Aaron, I spent a lot of time evaluating over 15 of these programs last year, both on Mac and Windows. Many of them were great, but ultimately I decided on using MS Excel. For these specialized apps, there were too many times when I forgot to press the start or stop buttons, so I would have to go in and manually change the values. It was too much overhead and it wasn't contributing to my productivity. MS Excel does a good enough job without me having to master a new tool. None of the invoices these tools generated impressed me. I was able to create a very nice looking invoice template in MS Word.
If you are one of these people that churn out a few Web sites per week and have to manage numerous clients at once, then you might need a more powerful tool to keep track of things. In your search, I recommend installing the trial of Studiometry http://www.oranged.net/studiometry/ This was one of the best programs I used. It is also the most expensive. This program should be your baseline when evaluating other software. Quickbooks is also probably in the top-tier, but I didn't evaluate that. Also, I assume you are on Windows. The Mac platform has a lot of great time tracking applications, if you happen to be on that platform. The offerings on the Windows platform, as well as the Web-based solutions I looked at, were mostly disappointing. A related product that I haven't looked at yet is TimeSnapper. I heard the author interviewed on a .NET podcast. It is a program that takes screenshots throughout the day. So if you forget to record something in your time tracking program, or if you want to find out how much time you waste on Digg.com, this is a program that helps with that. Good luck, Mike Chabot On 5/22/07, Aaron Roberson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Does anyone know of a good project time management application that > would be good for consulting jobs? I am thinking of something that has > a stop watch you can click to start and stop and automatically > calculate expenses incurred. It would be nice if it had invoicing > capabilities as well. > > I used to have a similar app on an old machine of mine but it has > since fried (literally went up in smoke) and I can't remember what it > was called or Google it. > > Thank for your suggestions, > Aaron > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Upgrade to Adobe ColdFusion MX7 Experience Flex 2 & MX7 integration & create powerful cross-platform RIAs http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2/?sdid=RVJQ Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:278901 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4
