Time recording software for accountants

Why accounting practices record time

Most practices have moved to fixed fees for compliance work, and clients like the certainty. But a fixed fee does not remove the need for a time record. It changes what the record is for. You are no longer billing from it; you are checking whether the fee covers the work.

Without that record, a client paying £150 a month for bookkeeping and a VAT return looks as healthy as any other. With it, you can see that the same client sends a shoebox of receipts every quarter and takes eleven hours a month. That is the evidence you need to reprice at renewal, and the reason most practices that stop recording time end up undercharging.

For advisory, ad hoc and hourly work, the record is still the bill. Unrecorded phone calls and quick queries are where the fees leak away.

What to look for

• Six-minute units. The usual professional services convention. The software should round for you.
• Rates per person, client and activity. A partner's hour on tax planning is not worth the same as a junior's hour on data entry.
• Fixed fees alongside hourly work. Time against a fixed fee must still be recorded, so recovery can be reported.
• Unbilled time and write-offs. You need to see what is waiting to be billed and approve anything being written off.
• A route to the invoice. Recorded time should become a draft invoice in your accounts package without anyone retyping figures.
• Client onboarding. For limited company clients, the details are already on the Companies House register. Typing them in again is wasted time.

How Posttime handles it

Posttime runs in the browser, so there is nothing to install. Time goes in with a start/stop timer or typed straight in, rounded to your units, with the right rate applied. Everyone can see their running total against a seven-hour chargeable day.

Fixed-fee and non-billable work sit beside chargeable time, so the reports show where every hour went by person, client and activity. When you bill, unbilled time becomes a draft invoice and posts to QuickBooks Online in one click. On the Team plan, write-offs go through approvals.

New limited company clients are added with a Companies House search that fills in the record from the register. The Firm plan adds AutoBank, which imports the bank feed, matches payments to invoices and produces a profit and loss and balance sheet. There is also quarterly readiness for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.

Where Posttime is not the right fit

• It does not prepare accounts or tax returns. Keep your accounts production and tax software; Posttime handles time, billing and the client record.
• QuickBooks Online is the only direct accounts connection. If you invoice from Xero or Sage, you would export to a spreadsheet instead.
• It is browser-based only, with no desktop install. It works on phones and tablets through the browser.

If you are weighing up other tools, our comparison of time recording software for UK firms sets Posttime beside Clockify, Toggl Track, Harvest and Timely. Bookkeeping practices have their own guide to time recording for bookkeepers.