New feature: Timer enters 21st century
You may not have noticed, but in last week’s release, we added a few changes to our trusty web-based timer popup. In the past year we’ve released a snazzy iPhone app and desktop widget, but hopefully these changes will put our old school timer on the same playing field.
Now with memory
Now if you accidentally close your timer, or your browser crashes while it’s running, the next time you open the timer it will begin where you left off. ‘Bout time!
Convert from HH:MM
Yes, FreshBooks uses decimal time almost exclusively. It makes billing easy, and it’s simple enough for 15 minute intervals, but what about tough amounts like, say, 49 minutes? Now you can enter HH:MM values into the timer, and it will automatically convert to decimal time.
As an added bonus, if you hover over the timer at the top, it will break down the time into hours, minutes and seconds for you.
Resume from a given time
Ever forget to start your timer, 20 minutes into a billable task you’ve been working on? Well, now you can enter 20 minutes into the input box, hit ‘Resume’, and the timer will begin from that point and count forwards.
That about sums up what we’ve done with the timer. Enjoy.
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1:50 pm
Man, thanks for this, guys. Really great improvements!
2:17 pm
Yippee! I regularly kick myself for forgetting to turn on the start/stop timer when I start a task. Before I would just try to remember to let the timer run a bit long at the end to compensate. Now I can fix the problem as soon as I notice it. Thank you.
8:57 pm
I noticed some of these by chance, much appreciated improvements! Keep up the great work.
12:31 am
This is great. One feature I would love, if possible: the option to use a countdown timer. I’m one of those people who constantly forget to start (or stop) the timer, and find that it’s easiest to preset a countdown timer for XX minutes or hours. Having a countdown timer that automatically submits to Freshbooks would be great.
2:42 pm
Awesome Awesome. These updates make all the difference for me. I’m staying with Freshbooks for now.
8:31 am
I wasn’t going to mention these things, but they are all perfect fixes… THX!
9:14 am
You guys/girls are gods!!
I’m constantly forgetting to turn the timer on and then have to sweat it trying to guestimate the time I’ve used.
This is a wonderful improvement!
9:43 am
Thanks for the encouragement folks! Glad you like the changes.
12:46 pm
a web designer did a bit of work for me and is using your program. this is by far the best management tool I’ve seen, simple, intuitive, easy to navigate, with all the necessary features a small outfit like mine (1 guy) could ever need. And I totally love the invoicing part!
Keep up the good work!
andre
Alberta, Canada
3:34 pm
Oh nice! This is what I was waiting for to get started.
1:54 pm
Thanks for working this up.. However will the invoice that gets generated from the time tracked show HH:MM or still decimals? You would not believe what a pain it is for some of our clients to see .45 hr on an invoice when they know the support call was less then a half hour… see the confusion…
Matthew
1:57 pm
Very thoughtful revisions. I’d like to vote for a free, simple Mac desktop timer (I hate the dock).
2:00 pm
Matthew:
The invoice will still show hours in decimal form (i.e. 1.45 hours). These changes just let you *input* time as HH:MM, after which it is converted.
We’ve received a fair bit of feedback on listing HH:MM directly on the invoice. So, it’s on our radar – thanks for bringing it up.
2:01 pm
Kirby:
Have you taken a look at our Mac OS X desktop widget? It’s free.
http://www.freshbooks.com/widgets/time-tracker/
2:27 pm
The Mac OS X desktop timer appears to have been improved, it used to be difficult to edit the time. Thanks. Now if you could make a mac app timer that appears in the dock that would be awesome! (or upper right of menu bar).
3:32 pm
Thanks for continuous improvement and great meals! Two requests for the timer:
1. Allow the entire line of text for the tasks to be read (even if just when rolled over). I have several tasks that start with the same words but can’t differentiate because the end is cut off. Ex:
CONCEPTUAL ART (High Concept)
CONCEPTUAL ART (Standard)
CONCEPTUAL ART (Complimentary)
2. The improvements to the timer are fantastic, though I’d still like to see it “know” what job you’re tracking by the file name you’re in, or whatever…I know that’s probably not feasible or even possible, as I’ll switch among applications and files even for the same project. Just lazy.
Thanks guys. You’ve got a fan club here.
5:06 pm
I’ve been using the Mac OS X desktop widget, but I might just start using FreshBooks timer now too, depending on what’s easier. Thanks for the improvements. I really, really appreciate how you guys are so commited to improving the user interface and usability. Online invoicing is a great concept, but it’s your implementation that makes FreshBooks a killer app!
5:50 pm
That’s great, thank you! It is as if you have been watching me over my shoulder and reading my mind simultaneously.
9:19 am
Great Update! I am constantly forgetting to start the timer and this is a perfect upgrade. Thanks and keep up the excellent work!
9:09 pm
Thanks for the improvements. They are all great. I desperately waiting for the timer to allow me to define my billable units. ie: what is the minimum billable amount of time, 9 min, 15 min, 30 min.
Thanks again.
12:16 pm
This may be too much, but I’m very interested in your mobile app support. For example, my office uses primarily BlackBerries and it would be great to get a timer app of the BB OS as well as the iPhone. In addition, there is great potential for creating a full mobile version of Freshbooks.
3:17 pm
Hi Guys,
your iPhone app is indeed great. Whilst using it for a month now: would it be a lot of trouble to allow in the iPhone app:
(1) input of time of a ‘forgotten’, earlier day;
(2) review of the time input for a given day (or at least today), so as to avoid double input and/ or ‘forgotten’ input?
knd rgArts