Does Xero Have Time Tracking?
By Jotter Team
Xero does not include built-in job time tracking or mobile timers. Xero Projects offers basic desktop time entry, but there is no offline mobile timer designed for field crews. If your team works on site and you want hours to land on a Xero invoice without re-typing, you need a timer that feeds Xero, not a feature inside Xero itself.
What Xero can and can't do
Let us be honest about where Xero sits. Xero is excellent accounting software. It handles your invoices, GST, bank feeds, and reporting. It is the system your accountant set up and the one your business runs on. But it was never designed for someone standing in a trench or up a ladder trying to log hours.
Xero does have an add-on called Xero Projects. It lets you create projects, assign them to contacts, and enter time against them. There is a basic timer in the Xero Projects mobile app. So technically, Xero can record time. But there is a gap between "can record time" and "works for a field crew":
- No offline timer. The Xero Projects timer needs a connection. On a new build with no cell tower, in a basement, or down a rural gravel road, it is not reliable. Half the job sites in New Zealand have patchy signal.
- Time is tied to projects, not job line items. Tradies think in jobs and tasks, not abstract projects. Mapping a day's callouts onto Xero Projects is extra admin most teams skip.
- No Lock Screen timer. If the timer is not visible without opening the app, people forget it is running. Forgotten timers mean wrong hours.
- It is built for the desk, not the tools. Xero Projects suits a consultant logging billable hours at a computer. It is not built for a plumber with dirty hands tracking time one-handed on a phone.
So the answer to "does Xero have time tracking" is: sort of, through Xero Projects, but not the kind of mobile, offline, job-based time tracking a trades team actually needs.
How tradies actually track time today
Because the built-in options do not fit the way field work happens, most teams fall back on workarounds:
- Notebooks and memory. Hours get written on a scrap of paper, or estimated on Friday from memory. This consistently undercharges, because people round down when they cannot remember exactly when they started.
- Texts to the office. Workers message their hours at the end of the day and an admin keys them into Xero. That is double handling, and details get lost in the gap.
- A separate time tracking app. Better, but now the hours live in one system and the job details live in another. Someone still has to move the numbers into Xero by hand.
Every one of these has the same flaw: the time is captured away from the invoice, so someone has to bridge the gap manually. That is where billable hours and money disappear.
The simplest fix: a timer that feeds Xero
The fix is not a better standalone stopwatch. It is a timer built into the job that pushes hours straight onto the Xero invoice. That is exactly what Jotter's Xero time tracking app does.
Every line item on a job has its own timer. Your team taps play when they start a task and the timer appears on the iPhone Lock Screen or the Android notification bar, so nobody forgets it is running. It works fully offline, so a basement or a rural site is no problem. When the job is marked complete, the tracked hours flow to Xero as the quantity on the matching invoice line. No timesheets, no re-entry, no guessing.
And because Jotter also handles materials, customers, and quoting, the whole job becomes a Xero invoice in one tap. If you want to send those invoices from the field too, see mobile invoicing through Xero.
Frequently asked questions
Can you do timesheets in Xero?
Xero has timesheets inside Xero Payroll for paying staff, and basic time entry through the Xero Projects add-on. Neither is a mobile, offline job timer for field crews. For tracking billable hours on jobs and getting them onto a customer invoice, a timesheet app that syncs to Xero like Jotter is the practical answer.
Does Xero Projects work on mobile?
Xero Projects has a mobile app with a basic timer, but it needs a connection and is built around projects rather than job line items. It is not designed for offline use on field sites, which is where most trades work happens. Jotter's timer works fully offline and ties time to the line items that become invoice lines.
How do I get hours onto a Xero invoice?
With Jotter, you track time on a job's line items using the built-in timer, then mark the job complete. The tracked hours flow to Xero automatically as the quantity on the matching invoice line, with the customer and pricing already filled in. There is no manual export or re-typing. See how Xero time tracking works.