plans to include contract templates in Wave. Of course, if this changes we'll be sure to draw your attention to it in-app!
+ 1 for time tracking
I currently use the app "HoursTacker" and manually add tracked time to my Wave invoices. It is quite cumbersome but it does work. I would love something that integrates with Wave more seamlessly. I looked at Freshbooks but I didn't like their time tracker at all. Also, I like the look of the Wave invoices much more than the look and feel of the Freshbooks invoices (strictly my opinion)
@Clearwood97 Thanks for the feedback that you've provided here and the app that you use as well. This could be something that we implement in the future, but still, no concrete or immediate plans in doing so. I appreciate your patience/understanding while we look into planning of adding this feature in the future.
Chiming in here to request a simple time tracker. I currently use Freshbooks and I'm looking for something with better expense tracking/sorting. QB has nice auto sorting bank data but overall it's too cumbersome and expensive for what I need. Wave looks great but I need a simple time tracker.
For my business I work for many different studios, each get a profile. There are multiple projects for each client. I track hours per project and Freshbooks auto generates an invoice based on that imput. The timetracker itself is very simple, a row of text fields to quickly enter numbers (not a 5 click process of opening windows for each day like in QB)
A simple and quick way to track time per project, per client, and generate invoices off that would be golden.
Hi @JacksonWallop @Islavet . We're still listening to your feedback so thanks for adding your voices!
+1 !