SparkHours vs a spreadsheet

SparkHours vs a spreadsheet for California BBS hours

A spreadsheet is free, it's yours, and plenty of people finish their hours on one. Here's what it can't check, and what it leaves you typing by hand.

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$10 a month · 14-day free trial · No credit card

Just here for the columns? See every column the Board asks for.

Still on a spreadsheet

Nothing to cancel, and you keep the file.

A spreadsheet costs nothing, so there's no plan to end and no paid time going to waste. The trial runs 14 days without a credit card. Your sheet stays on your own drive, exactly as it is, as the record of every hour you've already logged.

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Feature comparison at a glance

A spreadsheet and SparkHours compared, feature by feature
Price A spreadsheetFree, and it stays free SparkHours$10 a month, or $100 a year
Who owns the file A spreadsheetYou do, outright. No company can delete it, price you out of it, or shut down and take it with them. SparkHoursYour records stay in your account and download any time. We delete nothing when a subscription ends.
The columns A spreadsheetYou choose them, and you keep them right SparkHoursThe Board's categories for your track, set up already
Checking a week's supervision A spreadsheetA formula you write, if you write one. It holds whatever you typed either way. SparkHoursRe-checked when you save an entry, against the rules for the phase you're in
Hour caps and minimums A spreadsheetAnother formula, rewritten each time a rule changes SparkHoursApplied by track and by phase, and updated for you
Practicum and associate rules A spreadsheetOne grid, unless you build two and remember which day you switched SparkHoursTwo phases, switched on your graduation date, and your program can carry its own rules
Your supervisor's signature A spreadsheetOn paper. Print the week, get it signed, scan it, file it. SparkHoursAn emailed link. No account for them, and the signature lands on the form.
The Board's forms A spreadsheetYou copy your totals across by hand, column by column SparkHoursThe weekly log, plus the Experience Verification form you send with your application
Logging from your phone A spreadsheetA cloud sheet opens on a phone. A twelve-column grid is hard to type into on one. SparkHoursBuilt for a phone, so a session gets logged between clients
Backups A spreadsheetWhatever you set up. A sheet in a cloud drive is covered. One on a laptop is not. SparkHoursBacked up for you, not by you
Board questions A spreadsheetYou read the handbooks SparkHoursAn assistant inside the app that answers from the Board's own handbooks

The spreadsheet column describes a sheet as it comes, not the ceiling of what one could be built to do. You can close almost every gap above with enough formulas, and some people do. The requirements the table refers to come from the Board's own handbooks.

The problem

What a spreadsheet does well, and where it stops

A spreadsheet is free. The file is yours. No company can delete it, price you out of it, or shut down and take it with them. You pick the columns, you can change them on a Tuesday afternoon, and it does exactly what you told it to. Associates have logged all 3,000 hours in one and been licensed.

So some people should stay on one. Stay if you're close to the end. Stay if your sheet reconciles and you trust it. Stay if spending nothing matters more than anything else on this page. This page isn't going to talk you out of a tool that's working.

Where it stops is that it checks nothing. It holds whatever you typed. As an associate you need a unit of supervision in any week you're credited experience at a setting. Go past 10 hours of clinical work there and you need a second. A spreadsheet doesn't know that. It won't notice a category running past its cap either. Six months on, the totals still add up, because they were always going to add up.

It also can't hold a signature. Your supervisor signs on paper, so every week is print, sign, scan and file. The Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS) asks for at least 104 weeks of supervised experience. Then at the end you copy your totals into the Board's own forms by hand, one column at a time. You do that for every setting and every supervisor you had.

SparkHours closes each of those. It re-checks the week against the rules for your phase every time you log hours. Your supervisor signs from an emailed link without creating an account. The weekly log and the Experience Verification form come out filled in. And your sheet stays where it is, as the record of everything you logged before today.

Side-by-side comparison

A spreadsheet

  • Free, and it stays free
  • The file is yours. No company can delete it or shut down and take it with them.
  • Any columns you want, changed whenever you want
  • Nothing checks a week against the Board's rules unless you build the check yourself
  • A formula that slipped a row is silent, and stays wrong until you find it
  • Your supervisor signs on paper, so every week is print, sign, scan and file
  • You copy your totals into the Board's forms by hand at the end

SparkHours

  • Every week re-checked against the rules for your phase when you save
  • Your supervisor signs from an emailed link. No account, no printing, no scanning.
  • All three California tracks: AMFT to LMFT (marriage and family), APCC to LPCC (professional clinical counselor), ASW to LCSW (clinical social work)
  • The weekly log and the Experience Verification form come out filled in
  • Practicum and associate rules applied by date, from your graduation date
  • LMFT and LPCC tracked together in one login, with separate totals
  • An in-app assistant that answers Board questions from the Board's own handbooks

What SparkHours does differently

Your supervisor signs from an email

Send a week for signature and your supervisor gets a secure link. They read the hours, sign, and the signature lands on the Board's form. They never create an account, and it usually takes under a minute.

SparkHours re-checks the week when you save

Log an hour and SparkHours reads the whole week again. If that setting comes up short on supervision, the current week says so while you can still book the hour. A past week reads as a problem instead of a warning, because it is one.

Weeks group themselves by setting and supervisor

The Board wants a separate log for each work setting and each supervisor. Add a second site or a second supervisor and that's another log every week. SparkHours builds those groupings out of the hours you already logged.

Practicum rules, not only associate rules

Practicum is the pre-degree phase and associate is what follows it. Enter your graduation date and your associate registration date, and the supervision rules and the hour caps switch themselves on the right day. A training program can carry its own rules instead of the defaults.

The Board's forms, filled in

SparkHours fills the weekly log for AMFTs, APCCs and ASWs. It also fills the Experience Verification form, which totals one supervisor and one setting for your application. Both come from the hours you logged and the weeks your supervisor signed.

An assistant that reads the handbooks

Ask what counts, what doesn't, and why a week looks short. The answers come from the Board's own published handbooks. It can see your hours too, so the answer fits your situation.

Full detail on your own track: AMFT, APCC, ASW. If you're still in practicum, how practicum tracking works covers the phase change.

Pricing, side by side

A spreadsheet is free, and that's the strongest thing about it. You pay for it in your own time, over the two to three years this takes.

A spreadsheet

Free

No account, no renewal date, no card on file.

  • Free today and free in three years
  • The file is yours and nobody can take it away
  • Any columns you want, in any order
  • Opens on anything, including offline
  • Nothing checks a week against the Board's rules unless you build the check
  • Every signature happens on paper
  • You transcribe the Board's forms by hand at the end

SparkHours

$10 a month

Or $100 a year. 14 days free, no credit card.

  • Stop after any month, and your records stay put
  • All three California tracks: AMFT, APCC and ASW
  • Supervisor e-signatures from an emailed link
  • The weekly log and the Experience Verification form on every track
  • Practicum and associate rules applied by date
  • LMFT and LPCC in one account
  • An assistant that answers Board questions from the Board's own handbooks
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Keep the sheet. Let something else check the week.

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No credit card required. Two weeks is enough to see whether it fits.

Frequently asked questions

It can be. Plenty of California associates have logged all 3,000 hours in a spreadsheet and been licensed. The rule is that you keep a weekly log and your supervisor signs it every week. It shows your work setting, your hours by category and your totals. The Board also publishes its own weekly log form and lists it under required forms. So a sheet is a reasonable place to do the running math, and the Board's form is what your supervisor signs. What a spreadsheet can't do is check any of it, or collect that signature.

At a minimum you need the date, the setting, the supervisor, one column for each hour category on your track's weekly log, and your supervision. The catch is the grouping. The Board wants a separate log for each work setting and each supervisor. So a second site or a second supervisor means another log every week, not another column. Our guide to the weekly log goes through every column the Board asks for, whichever tool you use.

Not automatically. There's no spreadsheet importer, so you type past hours in by hand. Most people don't reload years of history. They start logging in SparkHours from the week they're in and keep the sheet as the record of what came before. If you do want the history in, you can enter it week by week.

Not inside the file. You print the week, they sign the paper, and you scan and file it. The Board asks your supervisor to sign your log every week. It says weekly signing is what keeps you from losing hours if a supervisor isn't around to sign later. You can't sign it for them. In SparkHours your supervisor gets an emailed link, reads the week, and signs. They never create an account. Here's how supervisor signatures work.

As an associate, you need one unit in any week you're credited experience at that setting. You need a second in any week you go over 10 hours of clinical work there. A unit is one hour of individual or triadic supervision, or two hours of group. Triadic means you and one other supervisee. As a trainee on the LMFT or LPCC track it's a ratio instead: one unit for every five hours of direct client contact. You can average that over your time at the setting, but you can't average the weekly minimum away. Going to a workshop, a seminar or a conference doesn't set the requirement off on its own, but paperwork does. Progress notes, reports and testing all make a week you owe supervision for.

Only if you build the formula, and only for as long as you keep it right. That's the gap. A sheet adds up what you typed and stops there. If the rule you encoded was wrong, or a cell reference slipped a row, the totals still balance and nothing looks broken. SparkHours re-reads the whole week every time you log hours. A shortfall surfaces in the week it happened, not at the end.

No. There's a 14-day trial with no credit card, then it's $10 a month or $100 a year. A spreadsheet is free and stays free, so the comparison is what your own time is worth over two to three years. See what a SparkHours plan includes.

Your records stay in your account and you can download your signed weeks. We delete nothing when a subscription ends. That said, download or print your signed weeks before you cancel anything, wherever you track.

No, but don't delete it. Keep it as the record of everything you logged before you switched. You hold on to your signed weekly logs until you're licensed anyway, because the Board can ask to see them. One more file costs you nothing.

Also tracking for...

vs a spreadsheet

AMFT to LMFT

The columns an AMFT sheet needs, the 500 hours with couples, families and children inside your direct contact total, and the pre-degree caps.

vs a spreadsheet

APCC to LPCC

The columns an APCC sheet needs, the non-clinical ceiling that includes your supervision, and the post-degree-only rule.

vs a spreadsheet

ASW to LCSW

The columns an ASW sheet needs, the psychotherapy hours counted inside your clinical social work services total, and the supervisor requirements.

Try it on the week you're in. Your spreadsheet stays exactly where it is.

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