Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers an Android app that automatically tracks your telephone calls and text messages (see article below), a Bluetooth keyboard that works with any device, a portable USB charger that consumes virtually no space, and an iPhone app that digs up the dirt on your contacts. Don't miss the next issue.
AN ANDROID APP THAT CAPTURES CALLS AND TEXT MESSAGES
The best tool for tracking billable time is the one that does so automatically. The second best tool is the one you have with you. Because software cannot (yet) read your mind, you need both tools. This means a smart app for your smartphone.
Chrometa for Android … in One Sentence
Launched this week, Chrometa for Android tracks your billable time, including telephone calls and text messages, and securely sends it to your Chrometa or Chrometa Teams account.
The Killer Feature
Chrometa is a popular web application that uses locally installed apps to automatically track the time you spend working on your Mac or Windows PC (Chrometa Teams is the multi-user version). Lawyers who use Chrometa told CEO and Co-Founder Brett Owens that they like the convenience of communicating with clients via text messages but find it difficult to bill for them.
Chrometa for Android addresses this problem by automatically capturing the time you spend on text messages as well as telephone calls. You finalize your captured time, and either generate bills or export the data to your firm's billing software using Chrometa. You control when to sync your smartphone with Chrometa. This enables you to prevent sending your personal communications over a weekend or while in vacation to Chrometa.
If you use Google Contacts, Chrometa can match each telephone number when you sync so that it can organize your time entries by client. Keyword-based rules in the web application categorize all your time entries in an even more granular manner, including assigning the corresponding matter (project) and grouping those that are not billable.
"By popular request, we added text message capture to the latest version of our Android app," says Owens. "Thanks to all the billable time Chrometa for Android can capture, lawyers can get paid for all the time they spend communicating with and producing work for clients."
Other Notable Features
In addition to automatically capturing telephone calls and text messages, Chrometa for Android also enables you to manually enter time for other activities. The time entry screen lists your billable time, a field for a description, and a list of clients and matters from which you can choose.
Manual time entry takes two forms. You can quickly enter billable time after the fact. Alternatively, you can start a stopwatch within Chrometa for Android when you start a billable task such as a meeting. When the billable event ends, you stop the timer and create a time entry based on the stopwatch. You can pause and resume the stopwatch as often as needed during a billable task.
What Else Should You Know?
Chrometa for Android is free for Chrometa and Chrometa Teams users. The app works on smartphones running Android 2.3 and later. Chrometa ranges in price from $12 to $19 to $29 per month depending primarily on how many devices you want to track. Chrometa Teams costs the same per user. Learn more about Chrometa for Android.
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