Track time against the plan, not in a separate app
Onplana logs hours against the task they belong to, runs the week through an approval chain you name, and prices it at both the cost rate and the billable rate, so what a month was worth is a number you read rather than one you reconstruct.
What changes at the end of the month
A tracker beside the plan
- Export last month's CSV out of the time tracker.
- Match each line to a project by hand, because the two project lists drifted.
- Open a second spreadsheet to find whose rate changed in April.
- Type the total into the invoice, then again into the capacity sheet.
- Discover in month three that one client was billed at last year's rate.
Hours on the plan itself
- Hours sit on the task, so there is nothing to match afterwards.
- The approval chain is people you named, not a rule somebody remembers.
- Cost and billable are separate rates, resolved per client and per project.
- Approved time lands as earned value against the budget.
- The same hours feed the capacity view next week is planned from.
How it works
Step 1
Log the hours where the work already is
Hours go against the task, not against a second list of projects that drifts out of step with the first. Nobody wants to do this on a Friday, so the week can be copied from last week or prefilled from the plan, as drafts you correct rather than a blank grid you fill.
Step 2
Approve the week, through people you named
The approval chain is a list of approvers an owner or admin sets, not an inbox rule somebody has to remember. A submitted week goes to them, a rejection comes back with the reason attached, and the reviewer is stamped on the entry so the trail survives the conversation.
Step 3
See what the time was worth, not just how much there was
Approved hours price at the cost rate and the billable rate, which are separate numbers, and land on the project as earned value alongside the budget. The same hours feed the capacity view the plan is built on, so next week is planned against what happened rather than what was assumed.
Check the arithmetic before you pay for it
The part of this that is easy to get wrong is the money, so the money part is on the free plan. Rate cards are on Free: set your cost rates and your billable rates, add a client or a project that prices differently, and watch the resolver pick between them. If the maths does not match how you actually bill, you will know that in an afternoon and it will have cost you nothing.
We are deliberately not quoting an industry figure about hours lost to timesheets. The only number that decides this is your own realisation rate against your own rate card, and you can have that one for free. When you are ready for the hours themselves, see what Professional costs.
What it costs, and what it does not do
Timesheets, the approval chain, capacity and earned value are on the Professional plan with no seat minimum, and rate cards are on Free. It replaces the standalone tracker whose only real job was feeding a spreadsheet somebody reconciles against the plan by hand.
The honest limits
- This is not workforce time and attendance. There is no running timer, no clock-in, no shift scheduling and no payroll. Hours are recorded against the work they belong to, by the day. If you are tracking hourly staff on site rather than effort against a plan, buy something else.
- There is no accounting sync. Approved time does not flow into Xero or QuickBooks on its own, and that is a gap rather than a roadmap promise. The cross-project report builder exports on every plan, so getting the hours out is a file you run, not an integration you wait for.
- Enforcement is an Enterprise thing. Reminders, the compliance view and the cost-at-risk number come with the plan above. Locking someone out of new work until last week is submitted, escalation chains and the auditor-ready evidence export are Enterprise, so if hard enforcement is the reason you are buying, price that tier rather than this one.
Questions people ask before they switch
Is this a replacement for Harvest, Toggl or Clockify?
For time that belongs to a project plan, yes, and the difference is where the hours go rather than how they are entered: they land on the task, so they feed the capacity view and the project's earned value instead of arriving as a monthly CSV somebody reconciles by hand. For workforce time and attendance it is not a replacement, and the next answer is the honest version of why.
Is there a start and stop timer, or a clock-in?
No. There is no running timer, no clock-in terminal, no shift scheduling and no payroll. This is project time tracking: you record hours against the work they belong to, by the day. If what you need is a punch clock for hourly staff, this is the wrong tool and you should not buy it for that.
Can a part-timer log hours without paying for a full seat?
Yes. A guest can log time on the projects they are on, and the Professional plan includes 2 free guest seats. Beyond the included allowance a guest costs a seat like anyone else, so this is a real allowance rather than an unlimited one. Guests are also left out of the compliance roster on purpose: their week is reviewed when they log it, and they are never chased for a week they did not.
Can I bill at a different rate than the hour costs me?
Yes, and they are separate stored numbers rather than one rate with a multiplier applied at report time. Set a billable rate outright, or set a markup percentage on the cost rate, or set neither and the billable rate equals the cost rate with no margin. Rates resolve most specific first: this project, then this client, then the person, then their role, then the organisation default.
Does it sync to Xero or QuickBooks?
Not today. That connector is not available to customers, so anyone who needs approved time to land in their ledger automatically should treat this as missing rather than pending. What you can do now is export: the cross-project report builder is on every plan with no upgrade, so approved hours come out as a file you take wherever they need to go.
Which plan is this on?
Professional, with no seat minimum, and that covers timesheets, the approval chain, capacity and earned value. Rate cards are on the Free plan, which is deliberate: you can set your cost and billable rates and watch them resolve before you pay us for anything that uses them.
If the question is who is free rather than what the week cost, crew capacity across every job covers the planning side, and PSA for small consultancies covers the whole billable cycle from pipeline to invoice.
Put your rates in and see the maths
Rate cards are free, so you can check how your hours would price before you pay for a single timesheet. Nothing to install, and whatever you track time in today keeps working.
Start free