Honest Review:

Odoo Timesheets

Instead of offering fixed feature bundles, Odoo charges based on the specific apps you choose to include in your plan.

The first plan is the One App Free, which as its name suggests is free, and only contains one app — this could be Odoo Timesheets, for example. However, if the chosen app depends on other apps, account holders will also get the dependencies along with the chosen app for free. This plan is hosted on the Odoo Online cloud infrastructure.

The paid plans give you access to all the apps under Odoo’s suite of business tools, covering everything from sales and marketing to accounting, CRM, HR, and more. For a price of $9.10 per user per month, Odoo is priced pretty high compared to other options in the market. But I’d say it’s fairly reasonable if you get access to all of Odoo’s apps.

There’s also a free trial, which you can get instant access to after you fill out their forms.

1. Time Tracking

Odoo Timesheets lets you track work hours either automatically using a timer or manually by entering time logs. You can access it through web, desktop, and mobile.

The timesheet can be viewed in two ways: a list view or a grid view. The list view shows projects as rows and dates as columns, making it easy to see daily, weekly, or monthly logs at a glance.

The automatic timer is a simple way to track time. Users can start the timer with a single click, enter a brief description of the task, select the relevant project, and choose a specific task. When the work is done, clicking the stop button records the time spent and links it to the selected project and task. This method keeps time tracking straightforward while ensuring that all logged hours are accurately recorded.

For those who prefer to log time manually or need to adjust existing entries, Odoo Timesheets allows users to edit time logs directly. It only takes a few clicks to enter hours, update descriptions, or change project and task information.

You can also use hotkeys to start the timer directly for specific projects. Pretty convenient. These hotkeys appear next to the project names and let you quickly log time without navigating through menus.

Odoo Timesheets can work offline too. If you lose internet connection, the timer will keep running, and once you’re back online, the logged time will sync to your account automatically.

Photo from Odoo Timesheets

2. Employee Management

Odoo’s employee management feature is designed to help managers keep track of team schedules, time off, and work hours. Managers can see when team members are taking time off so they can better plan shifts and manage workloads.

For time tracking, managers can control who can view and edit timesheets, keeping sensitive information private while still allowing supervisors to monitor hours worked. Once timesheets are submitted, managers can review and approve them with a single click, streamlining the process.

To ensure time logs are up to date, managers can send reminders to employees to complete or validate their timesheets. These reminders can be scheduled to go out regularly, so nothing gets missed.

Odoo also lets managers track work activity by project or task, helping them stay aware of what each team member is working on. Filters can be applied to sort through timesheets and find specific information quickly.

If there are specific dates that shouldn’t be edited, managers can lock timesheets for those periods, preventing changes to already approved entries.

3. Reporting and Data Views

Odoo offers several views for analyzing data, including Grid, List, Kanban, Pivot, and Graph views.

The Grid view provides a quick look at who is working on what and allows managers to validate time entries. The List view is useful for handling multiple entries at once, making it easy to edit, validate, or delete timesheets in bulk. In the Kanban view, timesheets are displayed as cards, giving a visual overview of tasks and allowing for quick updates.

For more in-depth analysis, the Pivot view lets you create pivot tables to break down time data by task, project, team member, or billing type. You can also export these tables to .xls format for further analysis in spreadsheets. The Graph view helps you build visual reports using bar, pie, or line charts, allowing you to quickly see patterns or trends.

The reporting feature also includes specific analyses for timesheets, planning, and attendance.

The Timesheet analysis view shows detailed statistics on time spent by task, project, or employee, providing a clear picture of where hours are being allocated. Planning analysis compares scheduled hours with actual hours worked, helping managers identify discrepancies and adjust workloads as needed. The Attendance analysis compares timesheet data with logged attendance to check for inconsistencies.

It’s great to have so many options for viewing and analyzing your data, even if you don’t end up using all of them. The flexibility to zoom into specific aspects of time tracking can be useful for managers who need deeper insights.

Photo from Odoo Timesheets

4. Integrations

Odoo integrates its timesheet feature with other apps in the Odoo suite to keep everything connected and organized.

With the Sales integration, you can generate invoices based on the time logged in timesheets. You can choose the timeframe you want to bill and send professional-looking invoices directly to clients. This helps ensure accurate billing and keeps client transactions organized.

The Project integration, on the other hand, connects timesheets with project management, allowing you to track time by project, client, or task.

These integrations allow you to link time tracking data to other parts of your workflow, reducing the need for manual data entry and keeping everything in sync across different parts of the platform. I do wish they could integrate with more apps outside of the Odoo suite, though. This would make it easier to incorporate into workflows for those already using other tools.

5. Invoicing

As mentioned previously, Odoo’s invoicing integration connects directly to timesheets, allowing you to bill clients based on the time logged for specific tasks or projects. If your team charges by the hour, you can generate invoices based on the recorded work hours, reducing the need for manual calculations.

You can choose whether to invoice all recorded timesheets or only the validated ones, giving you more control over what gets billed. This helps prevent mistakes and ensures that only approved hours are included in the invoice.

If billing rates vary depending on factors like the day of the week or the assigned technician, you can adjust the sales order items linked to the timesheets. This way, you can update the rates without having to create new invoices, keeping things organized and consistent.

Image by Odoo Timesheets