Freelancers, does your employer ask you to use time tracking software?

I hardly ever (maybe never) bill per hour/day so I have no need for time tracking from a client perspective. I however track my time for two reasons. First, I am able to work out what my hourly rate actually is, but this is for my internal usage. Second, always valuable to go through the process on a project and understand what worked and what did not. Excellent way to turn your learning about a project into processes. In terms of software, I have successfully used Toggl, and currently testing a more automated way to track with Painless Time Tracker https://painlesstracker.com/

I'm using https://www.temponia.com/. Very simple, not that expensive, excellent support and — and this is the reason why I picked it — Xero integration. It doesn't look as nice as the competition, but a lot more flexible and helpful than the competition nonetheless.

We're not asked to track time, but I started using https://wakatime.com personally at home and it has been awesome to see how many hours I've put in over a weekend or whatever. It integrates really nicely with VS Code too - after setting it up the first time I don't even notice it running.

Some of employers especially if they represent particular companies usually ask to use their own "home-made" time trackers. As you may think, I always felt privacy discomfort related to that trackers.

10k

The employer usually ask to complete the task and does not actually want the timeline tracker. All they want is quality work within the defined timeline.