If you're live, you don't really need a timer; our league takes turns acting as auctioneer (or sometimes has a partner/friend do it). Going once, twice, sold. It's pretty fun.
I commish and enter the picks into FanDraft to keep track of how much money people have left; we put that up on a TV so everyone can see.
agree with everything here. don't even bother with a timer imo. people keep each other in check and let the first time just be enjoyable. timer has a tendency to make things a bit too formal i noticed. haven't used a timer in ages.
i paid for fandraft twice in the past, but didn't like how it handles changes if something goes wrong. it may have changed since, i used it the first two seasons it was available. plus it's still offline so I have to enter the rosters to my site anyway. so i stick with the offline Draft Dominator as the draft tracking tool, assuming you have access to it as a subscriber. i lose the screen wow factor, but it's much more flexible and fits my needs perfectly.
Do you just use an excel sheet to keep track of budgets and cast them on a screen?
Yes, a spreadsheet, but we no longer cast it. I've even tried using google sheet so people can see it real time, but it's just too hard to manage my own draft when i have to manage this. I have used the Draft Dominator as the only draft tracker app and cast that on the screen in the past, but for the same reason I stopped that too.
There are usually at least three people at the draft using the same spreadsheet to track the numbers, so we stop for a break roughly two to three times for the entirity of the draft to sync everyone on their amounts remaining and max bid. these other people do it on their own accord, i didn't have to ask and it has worked this way very well for over a decade now.
