How can I track employee timecards and travel hours accurately?

To track time and travel accurately, have each person record their own hours on a phone at the moment they start and stop, against the job they are on, with the location of the punch recorded. Decide in writing which travel time is paid, and have a foreman review the hours every week before payroll. Timecards filled out from memory on Friday are estimates, and the estimates lean one way.

What paper timecards cost

• Rounding. Fifteen minutes added at each end of the day, across ten people, is about 25 hours a week.
• Buddy punching. One person signing in another.
• No job. "8 hours" with no project means labor cannot be costed.
• Late and unreadable. Payroll waits, or guesses.
• No evidence. When a general contractor disputes time-and-material hours, a handwritten sheet is weak support.

What a time record should hold

• Who
• Which job, and the phase or cost code when you use them
• Start and stop times, with meal breaks
• Where the punch happened
• Notes for anything unusual: waiting on access, sent to another site, extra work

Which travel time is paid?

This is a matter of wage law, and the rules below are the general federal position in the United States. State law is often stricter, and union agreements have their own terms. Check with your accountant or attorney.

• Home to the first job, and the last job to home, is ordinary commuting and is generally not paid time.
• Travel between job sites during the workday is generally paid time.
• Reporting to the shop first to load materials or pick up a truck generally starts the clock at the shop.
• Driving a crew truck or hauling equipment as part of the job can make the drive paid time.
• Out-of-town travel has its own rules.

Whatever applies to you, write it down as a policy, have employees sign it, and apply it the same way to everyone.

Rounding and overtime

Federal rules permit rounding to the nearest five, six or fifteen minutes only if it works out even over time, not always in the employer's favor. Recording the actual minutes removes the question. Overtime is counted on all hours worked in the week, across all jobs, so the system has to total by person as well as by job.

Location: verify, do not surveil

Recording where a punch happened answers the only question that matters: was this person at the job when they clocked in? It does not require following anyone around. Be direct with your crews about it:

• Location is recorded only while they are on the clock.
• Nothing is recorded once they punch out.
• It protects them too. When a customer says nobody showed up Tuesday, the record says otherwise.

Crews accept a time clock they understand. They resist one they think is spying on them.

Review weekly, at the source

The foreman looks over the crew's hours at the end of the week, fixes a missed punch while everyone still remembers, and approves. Then payroll runs from approved hours. Corrections made three weeks later are arguments.

Use the hours for more than payroll

Hours recorded against jobs give you labor cost by job, which gives you:

• Actual against estimated hours while the job is still running
• Real production rates for the next estimate
• Support for time-and-material billing and change orders

Rolling it out

Start with one crew whose foreman is willing. Run phone and paper side by side for two weeks. Fix what is confusing, then move everyone, and set a date after which paper is not accepted.

Where ConstructStream fits

With the ConstructStream phone app, people punch in and out on the job they are working. Location is recorded only while a person is punched in, never off the clock. The hours land on the job, where they show beside the days the schedule planned, and only the roles you choose can see the team's time.