Tracking your time is essential for anyone who works on billable hours but anyone in business will benefit by better costing and managing their time.

There are now a number of online tools that try to make managing time much easier. Here are some of the better ones I've found...

Harvest is one of the most well known of the online time trackers and it's really more than just a time tracker, it allows you to make easy invoices and even track your expenses. There is also a widget that you can install on your Mac or Windows computer (Vista or with Yahoo Widgets) that lets you track your time without having to go online.

If you use Basecamp then Harvest can integrated with it.

There's a 30 day free trial (and you don't even have to give them your credit card). After 30 days, you can stay on a free plan for 2 users and 4 projects and unlimited invoicing. Otherwise plans range from a 1 user plan at $12/month to $90/month for 10 users.

A big turn off is that SSL security is only available with a $90/month plan but that seems to be a common "feature" in online tools.

If it's all too much and you're in the first year of business, Harvest have a new founders program that offers a free year's subscription.

Cashboard has been around for over 2 years which is a relatively long time in web apps.

It is similar to Harvest in that it is a lot more than a time tracking tool - it lets you create quotes and invoices, accept online payments via Authorize.net or Paypal. It also lets you manage employees and sub-contractors without them seeing details about the project management or financials.

It has good support for international businesses and there is a widget available for both Mac and Windows computers.

The plans start at $6 and go to $140/month. It's good that all plans have the same features including SSL security. Not so great is that projects are limited according to plan with the Solo plan only having 3 active projects which effectively renders it useless to most freelancers. There is a decent free account to try it out. They also offer a 30 day trial.

Click edit above to add content to this empty capsule.

14Dayz is great for managing teams of people as all plans let you have unlimited people. It allows you to have multiple projects each with categories and sub categories. There is the option to export to PDF and excel

The free plan allows you to manage 4 projects with 10 categories which may be all you need. Paid plans range from $5 - $99.

It looks very professional and features drag and drop. However, I'd like to see SSL security and exporting to excel on all paid plans.

88 Miles is quite a simple time tracker but it does what it does well and exports to csv and xml (you can open it in Excel). It hooks up with Saasu so you can create invoices from your time sheets.

I also like the way 88 Miles has set up its pricing - it is one of the fairest I've seen. All plans have the same features including unlimited projects - the only difference is number of users. A solo operator pays $5/month and a micro business with 3 people pays $12 with the price increasing based solely on number of people tracking their time.

Tick is a very polished offering. It can be integrated with Basecamp and exports to csv (to open in Excel).

The tick philosophy is to see time as inventory and to manage that inventory well. Hence it encourages you to allocate time for projects and which it will call your project budget. There are plenty of reminders to let you know how much of your time buget is remaining. Learning this principle is worth the first month's fee alone.

The plans are fairly standard, a free trial of one project then plans starting from $9 to $79, if you want SSL security you'll have to go to the $39 Med Biz plan. My main gripe is that the freelance plan only allows 3 projects which makes way too many assumptions on how freelancers work.

Toggl lets you set billable rates by the project, client or project team member. You can also cost projects as a set fee. There is an embedded timer that you can pop out into its own window. Alternatively there is a free widget (Windows only) for your desktop.

All versions, including the free one lets you export PDFs and .csv files.

I'm a big fan of Toggl's pricing - all features for all paid plans and price only depends on number of users. There's a decent free trial then paid plans start at $5 for solo to $99 for unlimited staff.

Basecamp is primarily an online project management tool - however their $49/month Plus and higher accounts let you log time on tasks or generally. It's a simple add on but it may just be enough if you don't need anything too fancy.

SlimTimer uses a very useable web popup to track your time. It lets you enter the tasks you plan to do and clicking on a task will immediately start a timer - this is great for people who like switching from different things or a job that is very reactive.Checking the tickbox means that the task is complete and it gets moved below the active tasks and can't be clicked on. This is illustrated below.

If you need to time multiple projects at once for whatever reason, slim timer lets you have more than one window open at a time. On the main dashboard, you can run reports and print out them directly or export them as .csv for Excel.

The price is currently free.

• Tsheets
• Emergent Task Timer (an explanation of how to use it)
• Intervals
  

Offline Time Trackers

• Klok
• Time Edition
• Time Panic
• Time Slips
• X-pert Timer
• Studiometry
• Allnetic Working Time Tracker
• Fruitful Time Productivity Meter
• Abstract Spoon's To Do List (includes time tracking)
  
• On the Job (Mac)
  

If you have any recommendations or experiences, please let us know in the comments. Thanks!

CommerceCat is an IT consultant and runs her own business. This is the fourth hub in her series of 30 Hubs in 30 Days. She is new to both HubPages and Twitter so if you are on either please friend her! (Her Twitter name is websmallbiz)