Time tracking software for accountants

Accountants switch between clients, emails, bookkeeping tasks, tax work, reconciliations, review cycles, and meetings all day. ManicTime helps accounting teams capture time automatically, reduce manual timesheets during busy periods, and improve billing and profitability visibility without relying on memory.

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Common time-tracking problems for accountants

Small billable tasks are easy to miss

A quick client email, a short call, a review, or a bookkeeping adjustment may only take a few minutes, but those minutes add up. When the day is fragmented, billable time is often lost.

Late time entry leads to underbilling

Many accountants fill out timesheets at the end of the day or week. Reconstructing work from memory leads to missing entries, vague descriptions, and time that never gets billed.

Manual timesheets add admin overhead

Busy periods already come with enough deadlines. During month-end, quarter-end, tax season, or audit support work, manual time entry creates extra work that does not help clients.

Review cycles and rework are hard to attribute clearly

Work often passes through preparation, review, revision, and finalization. Without a reliable activity record, it is hard to see how much effort actually went into an engagement.

Poor time data makes profitability harder to measure

If time is not captured accurately, it becomes difficult to understand which clients, services, or engagements are profitable.

How ManicTime helps accountants

ManicTime automatically records activity in the background, giving accountants a more complete view of their day. Instead of trying to remember everything later, they can review their work, assign it to the right client or engagement, and create billing records grounded in what actually happened.

Capture work as it happens, even during busy periods

ManicTime helps record the day automatically, so time spent across client work, tax prep, reconciliations, reviews, meetings, and admin is easier to recover when days are fragmented.

Use Excel and document context to see what engagement the work belonged to

ManicTime can track Office files including Excel with full file path, making it much easier to see which workbook, client folder, or engagement file the work came from.

Assign time to the right client, entity, or engagement

Time can be reviewed and allocated with more confidence, reducing the risk of billing the wrong client, losing time entirely, or mixing internal work with billable engagement work.

Improve billing accuracy and support review discussions

More complete records help firms bill more accurately, reduce missed time, and understand how much effort went into preparation, review, revision, and final delivery.

Get clearer visibility into profitability and service lines

Accurate time data helps firms understand how much effort goes into each client, engagement type, and service line, which supports better pricing and staffing decisions.

Track time across the work accountants actually do

Accounting work is rarely one long uninterrupted block. ManicTime helps track time across activities like:

Tax preparation
Bookkeeping and reconciliations
Audit support and review work
Workbook and spreadsheet analysis
Advisory services
Client emails and calls
Research and analysis
Review and revision cycles
Internal meetings
Administrative tasks
Training and non-billable work

This makes it easier to separate billable and non-billable time and understand where the day really goes.

Why accountants use ManicTime

Recover more billable hours

Small tasks that are usually forgotten become easier to capture and include.

Reduce timesheet friction

Automatic tracking reduces the burden of manual time entry, especially during busy periods.

Improve billing confidence

More accurate records mean fewer gaps, better descriptions, and stronger support for invoices during client review.

Understand client and service-line profitability

With better time data, firms can evaluate which clients, engagement types, and services are worth the effort.

Support accountability without constant manual reporting

Managers get more reliable visibility without having to chase people for timesheets, especially during busy periods.

Related features

Automatic tracking with Excel and file context

Capture activity throughout the day without starting and stopping timers. ManicTime tracks Office products including Excel with full file path, so accounting teams can review exactly which workbook or engagement file they worked on.

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Client and engagement attribution

Assign time to the correct client, entity, engagement, or task with more accuracy after reviewing captured activity.

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Billable, non-billable, and profitability reporting

Separate revenue-generating work from internal or administrative time and generate reports that support billing, review, and profitability analysis.

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Built for firms that need accurate time data without invasive monitoring

ManicTime has been tracking professional work since 2008. Over 1 million downloads, 13,000+ customers, and 200,000+ licenses — used by accounting firms, law practices, consultancies, and individual professionals who need billing records they can stand behind.

Accounting firms need accurate records, but they also need trust, privacy, and control. ManicTime is designed to help teams capture time with less friction while keeping data ownership and privacy in mind.

For firms handling sensitive client information, that matters.

FAQ

Capture more accounting time without relying on memory
ManicTime helps accountants reduce timesheet admin, improve billing accuracy, and recover work that would otherwise be missed.
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Our customer
opinions
Katie
This software automatically tracks the time you spend on your computer. When you step away from your computer for a certain length of time (set by user), it will prompt you to tag that time. For example, if I'm getting coffee and have a 20 minute chat about the weekend, I tag it as personal. But if I have a chat about an upcoming or existing project, I tag it about that project. For the tasks you do on the computer, it can save screenshots every X seconds (again, set by user), so that you can have a reminder when you go to do your billing what each task was for.
Richard
There is a lot to love about Manic Time. It was easy to use and did way more than I was expecting from it. The reporting was informative. The editing was awesome. Tagging and managing the time tracked is robust, yet simple. It is great at taking the tracking out of time tracking. It just does 90% for you. The last 10% is tagging and validating. It really does an amazing job at showing how much time is wasted on mundane tasks or mindless browsing. I handed in my time to a project manager. He asked how I knew I worked 3.28 hours on a specific task. "Manic Time" was my answer.
Dr Steve Day (podcast)
Time tracking and its importance in business operations are discussed in this episode. Dr. Steve Day shares update on their time tracking policies, including the use of new apps and tools such as ManicTime, particularly focusing on the implementation of screenshot tracking.
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Brenda
I do contract work and manage multiple projects where I bounce between projects on an almost by the minute basis. Once tagging is setup I can easily tag all my activities as I do them and my time accumulates in each project bucket. At the end of the day my timesheet is a breeze. This is the best tool I have found so far for a work style that involves heavy duty multi-tasking. I don't know what I would do without ManicTime. Well designed and thought out product.
Mary
I like this application because with manic time we can verify who does their right job. And we also have better control because we can choose the best workers to increase production works very well and without errors.
Gary
Just renewed my licence for another year Just thought I'd let you know that this is one of the best pieces of software I've ever installed on my computer, free or paid for. I run my own business which principally relies on writing technical reports. ManicTime has made it so much easier to track my time over the various projects and therefore manage my fees and costs. (And your support has been excellent when I have had the odd problem).
Oliver
Just wanted to let you know that I think your software has helped me capture $1000's of dollars in revenue that I just wasn't billing before, as I wasn't doing a very good job of tracking my time. With ManicTime I get it all, and if I were ever to be audited by a client, I could give them every detail. Thanks so much!
Judy
The interface is very intuitive and easy to use. The ability to tag and color-code my work allows me to see at a glance how my day has been going. I can organize and structure things as much or as little as I like. What a great product!
Joshua
ManicTime’s ease of use is unmatched, thanks to its intuitive interface and flexible granularity in time-tracking. The power to dive as deep as you need into data with comprehensive tagging and reporting systems is a significant upside. Its vast number of features like document, application, and activity trackers streamline the process of managing and analyzing time efficiently. Moreover, ManicTime’s advanced search capabilities, coupled with the functionality to annotate tagged time, make it a vital tool for enhancing productivity and recalling information during discussions.
Adam
I like that it tracks inactive time on the computer so that you can remember when you started working and when you stopped, and when you took breaks. Very easy to use, I don't have to remember to log in and the app does everything for me without me even doing anything except installing the program. It shows exactly what page and project you were working on and for how long and when.
Amanda
It provides with useful reports which track and monitor the computer usage of employees, as well as the time spent on each computer program or application. Also the presence of an automatic screenshot feature resulted in an increase in my employees’ productivity. It runs automatically on my computer, great.
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