TLDR (Summary)
The best time tracking for architects is Plutio ($19/month).
Architecture firms bill by phase or hourly, but most track time in Toggl or spreadsheets disconnected from projects and invoicing. Plutio logs hours directly to project phases and turns them into invoices without exporting CSVs or copying data.
Architects using Plutio save 5-10 weekly by eliminating the gap between tracking time and billing for it.
For additional strategies, read our freelance time tracking guide.
What is time tracking for architects?
Time tracking for architects means logging hours against project phases - schematic design, design development, construction documents, construction administration - so you can see where time goes and bill accurately.
This matters because architecture projects span months with multiple phases billed differently. Without phase-level tracking, you can't see if schematic design took 40 hours or 80, whether you're over budget before construction documents start, or which project types actually make money.
What architects actually need to track
Hours by phase: How long did SD take vs DD vs CD? Hours by team member: Who worked on what? Hours vs budget: Are we at 60% of hours with 40% of work done? Billable vs non-billable: Design time vs coordination calls vs admin.
Toggl and Harvest vs project-connected tracking
Toggl tracks hours. You start a timer, stop it, tag it with a project name. But those hours sit in Toggl. To invoice, you export a CSV, open QuickBooks or FreshBooks, and manually create line items. The gap between tracking and billing is where hours get lost.
Plutio tracks hours inside the project. Log time to a task, and it's already connected to the phase, the client, and the billing rate. Invoice the phase, and logged hours appear as line items automatically.
The difference isn't features - it's whether time tracking connects to billing or requires manual work to get there.
The reporting gap
Toggl tells you how many hours you worked. Toggl doesn't tell you which projects made money, which clients took more time than they paid for, or whether your hourly effective rate is going up or down. Margin analysis requires exporting data and building spreadsheets - work that happens quarterly if at all.
Why architects need connected time tracking
Architecture firms that track time in spreadsheets or standalone apps lose 5-10 hours weekly to the admin of getting that data into invoices.
The math: 15 minutes exporting timesheets daily, 30 minutes building each invoice, 20 minutes reconciling what got billed vs what got tracked. Multiply by 10 active projects and Spending a full day on billing admin that could be automated.
The disconnection problem
Toggl knows you worked 8 hours on Monday. Toggl doesn't know those hours were construction administration for the Smith residence at $150/hour. You add that context manually when invoicing - if you remember it correctly.
When tracking and billing live in different apps, you're the connection. Every invoice requires you to translate time entries into billable line items, match rates to phases, and hope nothing slips through.
The phase budget problem
Architecture contracts often cap hours per phase. Schematic design might budget 80 hours. But if you're tracking in Toggl and your budget lives in a spreadsheet, there's no way to know you've hit 75 hours until you export and compare - usually after you've already gone over.
Plutio shows hours vs budget in real-time. Hit 80% of phase hours with 50% of work done? You see it immediately, not after the phase closes.
The collection gap
According to research, 50-70% of experience late payments. For architects, the delay often starts with slow invoicing. If billing waits until you have time to export timesheets and build invoices, clients wait weeks after work completes to see a bill.
Connected time tracking closes the gap between finishing work and getting paid - hours tracked today become invoice line items tomorrow.
The reconciliation problem
End of month: export Toggl CSV, open QuickBooks, compare what was tracked to what was billed. Find the 12 hours logged to "misc" that never got invoiced. Try to remember what they were for. Give up and write them off. Lost hours happen every month when tracking and billing don't connect.
The team visibility problem
Your associate tracked 40 hours last week. To what? You won't know until you ask them to run a report and email it to you. Meanwhile, project budgets may be blown without anyone noticing until the end of the month.
Time tracking features architects need
Architecture time tracking needs phase-level logging, budget visibility, and direct invoice connection - not just start/stop timers.
Must-have features
- Phase tagging: Log hours to SD, DD, CD, or CA - not just "Smith Project"
- Task-level tracking: Which specific deliverable took those 4 hours?
- Budget comparison: See hours logged vs hours budgeted per phase
- Rate assignment: Different phases or team members at different rates
- Invoice connection: Turn logged hours into invoice line items without export
- Team tracking: See what your associate logged to the project
Nice-to-have features
- Timer + manual entry: Run a timer or add hours after the fact
- Mobile logging: Track site visit hours from your phone
- Rounding rules: Round to 15-minute increments for cleaner billing
- Reports by client: How much time has this client taken this year?
The deciding feature is invoice connection. If logged hours don't become invoice line items automatically, you're still doing manual billing work.
Why invoice connection matters most
Toggl has better reports. Harvest has nicer mobile apps. Clockify is free. None of that matters if you still spend 2 hours every invoice cycle exporting CSVs, matching hours to projects, calculating totals, and building invoices manually. The feature that saves the most time is the one that eliminates billing admin - and that's direct invoice connection.
What about integrations?
Toggl integrates with 100+ apps. Most architects use exactly one: the export-to-CSV function to get data into their invoicing app. Plutio doesn't need integrations because time and invoicing are the same app. Log time, invoice time, done.
Time tracking pricing for architects
Standalone time tracking runs $10-20/user/month. But the real cost is the billing admin it doesn't eliminate.
What architects typically pay
- Toggl Track: $10-20/user/month for team features
- Harvest: $12/user/month with invoicing add-on
- Clockify: Free basic, $12/user for features
Add invoicing (FreshBooks $17-55/month, QuickBooks $30-200/month) and you're at $50-100/month minimum - still with manual export between them.
Plutio pricing (January 2026)
- Core: $19/month: Time tracking, projects, invoicing, unlimited clients
- Pro: $49/month: Add team members, client portals, advanced permissions
- Max: $199/month: Advanced reporting, white-label, unlimited team
The ROI math
If connected tracking saves 5 hours monthly on billing admin at $100/hour effective rate, that's $500/month in recovered time. Plutio costs $19-79. The savings pay for the subscription 5-10x over.
The cheapest time tracker isn't free Clockify - it's whatever eliminates the most billing admin. That's usually the one connected to your invoicing.
The hidden cost of disconnected tracking
Free time tracking in Clockify sounds good until you calculate the billing admin. If Spending 4 hours monthly on invoice building, at $150/hour effective rate, that's $600/month in time cost. Plutio at $19/month that eliminates 3 of those 4 hours saves $450/month net. The cheapest option is rarely the free one.
Why Plutio is the best time tracking for architects
Plutio tracks time inside projects, not in a separate app. Log hours to a task, and they're already connected to the phase, client, and billing rate.
Time connects to tasks
Create a task: "SD - Floor plan iterations." Track 4 hours to it. Those hours attach to the task, roll up to the schematic design phase, and know the client and billing rate. No tagging, no categorizing later.
Phase budgets stay visible
Set 80 hours for schematic design. As you and your team log time, the phase shows 45/80 hours used. Hit 75 hours and Plutio can alert you before you go over. No spreadsheet comparison needed.
Invoicing pulls logged hours
Phase complete? Click invoice. Plutio creates line items from every hour logged to that phase - description from the task, hours from the time entries, rate from the project settings. Review, adjust if needed, send. No CSV export, no manual entry.
Team time stays organized
Your associate logs 6 hours to construction documents. You see it on the project timeline, in the phase budget, and it's ready for the next invoice. Their hours don't sit in their personal Toggl waiting for you to ask for a report.
Reports show project margin
Pull a report: Smith Residence took 340 total hours across all phases. At your blended rate, that's $34,000 in time. Contract was $40,000. You made $6,000 margin. Or you didn't - and now you know which project type to price differently.
Plutio isn't faster time tracking. It's time tracking that actually reaches your invoices without you carrying it there manually.
Multiple billing rates per project
Principal at $175, associate at $125, intern at $85. Set rates per team member or per phase. Plutio applies the right rate when hours become invoice line items - no manual rate lookup, no mistakes.
Automatic time rounding
Configure 15-minute rounding for cleaner invoices. Log 2 hours 7 minutes, it bills as 2:15. Or bill exact time if contracts require it. Project-level setting, not a global force.
Historical time reports
Pull a report: all time logged to residential projects this year. Or all time by a specific team member. Or all time on construction administration across all projects. Time data accumulates because every hour was logged to a task in a project - no manual categorization required.
How to set up time tracking in Plutio
Setting up time tracking in Plutio takes 30 minutes. You'll configure rates, create a project template, and log your first hours.
Step 1: Set your billing rates (5 minutes)
Go to Settings → Billing. Add your rates: Principal $175/hour, Project Architect $125/hour, Designer $95/hour. These become defaults for new projects.
Step 2: Create a project template (15 minutes)
Build a template with standard phases: Schematic Design, Design Development, Construction Documents, Bidding, Construction Administration. Add typical tasks under each phase. Set default hour budgets if you use them.
Step 3: Start a project from template (5 minutes)
New project → Select template → Assign to client. Adjust phase budgets for this specific project. Assign team members to phases they'll work on.
Step 4: Track time (ongoing)
Open a task, click the timer or add hours manually. Select who did the work if logging for a team member. Hours attach to the task automatically.
Step 5: Invoice from tracked time
Phase done? Go to the project, click "Create Invoice," select the phase. Plutio builds line items from logged hours. Review, send.
Most architects send their first connected invoice within a day of setup. The time tracking itself takes seconds - the setup just makes sure those seconds turn into billable line items.
Importing existing timesheets
Don't. Seriously. Historical hours were already billed or written off. Import creates duplicates and confusion. Start fresh in Plutio, keep old Toggl exports as reference if needed.
Time tracking templates for architecture projects
Architecture time tracking works best with templates matching your project phases. Build once, reuse on every project.
Residential project template
- Pre-Design: Site visit, client meetings, program development (budget: 10-20 hours)
- Schematic Design: Concept development, preliminary drawings, client presentations (budget: 40-80 hours)
- Design Development: Refined drawings, material selections, consultant coordination (budget: 60-100 hours)
- Construction Documents: Working drawings, specifications, permit set (budget: 100-200 hours)
- Construction Administration: Site visits, RFIs, submittals, punch list (budget: 40-80 hours)
Commercial project template
Same phases, higher hour budgets. Add tasks for code review, accessibility compliance, consultant coordination meetings.
Hourly consultation template
For projects billed purely hourly without phase structure: Meeting prep, Meeting, Follow-up, Research, Documentation. Each as a trackable task.
Templates don't lock you in - they give every project the same starting structure so time tracking stays consistent and comparable across projects.
Adjusting templates per project
Templates set defaults. Override them per project: this residential job has a longer CD phase, budget 250 hours instead of 200. Or this commercial project skips schematic design because the client came with approved concepts. Templates flex to reality.
Interior architecture template
Different phase names: Programming, Schematic Design, Design Development, Furniture/Fixture Plans, Installation Coordination. Same tracking principle - hours to phases to invoices.
Client visibility into tracked time
Client portals can show hours logged to their project - useful for hourly contracts where clients want visibility into what they're paying for.
When to share time visibility
Hourly contracts: Client sees hours accumulating, no invoice surprises. Cost-plus contracts: Client monitors time component of billing. Retainer relationships: Client sees how their monthly hours get used.
When to keep time internal
Fixed-fee projects: Client pays for the work, not hours. You track time for internal margin, not client reporting. Clients who micromanage: Some clients question every 15-minute entry. Keep time internal, share progress instead.
What clients see in Plutio portals
You control visibility per project. Show time summaries ("32 hours logged to Schematic Design") without task-level detail. Or full detail if the relationship supports it. Invoices show what you choose to include.
Time visibility builds trust on hourly projects. But fixed-fee clients don't need to see your internal tracking - they need to see the work and progress.
Migrating time tracking to Plutio
Moving from Toggl or Harvest to Plutio takes an afternoon. Historical data can stay in the old system - you're moving the workflow forward, not recreating the past.
Step 1: Export historical data for reference
Download CSVs from Toggl/Harvest for any projects you might need to reference. Store in a folder. You won't import this - it's just backup access to historical records.
Step 2: Set up active projects in Plutio
Create projects for work currently in progress. Use templates for phase structure. Don't recreate hours already logged - start fresh from today.
Step 3: Brief your team (15 minutes)
Show them: here's where you log time now, here's how it connects to tasks, here's where your hours show up. The interface is simpler than Toggl - fewer options, more direct.
Step 4: Run parallel for one billing cycle
First month: track in Plutio, invoice from Plutio. Compare against what you would have billed from the old system. Verify nothing slipped through. Second month: old system off.
What about historical hours?
Don't import them. Historical hours were already invoiced (or not - in which case they're gone anyway). Plutio tracks forward. Reference old exports if a client questions something historical.
Migration isn't about moving data - it's about moving the workflow. From today forward, time connects to invoices. Historical hours stay where they are.
Handling in-progress invoices
If you have unbilled time in Toggl for current projects, invoice that from Toggl before switching. Clean slate. Or manually enter those hours in Plutio to the correct tasks if you want one invoice source going forward.
Team resistance
"But I like Toggl" - the interface is familiar, sure. But ask: do you like exporting CSVs and building invoices manually? Plutio's tracking is simpler (log to a task, done) and the payoff is invoices that build themselves.
