workmonitor.
Best for teams that bill for their time and want captured hours, live project margin and a payroll run that balances before it is exported.
- No timers to forget
- One engine for invoice and payroll
- Margin, live
VSTime tracking · For managers and finance
Homebase alternatives
When the work stops being shift-shaped, the hours need to bill.
- Free for two seats
- No card
- Homebase history imports by CSV
Updated October 3, 2026. Homebase details reviewed September 7, 2026 from public materials — check them against its own site before you decide.
workmonitor.
versusHomebaseWhere WorkMonitor wins
- No timers to forgetHours are captured as the work happens, so the forgotten ones get billed too.
- One engine for invoice and payrollApproved hours bill and pay from the same rates, balanced to the cent.
- Margin, liveBudget burn updates as hours land — not when the invoice is drafted.
Where Homebase winsScheduling, hiring and payroll for hourly shops
The difference that matters
Timers record what people remember. WorkMonitor bills what they worked.
For teams that bill clients or track project margin: hours captured and attributed, approved once, and priced on one rate engine for the invoice and the payroll run.
The real product — not a screenshot. Click a tab.
AK
Projects
Run client work.
Search or ask…
Northlight Studio · sample
Invoices
Backed by recorded work
INVOICED · AUGUST
$186,400
across 11 invoices
AWAITING PAYMENT
$74,900
4 sent, none overdue
HOURS BILLED
1,704
all from recorded work
INVOICEPERIODHOURSAMOUNTSTATE
- INV-2081Harbour & Co.1–31 Aug214$23,540Paid
- INV-2082Meridian Health1–31 Aug186$22,320Paid
- INV-2083Vector LabsHours verified · certificate c73a…1f081–31 Aug342$37,620Sent
- INV-2084Bellrose Retail1–31 Aug128$14,080Sent
- INV-2085Ardenway Logistics11–31 Aug96$10,560Draft
- INV-2086Kite Foundation18–31 Aug64$6,720Draft
Every invoiced hour is backed by recorded work.6 of 11 shown
What it returns
What WorkMonitor returns on your own team
Your headcount and loaded cost, the subscription already subtracted.
$
Salary plus everything on top of it.
ESTIMATED ANNUAL RETURN
- Time recovered from idle and drift6% of paid time, back in the week$228,000
- WorkMonitor, 40 people at $10 a month−$4,800
Net, over a year
$223,200
Estimated net return $223,200 a year.
47.5×
the subscription, returned
1 mo
to pay it back
96
hours a week, across the team
Arithmetic on your figures at the calculator’s low-end assumption of 6% of paid time recovered — not a measurement of your team. Itemise it by region and add-on
A timer records what people remember. The invoice should carry what they worked.
workmonitor.vsTimer-based time tracking
6differences, worked through below
Hours that never get entered
With WorkMonitor
Captured as the work happens and attributed to the project, with idle split out rather than rounded in, so the sheet is drafted before anyone opens it.
Timer-based time tracking
Somebody forgets the timer or rebuilds the week on Friday from memory — and an hour nobody entered is an hour nobody bills.
From hours to invoice and payroll
With WorkMonitor
Approved hours seed the invoice and the payroll run directly, priced by one shared rate engine, so the two cannot disagree.
Timer-based time tracking
Export, reformat, paste into payroll or invoicing, then reconcile to find what got mangled on the way.
Project margin
With WorkMonitor
Budget burn and margin update as hours land, in hours and in money, so an over-running project shows while there is still time to act.
Timer-based time tracking
Discovered when the invoice is drafted, after the over-run has already been paid for.
Payroll errors
With WorkMonitor
A cent-exact pre-flight that has to balance before a run can be exported, with idle already split out of the hours it prices.
Timer-based time tracking
Spreadsheet arithmetic, found at audit as a recurring few pence — or a paid idle hour nobody caught.
Who signs off the money
With WorkMonitor
Multi-stage approval that refuses a self-approval rather than warning about it.
Timer-based time tracking
Whoever has the file, which is usually more people than anyone intended.
When a client disputes the bill
With WorkMonitor
A finalized invoice seeds a certificate the client checks themselves, without an account.
Timer-based time tracking
A line item and a total. The client accepts it or opens a thread about it.
The question we get asked
We have scheduling, hiring and payroll in one tool. Is unbundling that a step backwards?
For a single-site hourly business, probably yes — keep the bundle. The case for moving starts when the work stops being shift-shaped: when you are billing clients for it, when a client or an auditor asks you to prove it, or when hours feed a project margin rather than only a payslip. That is a different kind of record than a time clock produces.
Timesheets — submitted hours against recorded hours
What a manager gets, in one platform
- Projects, clients, tasks & budgets (rate cards, burn)
The shortlist
The 5 Homebase alternatives managers shortlist
WorkMonitor first, because this is our page. The other Homebase competitors in their own words, each with its own head-to-head.
QuickBooks Time
Time tracking and scheduling inside the QuickBooks ecosystem, with clock-in, GPS and direct payroll handoff.
WorkMonitor vs QuickBooks TimeDeputy
Shift scheduling, rostering and time clock for hourly teams, with award interpretation and labour-cost forecasting.
WorkMonitor vs DeputyConnecteam
An all-in-one operations app for deskless teams: time clock, checklists, training and internal communication on mobile.
WorkMonitor vs ConnecteamClockify
Free time tracking for unlimited users, with timesheets, reporting and paid tiers above it.
WorkMonitor vs Clockify
Switching
Bringing your Homebase history across
Nobody switches tools if it means abandoning a year of history. Export yours as CSV and the importer maps it onto our columns. There is no dedicated Homebase preset yet, so expect to line the columns up once rather than not at all.
The columns your export needs to line up with
- date
- minutes
- project
- task
- note
Six columns, mapped once on the first import. Rows that cannot be normalised still pass through, so the importer reports exactly which ones need attention rather than rejecting the file.
After the import
Where your Homebase history lands
Imported hours sit on the same ledger as everything captured after them, so last quarter’s cost and margin read the same way as next quarter’s. Corrections append with an author and a reason rather than overwriting, which is what lets you answer why a number changed long after anyone remembers.
Payouts — a payroll run built from approved hours
When Homebase is the better answer
You run a small hourly business and want scheduling, hiring and payroll in one place at a low price. That bundle is theirs and we do not compete with it.
If that is the deciding requirement, buy that instead.
Questions
Homebase alternatives: what managers ask
Answered about what WorkMonitor does, including where the answer is no.
- Does WorkMonitor do scheduling and hiring?
- No to both. There is no roster builder and no applicant tracking. It measures and proves work that has happened; it does not plan shifts or recruit for them.
- How do I move my Homebase data into WorkMonitor?
- Export it as CSV and the importer maps it onto our columns — email, date, minutes, project, task, note. There is no dedicated preset for this vendor yet, so the columns get lined up once on the first import. Hours come across; scheduling and hiring records have nothing to map onto here. It lands on the same ledger as everything captured after it.
- What is the best Homebase alternative for a growing services business?
- Once you bill clients for the work, one that follows the hour to the invoice. WorkMonitor captures time against the client and project, prices it on rate cards, shows margin as it burns and runs payroll from the same approved hours. For rotas, hiring and shift swaps at a single site, a scheduling bundle still fits better.
- Does WorkMonitor run payroll?
- It produces the payroll run from approved hours through one shared rate engine, with a cent-exact pre-flight that must balance before export. It does not file taxes or move money, so it feeds a payroll provider rather than replacing one.
- What does WorkMonitor do that a time clock does not?
- It records what the hour contained, not only that it happened — and turns a finalized invoice into a certificate the client verifies on a public page, without an account and without being shown screenshots of their own work.
- Is WorkMonitor affordable for a small business?
- Two seats are free, and above that it is a per-seat monthly price with no minimum commitment. Whether it is the right spend depends less on the number than on whether your hours turn into invoices — that is where the seat pays for itself or does not.
Ask AI
Ask anything about your team
Plain-language answers about your own workforce data, with the figures behind them. Pick a question to see how it reads.
Who's most at risk of burnout?
Pick a question above and WorkMonitor AI will answer from your team's real numbers.
Take these with you
The software is the easy part of a rollout
Here is what we would send a manager doing one for the first time: how to read a productivity number, what to say to a remote team before anything is installed, and a policy you can adopt as written.
Point it at one team for a week.
Create the account, put the agent on a handful of desks, and leave it alone. On Friday you read the week instead of reconstructing it: hours against their projects, focus and idle per person, and the timesheets already filled in.
Free for two seats. No card, and no sales call to sit through.