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How to set up time tracking in Asana: a step-by-step guide

A practical guide to enabling and using Asana's native time tracking on the Advanced tier — from adding time fields to running the timer, reporting, and where it stops.

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Asana added native time tracking to its Advanced tier — estimated and actual time fields on tasks, a start/stop timer, and dashboard reporting. If you're on Advanced ($24.99/user/mo annual) or above, you can enable it without a third-party integration. This guide walks through the setup step by step, then covers where the native tracking stops and what to use alongside it.

If you're on the free or Starter tier, native time tracking isn't available — you'll need a third-party time tracker. Skip to the alternatives section below.

Prerequisites

Before you start, confirm you have:

  • Asana Advanced, Enterprise, or Enterprise+ tier. Time tracking is not available on Personal (free) or Starter. If you're not sure which tier you're on, check your admin console under Settings.
  • Project admin or editor access. You need edit access to the project to add custom fields. Workspace admins can also enable time tracking globally from the admin console.
  • A project with tasks you want to track. Time tracking is enabled per-project, not globally — each project needs the fields added.

Step 1: Enable time tracking fields on a project

Time tracking in Asana works through two custom fields: Estimated time and Actual time. You add them to a project the same way you'd add any custom field.

  1. Open the project where you want to track time.
  2. Click Customize in the top-right corner of the project header.
  3. Click Fields → + Add.
  4. Select "Time your work" from the field list. This is Asana's time tracking field type.
  5. Confirm. Asana adds two fields to the project:
    • Estimated time — the hours you expect a task to take.
    • Actual time — the hours actually spent, populated by the timer or manual entry.

Both fields appear on every task in the project. You can also add them individually from the custom field library if you prefer — search for "Estimated time" or "Actual time."

If you're a workspace admin, you can also enable time tracking globally from Admin Console → Settings → Timesheets and Resourcing → Enable time tracking. This makes the Estimated and Actual time fields visible across all projects in the workspace.

Step 2: Set estimated time on tasks

Before you start tracking, set the estimated time for each task. This is the number you'll compare actual time against — it's the budget per task.

  1. Open a task in the project.
  2. Find the Estimated time field in the task detail panel (right side, after the standard fields).
  3. Enter the estimated hours and minutes. Asana accepts formats like 2h, 2h 30m, or 2:30. Numbers alone are treated as hours.
  4. Repeat for each task you want to track.

Estimated time is a planning input — it doesn't affect the timer. But it's what makes the estimate-vs-actual comparison possible in dashboards. If you skip it, you'll track hours but won't know whether you're on budget.

Step 3: Track actual time (two methods)

Asana gives you two ways to record actual time: a live timer or manual entry.

Method A: Use the live timer

  1. Open a task and find the Actual time field in the detail panel.
  2. Click the timer icon next to the Actual time field.
  3. The timer starts running. A popup appears in the bottom-right corner showing the running timer and task name. You can navigate away from the task — the timer keeps running.
  4. Click the popup to return to the task, or click the pause icon to stop the timer.
  5. When you stop the timer, the elapsed time is added to the Actual time field automatically. Each timer session is logged as a separate time entry — clicking on Actual time shows each instance the timer ran, along with who ran it.

Method B: Enter time manually

  1. Open a task and find the Actual time field.
  2. Click on the field and enter hours and minutes directly (e.g., 1h 30m or 1:30).
  3. Save. The time is recorded against the task.

Manual entry is useful for logging time after the fact — if you forgot to start the timer, or if you're entering time from a different system.

Step 4: View time data in dashboards

Once you've tracked time on several tasks, you can report on it in project dashboards.

  1. Open the project and go to the Overview tab (or any dashboard view).
  2. Create a chart using the standard dashboard builder:
    • Estimated time by assignee: X-axis = Assignee, Y-axis = Custom field → Estimated time.
    • Actual time by section: X-axis = Section, Y-axis = Time entry → Actual time.
    • Actual time by custom field: X-axis = any custom field (e.g., Department), Y-axis = Time entry → Actual time.
  3. Save the chart to the dashboard.

These charts show you where time is going across the project — who's logging the most hours, which sections are taking longer than expected, and whether estimates are matching actuals.

Step 5: Use subtask rollups

Time tracked on subtasks automatically rolls up to the parent task. When subtasks are collapsed in list view, their Actual time and Estimated time values are added to the parent task values.

For example, if a parent task has 1 hour of actual time and two subtasks have 45 minutes and 30 minutes, the collapsed parent shows 2 hours 15 minutes total. This makes it easy to see the total time per task without expanding every subtask.

What native time tracking doesn't do

Asana's built-in time tracking is good for logging hours against tasks. It stops at "hours logged." For freelancers and small teams billing clients, here's where the gaps are:

No invoicing

Asana tracks hours but doesn't generate branded invoice PDFs, doesn't embed Stripe payment links, and doesn't track invoice status from Sent to Paid. If you bill clients by the hour, you need a separate invoicing tool. Asana's own pricing guide says: "Asana tracks time on Advanced and above but does not invoice or send quotes."

No AI weekly summaries from tracked time

Asana has AI Studio — a workflow automation layer that can summarize tasks, auto-fill fields, and generate smart status updates. But it doesn't read your tracked time entries and produce a weekly summary of what got done, where time went, and what changed week over week.

Task-level timer only

The timer is tied to individual tasks. There's no global timer, no menu bar timer, no keyboard shortcut to switch between tasks without navigating to each one. If your work pattern is "switch between 5 tasks across 2 clients in an hour," Asana's timer requires 5 browser navigations.

Web-first, not Mac-native

The timer lives inside a browser tab. On a Mac, that means alt-tabbing to a browser, finding the tab, finding the task, clicking the timer. Over a day of 20+ timer switches, that friction compounds.

No real-time profitability

Asana has estimated and actual time fields. What it doesn't have is the calculation that matters: actual hours × your rate ÷ estimated hours × your rate = project margin, updated in real time as you log entries.

What to use if native tracking isn't enough

If you need the loop to close — timer to margin to invoice to paid — a dedicated time tracker that reads from Asana is the complement, not the replacement. Ayron connects to Asana via OAuth, pulls your assigned tasks into a Mac-native menu bar timer, and carries tracked hours through to AI weekly reports, estimate-vs-actual margins, and branded invoices with Stripe payment links.

The pricing comparison: Asana Advanced at $24.99/user/mo gives you native time tracking but no invoicing. Ayron Pro at $12/mo gives you the timer, invoicing, AI summaries, and margins — and works with any Asana tier, including the free plan. For the full breakdown, see Asana time tracking vs Ayron.

For other tools that integrate with Asana, see top time tracking software for Asana.

FAQ

Which Asana plans include time tracking? Time tracking is available on Asana Advanced ($24.99/user/mo annual), Enterprise, and Enterprise+. It is not available on the Personal (free) or Starter ($10.99/user/mo) tiers. On those tiers, you need a third-party time tracker like Ayron that connects to Asana via OAuth.

How do I enable time tracking in Asana? Open a project, click Customize → Fields → + Add, and select "Time your work." This adds Estimated time and Actual time custom fields to every task in the project. Workspace admins can also enable it globally from the Admin Console under Settings → Timesheets and Resourcing.

Can I use a timer in Asana? Yes. On the Advanced tier and above, click the timer icon next to the Actual time field on any task. The timer runs in the background with a popup in the bottom-right corner. Stop it to record the elapsed time. Each timer session is logged as a separate time entry.

Does Asana's time tracking include invoicing? No. Asana tracks hours but does not generate invoices, process payments, or track invoice status. If you bill clients by the hour, you need a separate invoicing tool. Ayron includes first-party invoicing with Stripe payment links at $12/mo — see the timer-to-paid-invoice walkthrough.

Can I track time on Asana's free plan? Not with native time tracking — it requires the Advanced tier. But third-party tools like Ayron connect to Asana via OAuth and work with any Asana tier, including the free plan. Ayron's free plan includes the Asana integration (1 user, 3 clients, 5 projects, 200 entries/month). See the Asana integration guide.

Do subtasks roll up into the parent task for time tracking? Yes. Time tracked on subtasks automatically adds to the parent task's Actual time and Estimated time values. When subtasks are collapsed in list view, the parent shows the combined total.

Can I export time tracking data from Asana? Yes. You can export time entries as CSV from the project's dropdown menu (Sync/Export → Time entries as CSV, currently in limited availability). The standard CSV export of project tasks includes total time logged per task. The API also supports reading time tracking data.

Does Ayron write back to Asana? No. Ayron's Asana integration is read-first: it pulls your assigned tasks and projects but doesn't push status changes back into Asana. This is a deliberate design choice — Asana stays the system of record for what's done, Ayron is the system of record for how long it took. See the integration guide for the full rationale.

Sources: Asana Help Center (help.asana.com) and Asana pricing page (asana.com/pricing), checked 2026-06-22. Ayron details are based on its public landing page and should be treated as marketing claims rather than independent product verification.

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