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Overview

Personal Timeclock (formerly PC-TimeClock) is a timesheet or punch clock system that helps you keep track of the time you've spent on your computer. It can also help with client billing. It consists of three programs:

There is also extensive online help that includes a step-by-step Tutorial Introduction. Those who prefer printed manuals to online help can download and print a PDF version of the help file.

Runs on

The latest version runs on Windows 95/98/NT4/2000/Me/XP, and all version of Vista.

Price

US$24.95 for the first computer. Discounts apply to the second and subsequent computers; view the complete price list. Shipping/Handling: FREE in North America, $3.00 elsewhere if you order a CD-ROM. Additional discounts may apply--see the order form for details.

Personal Timeclock can be delivered by e-mail. Or we can mail you a CD-ROM that can serve as a backup in case you ever need to reinstall Personal Timeclock. The CD has simple point-and-click installation and includes the HTML help file, additional shareware and other software.

Revision status

The current version is 4.4 . Read a list of the new features in this version. Registered users of 4.0 and later can download a free update to 4.4 by selecting Update Personal Timeclock and then Check the Internet for updates from the File menu of Personal Timeclock. But read the special instructions for updating to version 4.4.

Registered users of 3.x can download a free update to 3.3, and registered users of 2.x can download a free update to 2.2 (but read about the new features in the latest version and you may wish to upgrade--registered users get a 50% discount!).

Detailed description

Personal Timeclock and Personal Timeclock Reporter are described in some detail below. For more complete descriptions of the programs and a step-by-step tutorial that shows you all the main features, download the shareware version and read the Tutorial Introduction contained in the help file.

Description of Personal Timeclock

Projects and categories

Personal Timeclock helps you keep track of the time you spend on your computer. Take a look at an example of what it looks like.

The screen is divided into categories (the example shows two, Business and Pleasure). You can choose whatever categories you like, and as many as you like. Within each category are one or more projects of your choice.

Checking in and out

When you begin working on a project, just click the project name with the left mouse button. Personal Timeclock then minimizes itself to get out of your way while you work. When you're done working with that project, just click on the taskbar to restore Personal Timeclock, and click the right mouse button anywhere in the window. Or, if you're going to start working on something else right away, just left click the name of your new project. You can bring up the Personal Timeclock window at any time to see how long you've been checked in.

Can I keep notes of what specific work I'm doing?

Yes, you can enter a memo when you check in or check out. You can also enter or change the memo after you've checked in.

What if I forget to check in or out?

You've been working on something for a while and you suddenly realize that you forgot to check in! Now what? Don't worry--Personal Timeclock lets you adjust the check in and check out times to fix mistakes like this.

Better yet, can I get it to remind me to check out?

Yes. You can set Personal Timeclock to ask you every so often if you're still working on the same project. You choose how often--as much as once a minute if you really want to. You can also set it to do this when you're not checked into a project.

I'm checked in to a project and my computer crashed. Now what?

No problem. Next time you start Personal Timeclock, it will ask you if you want to keep working on that project, or check out. If you choose to check out, you can select the checkout time. You can also enter a memo at this time if you want.

Can I keep track of work I do while I'm away from my computer?

Yes, Personal Timeclock lets you enter specific check in and check out times if you wish.

I don't like your colors. Can I change them?

Of course. You can choose the font, size, and colors you prefer. You can choose how you want times displayed (total time or just the time since the last check in; all projects or just the current project). You can choose whether or not Personal Timeclock should go to the taskbar when you check in to a project. You can change all of this (and more) on the Options screen.

There are 50 employees in my company. Can they all use it?

Sure. Each user will be creating their own individual log of their times. The logs can then be combined for reporting; the help file tells you how. You can have all of your users share a common list of projects and categories if you wish. You can also use the Security Editor to turn off Personal Timeclock features that would allow your employees to record their time inaccurately.

Description of Personal Timeclock Reporter

What kinds of reports does it produce?

There are two types of reports: detail and summary. Detail reports show individual sessions, and summary reports summarize your usage by category. Of course, you can customize both reports in many different ways.

How complicated is it to create reports?

The standand reports (like those shown in the examples above) take two mouse clicks to create. To see how to do it, take a look at the main window of Personal Timeclock Reporter. In the box at the upper left labelled Create New Report there's two buttons, Detail and Summary: to create a report, you click one of these buttons. The Options screen then appears, but to create the standard reports, you just click the OK button.

Can I create reports for specific dates?

Yes. The Report Dates box at the bottom of the Personal Timeclock Reporter window lets you select from a variety of standard date ranges (e.g. this year, last year, this month, last month, this week, last week, etc.). If none of these ranges suits your needs, you can enter your own starting and ending dates.

I bill clients for my time. Can it compute these charges?

Yes. You can enter an hourly rate for each project and category, and include the rates and session amounts (rate times duration) on reports.

What else can I customize?

It is easy to change the widths of the columns on the report: use the mouse to drag the edge of the column to where you want it.

The Format tab of the options screen lets you specify the report title, change the fonts and colors, and select which columns appear on the report. You can also choose how durations are shown on the report.

The Sort/Subtotal screen to see it) lets you choose how to subtotal the report and change the order in which entries appear.

The Include screen lets you select specific projects and/or categories for the report. You can choose just the entries whose hours are greater than, less than, equal, or not equal to a value you choose. The same can be done with check in times and check out times.

Finally, the Matching tab of the options screen lets you select entries whose memo is empty, not empty, or matches or contains text of your choosing.

The reports look pretty, but I have to get the data into my company's reporting system. How can I do this?

The Export Report feature creates a text file of any report, and the Export Data feature creates a text file containing the raw data used to generate any report. These files are tab-delimited text so that they can be imported easily into database programs such as Access, spreadsheet programs such as Excel, and other applications.

Why not try it out for yourself?

It's a lot easier to use than it is to describe it, and the trial version includes a quick tutorial introduction--why not download it and try it out?