Basecamp vs. FunctionFox vs. QuickBooks Time

Basecamp is a wonderful tool for teams of varying degrees of technical knowledge, teams managing lots of different types of "agifall" and waterfall projects, and teams that are remotely distributed. It's probably less useful for more strictly agile-focused development teams, compared to other more flexible software applications like Jira and Asana.

Incentivized

If you are trying to track time across teams or functions, that is really what FunctionFox is designed for. I think this would work better for individual, smaller teams with similar tasks and activities, instead of for larger companies with more complex organizational operations. If you are just getting started with time tracking, this could be a good place to start.

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It would be very useful for certain remote jobs that require a high level of presence, as in the case of web development, or remote maintenance sessions, so that when reviewing the work data it is possible to ensure that there will be no failures. By being able to include files in the management, from the equipment tab, it is possible to fully control the hours in which each change in these files were made.

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• Task management - It is very easy to add, organize and discuss tasks within Basecamp's interface.
• The "Campfire" function is great for communicating when you just have a quick question for someone on the team.
• Notifications - Basecamp lets you decide how often and about what you'd like to be notified. The ability to respond to messages in Basecamp directly via email saves a lot of time.

Incentivized

• With only a couple clicks I can still easily pull reports by employee on a weekly basis which provide the information I need to run payroll.
• I pull reports by client each month for our monthly client billings, which we have broken down by project so I can easily see how our time was spent on their account.
• We set a budget for the approved number of hours we can apply to any one project for the month, and the system provides the project manager with a warning as the limit comes near. That function has been fantastic!
• FunctionFox's Help Desk personnel are wonderful, providing an exceptionally personalized experience. They take their time, and will even schedule a call to go into greater depth, such as an entire account review just to ensure you're able to use all the product features to your company's best advantage. Our entire team jumped on a half hour call a couple months ago, and she answered ALL of our questions, including providing us with info on some features we hadn't realized even existed.

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• Support (their help desk team is incredibly helpful and always quick to respond).
• Ease of access and use (the app is user-friendly an intuitive, and the desktop version is equally as approachable).
• Manager functionality (it's useful to be able to clock employees in and out at multiple events on the same day by sorting them into different groups by manager/event).

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• High Learning Curve. It's true that it can be easy to use, but to use well and effectively takes some time to learn. It's recommended to have an agreed-upon system in your team of what tools to use and when.
• Notification Overload. If people aren't careful they could send a notification to everyone when only a couple people were meant to be prompted. And since emails are sent by default, you could have your mailbox overloaded with unnecessary updates. This is where it takes a bit of training in your team to have an agreed-upon system.
• Lack of organization with Archived Projects. I will often need to reference an archived project to make a new one, but there is only a list of archived projects in alphabetical order, with no way to organize by archive date, or even search.

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• The function of the site is not as user-friendly as others, it's sometimes hard to find certain projects and organize data in order to track effectively. I would often need to download/export reports.
• Sometimes a project would accidentally be created twice and hours billed to two separate projects for the same thing. Which made tracking and billing increasingly difficult.
• Little to no organization of projects for billing and finance purposes, which makes it hard when we conduct billing as there is not a clear way to know if a project is complete, ongoing, rejected etc.

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• The desktop version of the TSheets schedule does not have a search feature. This makes it challenging to find things you are looking for without extra work
• The app can be a bit buggy. Though it is a great app, there are many reasons that the app will stop syncing and can cause problems with staff scheduling

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When I bring new people onto a project, it's immediately obvious how to use Basecamp. I don't have to worry about teaching them the features or walking them through it, it's just incredibly user-friendly. For this reason, I'll continue to renew my subscription even as new people are brought onto production jobs or the client changes.

All of my employees are used to it and introducing a new software to them requires them to get trained again increasing the costs. TimeFox is an easy to use and understand software. Another advantage of TimeFox is that is an online software and I can access it whenever I want to.

TSheets tech support people, like Shawn Sommer, from Tsheets. She has been instrumental, after terminating the person in charge of TSheets I was left with a learning curve too high to climb but after 10 mins of her instructions I was able to make payroll in no time. She cleared all errors that nobody had fixed before.
TSheets is not a vendor for me, TSheets is my partner in business. Thank you TSheets.

It is easy to use, even for clients who have no experience with the platform. It can only get a little cumbersome to ensure that a client can't see certain documents you might want to keep in the Docs & Files folders. And sometimes, getting a client to actually use an unfamiliar platform can be a challenge.

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It's a good tool for tracking hours and overall budget. It does not give you insight into why there are those hours, or what part of the project has over burned. The tool is also tough to export reports and find the correct information throughout. Not only this, but I also have a hard time changing project details - there's no real easy way to and there's a larger room for error

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Our employees find TSheets easy to use and spend minimal time at reporting hours using it. As an administrator and user of the TSheets "data and information" I am extremely positive on the functionality and reporting that it has provided me. From its ease of set-up to training to reporting, TSheets has made us so much more efficient from an administration standpoint

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I've never experienced downtime while using Basecamp, or been unable to access it when I needed it. That's not to say they've never had downtime, but I've been lucky enough not to encounter any, and I work odd hours, including late nights when maintenance is often undertaken.

Incentivized

For the many reasons I've given, Basecamp is a very strong program. There are a few features I can imagine that might make it even better, but I don't have a basis for comparison to be able to say that there is definitely a better one out there. I've noticed that Basecamp has evolved a bit from the time I started using it until now, so that makes me think that the producer of this program values it and believes in continuous improvement. If you could use the features offered by Basecamp, I would think you could use it with confidence.

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I haven't used FunctionFox for a lot of support requests. On the times that i've been having issues I've had the issue resolved within a day, most questions I have had i've been able to source answers online or from a colleague. From what I have experienced the support team seems great.

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I have never failed to have an issue resolved within minutes of contacting Support. Jen D recently assisted my with an export issue and I was back on track in less the 10 minutes. She was knowledgable and thought about the current and future contexts of the issue and assured there would be no recurrence next payroll.

Decide the process before implementation - i.e. when it's due 8/9 does that mean 8am, noon, 5pm, 11:59pm? Check your to-do list frequently Set-up templates - just not with the dates (they can be funky)

Unsure on implementation of FunctionFox - was before my time at the company. Everyone at the company had a good understanding of the product and how to use it by the time I joined. My understanding is we implemented ourselves with a few training sessions for the creative team and adding hours as well as training for the account team to add projects

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I wasn't originally helping with the implementation so not sure.

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Pretty good, but [Basecamp] has its drawbacks. Honestly I find the interface non-intuitive and sometimes have trouble figuring out how to change the status of a task. Perhaps it has something to do with the way it was originally set up by the admin, but I'm not sure. I liked Jira's drag and drop obvious functionality, but the project management side of the software was lacking. Smartsheet has excellent project management functionality, but the task management isn't as good.

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When we were looking for software we tested several, and FunctionFox was hands down the best value. While there are other options, and each company is different, nothing could come close to filling our needs the way FunctionFox has. The money we spend has been returned several times over.

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Besides Intuit Payroll (Sage), the only program I've used is WorkBrain through Menards, and it's more as a scheduling guideline for management, employees don't use it to punch in or out or record hours. However, WorkBrain does show scheduling and it matches with a punch clock to record those hours. Every other place I've used has used either punch clocks or handwritten time cards. I think the TSheets is modern, user-friendly, convenient, accessible, and cost-effective for the owners. It also streamlines payroll for the Accountant instead of manually entering all hours for multiple employees by hand into a software program like Sage.

Incentivized

• It has saved me time when having to get the same message out to multiple restaurants
• It has helped us make smarter operational decisions because we can all collaborate on an answer in a shorter amount of time (instead of calling a meeting!!!)
• The calendar function allows us to plot out our marketing agenda for the month and add/change it together as needed. The chef will post his recipe, the managers will cost it out, the social media manager will post pictures on it, and ultimately we will get that information out on an info sheet to the staff by printing the page.

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• FunctionFox pays for itself just about every month in terms of how much more I am able to bill than before I started using the software, and how much less time I need to spend on non-billable admin tasks. I used to create invoices based mostly on what sounded fair, rather than on accurate time & cost records. I'm sure my clients loved it, but it wasn't healthy for my business. Now I base invoices on actual time and expense records, and end up with more money in my pocket.
• It's not tangible, but FunctionFox has improved my ability to communicate with clients, and with freelance partners when I'm involved in a collaborative project. I can anticipate and discuss potential budget or delivery deadline overruns before they occur. The goodwill this builds has had a tremendously positive impact on client and partnership relations.
• I fell into freelancing without a lot of experience running a business. FunctionFox has been a great teacher, helping me think through many issues that I wouldn't have even recognized as important. It is simple to use, with a UI that is neither intimidating nor overwhelming, and it has been super flexible in terms of molding it to suit the way I work.

Incentivized

• As a Microsoft Access software development shop, Help4Access could have built ourselves a time tracking system, but why reinvent the wheel?
• tSheets got us out of spreadsheets and into the cloud in days not months.
• The ROI the first year is over $5,000.

Incentivized