Billing/project tracking software or techniques? Help!

Got me a job (yay me!), but I need some doperhelp.

I work on a load of different projects, which the client is then billed for. So I am supposed to keep track of what I am working on when. Each week I then feed in my time report (or I can do it daily or monthly or whatever). Now, everyone seems to have their own way of keeping track of their times, some use an exel sheet, some use their calender, others write it down on paper etc. I need to find a method too. I tried writing on post-its but they fell on the floor and the cleaner threw them out :frowning:

What I need is a little program that stays open all day and where I can add all my project number codes etc and then like choose them from the list and it logs the time I start working on that project, and then I hit “stop” when I am done with that one. Something like that would be great. Ideally it would let me fill in a comment as well, since there are codes not only for projects but activities. I would then be able to at the end of the week list hours per project per day, etc.

Can anyone suggest a good way to do this? It needs to be a freeware solution, since I can’t say “buy me this cos I am a disorganised eejit”. I am open to all sorts of suggestions :slight_smile:

Assuming you have already searched cnet and tucows for freeware solutions unsuccessfully, I would follow your own advice and use MS Excel. Create a master spreadsheet that has rows dividing up the day per your billable segments. Each column could represent a day of the week, each tab a week per month etc. Then save it as a template file and use it religiously.
The hard part is maintaining the personal discipline for accurate bookkeeping, but it’s not that tough.

There are a number of pieces of software available for palm pilots or pocket pcs, which makes it nice if you’re not at a pc constantly.