How to track crew hours without paper timesheets

To track crew hours without paper timesheets, have each crew member clock in and out on a phone, pick the job they are working on, and have someone in the office approve the week before payroll runs. That gives you one record of hours that payroll and job costing can both use, with no tailgate sheet and no Monday retyping.

In TrackOver, crews clock in and out from the phone app and choose the job. The office reviews the week on the timesheet page, approves the clean shifts in one step, and looks at any flagged shifts before locking the week. Every edit asks for a reason and goes into an audit log, and approved hours export to a CSV for your payroll provider.

Most small excavation companies run payroll off paper somewhere. A foreman fills out a sheet on the tailgate, or a weekly card gets crumpled in a truck door, or someone texts hours on Friday night and the office decodes it Monday. It works until it doesn't, and the failure shows up in two places: payroll mistakes and jobs that look profitable on paper and aren't.

This article covers why it is worth leaving paper behind, what the law expects from your time records, and a plan to move a crew over without a revolt.

What paper timesheets quietly cost

• Hours filled in from memory. By Friday, nobody remembers whether Tuesday was 8.5 or 9. People round, and the rounding almost always goes one way.
• No job on the hours. A weekly total tells you what to pay. It does not tell you what the Johnson driveway cost. Without hours by job, job costing is guesswork.
• Retyping. Someone in the office keys the sheets into payroll. That is paid time spent copying, and every copy is a chance for a typo.
• Disputes you can't settle. When an employee says they worked a day you have no record of, a smudged sheet doesn't help either of you.
• Late and lost sheets. A missing card means a late paycheck or a guess.

What the Department of Labor expects

If your employees are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, you must keep accurate records of hours worked and pay. The Department of Labor's recordkeeping fact sheet (Fact Sheet #21) says payroll records must be kept for at least three years, and time cards and wage computation records for at least two years. It also says the FLSA does not require a particular form for those records, as long as they are complete and accurate. That is why a phone app is as acceptable as a card, as long as it is accurate and you can produce it.

Two more points that catch contractors:

• Rounding. Federal regulations (29 CFR 785.48) allow rounding of time to the nearest five minutes, tenth, or quarter hour, but only if it averages out so employees are fully paid for the time they work. Rounding that always favors the company is the kind of thing that turns into back wages.
• Travel and wait time. Whether drive time from the yard to a job site, or waiting for a delivery, counts as paid time depends on the facts. The Department of Labor and your state have rules, and some states go further than federal law. Ask your payroll provider or attorney how to treat it, then make your tracking match.

Prevailing wage jobs go further, with weekly certified payroll. Our article on prevailing wage and certified payroll covers it, and paper time cards are a real problem there, since "eight hours, mostly operating" is not something you can sign your name to. State laws differ, so check yours.

What a good paperless system does

Skip the feature lists. A time system for a dirt crew needs a handful of things:

1. It works on a phone, in the truck, with weak signal. If it needs good coverage to clock in, it will fail at the first job in the country.
2. Clock in takes seconds. Pick the job, tap start. If it takes more than that, the crew will skip it.
3. Hours attach to a job. That is the whole value. Same entry feeds payroll and job costing.
4. The foreman can fix a mistake. Forgotten clock-outs happen. There should be an edit with a record of who changed what.
5. Someone approves the week. A manager reviews and locks hours before payroll.
6. It exports cleanly to whoever runs your payroll.

Rolling it out without a revolt

Crews push back on new systems for understandable reasons. Some don't trust being tracked, some don't like phones, some already feel buried in paperwork. A few things help.

• Explain the why. "You get paid for every hour, correctly, and I stop losing Mondays to your handwriting." Be honest about what you do and don't track.
• Start with the foremen. If they use it, the crew follows. If the foreman fills it out for the whole crew at first, that is fine for a few weeks.
• Run both for one pay period, then drop the paper. Compare, fix the gaps, and stop.
• Do a ten-minute walkthrough on a truck tailgate instead of a meeting room. Show the exact taps they will use.
• Make it a rule with consequences that are reasonable. Late clock-ins get fixed by the foreman, and they get paid for what they worked. Hours not recorded take longer to get paid, and that fixes habits quickly.
• Tell people about location. If your tool records where someone clocked in, say so up front, say why (job verification), and check what your state requires you to disclose.

What you can do with the data

Once hours are tied to jobs, things you could only guess before become easy:

• Compare estimated hours with actual hours on every job.
• See which crew combinations are fastest on which kinds of work.
• Spot overtime before it lands, instead of after.
• Price the next job from what the last one took, not from instinct. See raising your rates.

Where TrackOver fits

TrackOver's time tracking has crews clock in from their phones against the job, with a manager review before payroll and a clean export. It replaces tailgate handwriting. See pricing or start the 7-day free trial, no card needed.

Common questions

Are electronic timesheets legal? Yes. The Department of Labor's recordkeeping fact sheet says the FLSA does not require a particular form for records, only that they are complete and accurate and kept for the required time. Check your state for anything stricter.

How long do I have to keep time records? Under federal rules, payroll records for at least three years and time cards and wage computation records for at least two years. Your state may require longer.

What if an employee forgets to clock out? Let the foreman or a manager correct the entry, keep a record of the change, and pay the employee for the time actually worked.

Can I round employee time? Federal rules allow neutral rounding, but not rounding that always shortchanges employees. The simplest answer is to record actual minutes.