tadmilbourn

That's the ideal! The problem with time tracking is that the hours don't get captured in the first place. Automatic tracking greatly increases the likelihood that the time is captured. We'll do more to automate in the future. Our current focus on that front is integration with accounting systems as those tend to be a costly part of the process to the business (either time lost or money spent paying a bookkeeper).

Thanks for the feedback! And there's no shame in that plug.

Employee and Contractor don't have much difference within Tiempo in terms of rights. But, they have profound differences with how they're treated once you integrate with accounting software like QuickBooks Online.

We plan to get rid of the "Draft" status as it's underused and will allow us to simplify the design further (just Submitted and Approved status).

The timer not allowing for details until it's stopped is something we'll address shortly.

Jprince, that's a nice setup. You've manually put together many of the core components Tiempo offers. It sounds like you're getting paid quickly, at low cost, and its a good experience for both you and your customers.

In fact, what you could do is use Tiempo for your time tracking and use the result to create your PDF invoice and continue with your Square Cash payment process. Compared to On the Job, Tiempo's time tracking is free and available on mobile devices. So you wouldn't have to be attached to your computer to track time.

But, what Tiempo Instant Invoices does is allow folks that aren't as technical to get all of that benefit that you've already wired together in one place. And, as I've said elsewhere in the comments, we'll add more payment options (that are lower cost) in the future.

Those are all payment methods we plan to support in the future. Bank Transfer and Check don't have the same kind of processing costs, so that will allow us to do the payments for something more like 1% instead of 3.9%. We also hope to make the process of setting up and verifying those accounts less of a pain.

That's a fair point. It's going to be tough to change those types of companies because they tend to have people that manage and optimize cash flow (i.e. pay bills on the last day possible without incurring penalties).

From our experience with small businesses Intuit (the Tiempo team is all former Intuit employees), we know there's a large swath of companies that aren't as complicated or as rigorous. For those companies, just getting the bill taken care of and out of the way is a benefit. Those are the companies we'll focus on first.

That's what we're hoping to prove. We've had early customers get paid in less than an hour (compared to 3-4 weeks). It was worth the 1% to them to get their money (averaging about $2,000) faster.

Now, with increased traffic and user from things like this Show HN, we're hoping to show that we can sustain those positive early indicators at greater scale.

Thanks! That's an oversight on our part. We'll make that more clear in the next iteration of that page.

Great points. We've actually talked to folks whose total fees were about 6% after all was said and done. It's crazy, but it does happen.

In your example, what I'd ask is if the web studio would be willing to pay $400 to get that $10k weeks earlier than they otherwise would have. That might be a good cash flow outcome for them.

All that being said, you're exactly right, the fee structure makes transactions of a certain size not make sense if you're doing more regular invoicing. That's why we want to add more payment methods over time that are lower cost.

Did you have any specific desktop apps in mind?

The time tracking aspect works anywhere (there are apps for iOS and Android as well). For invoicing, to accept payment, we're currently set up to work with US Bank Accounts. Your customers can pay you as long as they have a credit card.

Over time, we want to be as globally available as possible. That means more countries and more methods to pay.

That's a great idea! We've already built an integration with QuickBooks Online. And, we're working on integrations with Xero and ZenPayroll. We can add Wave to the list.

Our API is not publicly available yet. Do you have any thoughts on what you'd want to use it for?

Thanks! We appreciate it.

We’re taking a slightly different approach to invoicing for billable hours. From talking with freelancers, independent contractors, agencies, and other professional services companies, we found that there’s a significant delay between when work is done and when the invoice actually goes out. Then, there’s even more delay between when that invoice goes out and when it gets paid.

We’re trying to reduce both of those delays as much as possible.

By sending a notification once hours have been approved, we remove the delay between when the work is done and when someone “runs invoicing.”

By making the notification personable and easily viewed on mobile devices, we increase the speed with which the customers pay.

That’s the general concept! I’d love to hear any feedback and comments the HN community has!

Disclosure: I'm one of the founders of Tiempo

Most people default to pen, paper, or Excel. But, it quickly becomes more hassle than its worth. And, if the hours you track need to be sent to a finance team or an accountant, it gets even more complicated. That's why we created Tiempo.

Tiempo is a new time tracking app that aims to be the fastest way to track time. It works on the web and has apps for both iOS and Android. We even use it ourselves to track developers we have contracting for us.

Plus, you can have unlimited customers, even on our free tier (Harvest limits you to 4).

Check it out at https://track.tiempoapp.com/signup or see our site at http://www.tiempoapp.com.

The Tiempo team is made of former Intuit employees that have spent their careers focused on building software for small businesses.

We'd love any feedback the HN community has!

We use QuickBooks Online. As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the new redesign is pretty slick and catches QuickBooks back up with Xero. In the US, you're going to find more accountants/bookkeepers that are familiar with QuickBooks over Xero...which is very important if you're not an accounting expert (most of us). That being said, Xero is working hard to woo those accountants in the US. I'd recommend doing a trial of both QuickBooks Online and Xero and seeing which one feels the best, syncs with your bank accounts, and saves you the most time.

I was using Webflow as this article hit. Awesome progress and great raise! I'm excited for what's to come.

I like to think of this as being "confident in your ignorance." Whether you're a manager or early in your career, the way in which you admit what you don't know and ask clarifying questions can have a profound impact.

I try to read this once a year to jolt myself out of my typical writing. Another useful tip is to have "The Elements of Style" by Strunk & White nearby.

Totally agree with ebahnx. I've got rudimentary HTML/CSS knowledge that I picked up in high school, but it was enough to know my way around Webflow. Built a responsive site (which I don't have anywhere close to the skills to do myself) in about 4 hours.