Productivity & Project Management · Timely + Claude
Timely MCP with Claude: Automate Time Tracking and Timesheets Without Manual Entry
The short answer
Claude works with Timely through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard that acts as a secure adapter between the two. Once connected with OAuth sign-in, Claude can read activity timelines, log work hours, fetch productivity reports and help manage project timesheets, all through natural-language requests that your team controls.
What is Timely?
Timely is an automatic time-tracking platform. It records work across apps, calendars and devices in the background, then turns that activity into detailed timesheets and productivity insights without manual input. Professional services firms, agencies, consultancies, legal and accounting teams, and operations managers use it to track billable time, understand how projects consume effort, and reduce the burden of end-of-week timesheet entry.
How Claude connects to Timely through MCP
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets Claude securely use other software. Think of it as a universal adapter between Claude and a tool like Timely. Your organisation decides what Claude can access, and the connection uses the sign-in method Timely supports, which is OAuth.
Once connected, Claude can read activity timelines, fetch timesheet entries and pull productivity reports. It can also log work hours or update project timesheets when you ask it to. A manager might ask in plain English for last week's hours by client, and Claude returns a summary drawn from Timely's records.
Permissions and approvals keep people in charge. Access is limited to the scopes you grant, so Claude sees only what it needs. Consequential actions, such as submitting timesheets for invoicing, can require a person's sign-off before they take effect. Audit logs record what was read and changed.
What you can automate
Weekly timesheet preparation
Each Friday, Claude can review the week's tracked activity in Timely and draft timesheets for each consultant. Staff check the drafts, correct anything that looks wrong, and approve them. Hours that once took an hour to reconstruct from memory are ready for review in minutes.
Client billing summaries
Account managers can ask Claude for hours spent per client, per project or per task across any date range. Claude pulls the figures from Timely and formats them as a summary for an invoice review or a client update, reducing the back-and-forth with delivery teams.
Project effort monitoring
Project managers can request a plain-English view of where time is going. Claude can compare planned effort with logged hours and flag projects trending over budget, so issues surface in weekly reviews rather than at month end.
Productivity insight reports
Operations leaders can ask for reports on focus time, meeting load or activity patterns across a team. Claude fetches the relevant timelines and produces a readable report. Because the data is drawn from automatic tracking, the picture reflects actual work rather than self-reported estimates.
Onboarding and policy checks
HR or finance teams can ask Claude to check whether new staff have set up tracking correctly, or whether timesheets meet company policy, such as minimum daily logging. Exceptions are listed for a person to follow up.
An end-to-end workflow: Month-end billing review for a consultancy
TriggerThe finance lead starts the month-end close on the first working day.
Claude pulls all billable time entries from Timely for the previous month, grouped by client and project.
Claude compares logged hours with the approved project budgets held in the project management system.
Claude flags timesheets that are missing, incomplete or outside policy, and creates tasks for the relevant consultants in the ticketing system.
Once consultants correct their entries, Claude prepares a draft billing summary for each client.
The finance lead reviews and approves each summary before it is sent to the accounting system for invoicing.
OutcomeTypical teams find that month-end close takes less time, billing queries drop, and invoices go out with fewer corrections, because timesheets are checked continuously rather than in one rushed batch.
How we set it up
Free automation audit
We review how your teams currently record time, approve timesheets and bill clients. Together we identify the workflows where Timely and Claude would save the most effort.
Secure OAuth connection
We connect Claude to Timely through its OAuth sign-in, so access is granted by your own administrator rather than shared passwords. Permissions are set to the least access each workflow needs.
Workflow design
We design the end-to-end process across Timely and your other systems, such as Microsoft 365, your CRM, ERP or ticketing tool. Approval points are placed where a person must confirm an action.
Testing against real cases
We test the workflow using past timesheet periods and real client scenarios, checking accuracy and edge cases before anything goes live.
Launch, monitoring and training
We launch with monitoring and audit logs in place, then train your managers, consultants and finance staff on how to use Claude with Timely day to day.
Who benefits
- Finance and billing lead
- Faster month-end close and fewer billing queries, with timesheets checked before invoices are raised.
- Project manager
- Early visibility of projects trending over budget, using plain-English questions instead of manual reports.
- Consultant or fee-earner
- Less time spent reconstructing timesheets, with drafts prepared from tracked activity for quick review.
- Operations or COO
- Team-level productivity insights based on actual tracked work, supporting better capacity planning.
Security and control
- Access is granted through OAuth sign-in and limited to the permissions each workflow requires.
- Consequential actions, such as submitting or changing billable timesheets, can require named human approval.
- Audit logs record what Claude read and changed, supporting internal review.
- Test environments and sample data are used before live access is enabled.
- Staff are trained on what Claude can and cannot do, and on how to correct its outputs.
For teams in the US, UK, India and the Middle East
Organisations in the United States and the United Kingdom can host the workflow in a region that matches their internal data-handling requirements. Companies in India must consider the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, which governs personal data processing. Organisations in the UAE and Saudi Arabia must meet their local data protection laws. Hosting regions in India, the United States, the United Kingdom or the European Union are chosen to meet your specific requirements.
Learn more about Claude and MCP
Anthropic's AI model and assistant.
Secure links between Claude and business tools.
How engineers build and change software with Claude.
Hosted agents that run multi-step work.
The open standard Claude uses to connect to tools.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Timely MCP server do?
The Timely MCP server is the bridge that lets an AI assistant such as Claude talk to Timely in a controlled way. It exposes the actions you allow, such as reading timelines, logging hours and fetching reports. Your team decides which actions are available, and the connection is made through Timely's supported OAuth sign-in.
Is connecting Claude to Timely secure?
Security depends on how the connection is set up. Using OAuth sign-in means access is granted through your own administrator rather than shared passwords. Least-privilege permissions, human approval for important changes, and audit logs all reduce risk. We design and test these controls before launch.
What can Claude do with Timely once connected?
Typically, Claude can fetch activity timelines, retrieve timesheet entries, generate productivity reports, log work hours and help manage project timesheets. Requests are made in plain English, for example asking for last week's hours by client. The exact actions available depend on the permissions you grant.
How long does setup take?
Timing varies with the size of your organisation and the number of systems involved. A focused single-workflow project often takes a few weeks from audit to launch, including testing and training. Larger, multi-system programmes take longer. We confirm the timeline during the free automation audit.
What plan or permissions do I need in Timely?
In general, you need an account with permission to authorise third-party connections and access the timesheet data you want Claude to use. Your Timely administrator typically approves the OAuth connection. We check the access you have during the audit and advise on any changes needed.