TradesTimer vs QuickBooks Time

What QuickBooks Time is

Cloud-based employee time tracking inside the QuickBooks ecosystem, built for crews with payroll workflows.

Best for: Construction companies with 10+ employees already using QuickBooks Online for payroll and invoicing, where payroll sync is the main value.

Pricing at a glance

Where QuickBooks Time is strong

• Deep integration with QuickBooks Online payroll
• Crew scheduling and shift trade features
• GPS geofences that auto-clock employees in and out

Where QuickBooks Time falls short for trades

• Per-user pricing is punishing for solo operators — you pay the same seat fee as a 50-person crew
• Geofences must be drawn around every jobsite in advance, which defeats the purpose for trades who visit 5-8 new addresses a day
• Requires employees to clock in and clock out, even when the operator is a sole proprietor
• Location data is stored on Intuit's servers, not on your device

What TradesTimer does differently

• The full time-tracking app is free — no trial, no feature gate, no ads
• No jobsites to set up — stops are detected automatically as they happen
• Location history stays on your phone; no cloud account required
• No clock-in ritual — the timer is the day itself
• No cloud account required — your location history stays on your device

The verdict

QuickBooks Time is the right pick if you already run payroll through QuickBooks Online and have employees to manage, and the $20+ per user per month fee is a rounding error against your payroll. TradesTimer is the right pick if you are a solo tradesperson or a crew of 2–3 who just wants billable hours reconstructed at the end of the day — the core app is free and there are no per-user fees or pre-defined jobsites to maintain.

Page last verified 2026-04-15. If QuickBooks Time has changed pricing or features since then and this page is stale, email [email protected] and we'll fix it.