Coen Review – Track your work time
App Type: Uncategorized
Our rating: 
By: Coen Apps
Version #: 1.0.2
Date Released: 2012-06-10
Developer: Coen Support
Price: 3.99
User Rating:
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People who make house calls for a living are always on the go. Whether a repairman, or a public notary, its important for them to accurately report their time and miles when working on a job. In the past much of your milage, time tracking, and invoicing were done back at the office. The developers of Coen seem to have tailored the app for those that are take compensation from the distance their travel to a call. Does Coen meet this niche?
To take full advantage of Coen, you must first put in your starting location. This could be your home if you are on call, or at your office if that is where you generally start. From there you should add customers in and add projects to the appropriate customers. Once you are all set, you have two choices for things to track: hours and trips.
Hours are mainly captured from events on your calendar. While you can add them manually, it is much faster if you already use the iOS calendar to plan your work schedule. Add hours is fast which makes it less of a pain to maintain. Trips can likewise be added manuals, but to really unlock the power of this app, it is recommended that you use the start trip buttons on the main screen. This allows you to capture that actual miles of your trip as you drive using the iOS GPS. If you have recent trips or hours that have not been linked to a project, there are handy badges in those sections to alert you.
Coen suggests that you capture your hours via calendar, and your miles as you drive which means that you don’t spend time attaching them to projects during the day. Coen has an adjustable reminder feature that will tell you when a good time to sit down and quickly assign all your hours and miles. All this recording and assigning is only useful if you can do something with the data.
This is where reports come in. From the reports section you can email reports to yourself from any customer and with whatever date range you like. The report generation is a bit disconcerting at first since it doesn’t actually tell you it has emailed the report to your configured email. It simply says it was successful and returns the the previous screen. I think it would be more helpful if you could view the report before sending it and perhaps be able to send it to other emails such as your supervisor, or billing. The report to exported in excel format which means you can import it into whatever billing app you like to use.
Coen makes it super easy to keep track of your hours worked, and miles driven. The integration with calendars and the auto capture miles makes this part of the app work so smooth with wont have much excuse not to use it. This isn’t a full invoicing app, but simply a data collection tool. Unfortunately, making use of this data is bare bones at best, and to do anything truly useful with the data you will have to export it to your email. I think this is one area where the guys behind Coen could make great strides and would increase the value of this app tremendously.
Quick Take
Value:Good
Would I Buy Again:Maybe
Learning Curve:Moderate
Who Is It For:People who need to bill for hours worked and miles traveled
What I Like:Fast interface for logging miles and hours, calendar integration
What I Don't Like:Limited options using data
Final Statement:Track your miles and get paid with Coen
Coen Temporarily: 60% off during introduction period
What Coen does?
With Coen you easily keep track of the time you spend on clients daily. And you register how many miles you have driven. It’s as easy as it gets. Assign your hours worked or trips made to clients or projects. Just with a push of a button. You always have a detailed survey, per day, week or month. Make exports, through Excel sheet, to your email adress. iCloud synchronization between IPad and Iphone.
Who’s Coen for?
Not only perfect for freelancers and interim managers but for everybody who needs or wants to record their hours worked or trips made. For billing or tax purposes. Or for their own records.
Why Coen?
Coen does what it is suppose to. No more, no less. Coen is simple and intuitive. Within two minutes you get how it works. Within a day, you cannot do without anymore.
Coen is your Personal Assistant. Coen saves time and puts your registration in order.
Coen is a one-off purchase. You don’t need a subscription to a online service. So Coen not only is the most intuitive but also the cheapest of its kind. You reach return of investment within one day.
Features of Coen
• Create clients or get them out of your contacts
• If necessary, add one or more projects
• Daily reminder to enter hours worked or mileages travelled
• Enter hours worked and assign to clients or projects
• Recognizes appointments in your calendar and makes suggestions for hours worked to assign
• Enter mileages travelled and assign to clients or projects every day
• Automatic tracking of the mileages you travel and suggestions to assign them to clients or projects
• Monthly reminder to make exports
• Straightforward exports in Excel to your email address
How Coen operates?
Coen has 7 functions, all accessible through the home screen
• Clients: create clients (import contacts if you want) and new projects. Here you can always find a quick survey of all hours and trips for a client.
• Projects: create projects and assign them to clients. Also a quick review of all hours and trips for a project.
• Hours: enter hours worked and assign them to clients and/or projects. Here you find a list of all registered hours per day, week of month. You can delete (swipe), add or change your hours worked at any time, also in the past. If you want, Coen reads your calendar and makes suggestions (find them under “Still to assign”).
• Trips: enter trips (kilometers or miles) and assign them to clients and/or projects. Enter starting point and destination, Coen will calculate distance. Surveys per day, week or month of all recorded trips. You can delete (swipe), add or change your trips at any time, also in the past.
• Report: make exports in Excel to your email address. Per client or for all clients at the same time. Selection between hours, trips or both is possible. Any given period.
• Still to assign: Coen collects data from your calendar and the trip registration function. Coen makes suggestions for these hours and trips to be assigned to clients and/or projects.
• Start trip: Coen registers your trips if you want. Start trip registration when you leave. Coen keeps track of your trip and the distance you travel. Coen recognizes when you have been arrived and makes a suggestion for this trip for you to assign to a client or project. You can find it in the function “Still to assign”. Easy to change, assign or delete (swipe).
Screenshots
Article By Nathan Kline
Nathan has been an avid Apple user and advocate since the days of the Apple ][. He has always sought to find new ways to make use of technology to assist his daily life. As a paramedic in southern California Nathan brings his familiarity with technology to the field, and at whatsoniphone.com he brings his critical thinking to he analysis of apps and news. You has also written app reviews for the mobile app site Smokinapps.com.
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