Construction time tracking software

Contractors have a lot of options when it comes to tracking labor. Many contractors use traditional methods like paper time cards or time sheets, others use a physical time clock that you might keep in a jobsite office, while others use mobile apps with advanced features like geofencing.

For a contractor, it’s important to choose an option that your employees will use, while giving you the most accurate time data possible for your project job costing. Labor is almost always the largest expense on a project, so the more accurate your labor data, the better you can keep active projects on budget and estimate future projects with greater precision.

Labor is one of the most expensive components of project costs, which makes capturing the actual hours worked by employees crucial to achieving profitability. Paper timesheets can take a long time to fill out and manual data entry is prone to inaccuracy, leading to payroll errors. Even if your crews are incredibly accurate and consistent in filling out paper timesheets, there’s always the possibility that employees make break rules to earn more billable hours. Buddy punching and inaccurate hours are common ways that construction companies see inflated crew hours, and see project profitability damaged. Time tracking apps like Knowify help to mitigate those actions, saving your business money on every project.

Time tracking is essential in the construction industry, where labor costs can account for a significant portion of a project’s budget. Accurate time tracking enables construction businesses to:

• Manage labor costs effectively
• Improve project efficiency and productivity
• Ensure accurate job costing and billing
• Enhance employee accountability and transparency
• Simplify payroll processing and reduce errors
• Comply with labor laws and regulations

By implementing time tracking software, construction businesses can streamline their operations, reduce costs, and improve overall performance. This not only helps in keeping projects on budget but also provides valuable insights for future project planning and estimation.

Knowify gives you two options for tracking employee time, depending on how your organization works.

• Have your employees working on the job site clock-in and clock-out using the Knowify mobile app. This time is automatically tracked against the specific project and project phase they were assigned to. You have the option to enable geofencing for the clock-in system, to ensure your team is where they’re supposed to be when they start their day.
• Manually enter employee time spent on a given project, using the foreman view – available on the web or mobile app.

However you choose to track your team’s time, Knowify gives you the ability to easily review and approve time for job costing and payroll purposes.

Knowify has a best-in-class integration with QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Payments, QuickBooks Time, and QuickBooks Payroll. Knowify’s time tracking data automatically syncs to timesheets in QuickBooks Time or QuickBooks Payroll. If your team is already using QuickBooks Time to track hours, Knowify allows users to pull that information into Knowify’s timesheets automatically as well.

When selecting a construction time clock app, it’s essential to consider the following core features:

• Time tracking: The ability to accurately track employee hours, including clock-in and clock-out times, breaks, and time spent on specific tasks or projects.
• GPS tracking: The ability to track employee locations and ensure they are working on-site, reducing the risk of time theft and improving accountability.
• Job costing: The ability to track labor costs and allocate them to specific projects or tasks, enabling accurate job costing and billing.
• Payroll integration: The ability to integrate with accounting software and payroll systems, streamlining payroll processing and reducing errors.
• Mobile accessibility: The ability to access the time clock app on mobile devices, enabling employees to clock in and out from the job site.
• User-friendly interface: An intuitive and user-friendly interface that saves valuable time, making it easy for employees to use the app and for managers to track and manage employee time.
• Customization options: The ability to customize the app to meet the specific needs of your construction business, including setting up custom cost codes, pay rates, and overtime rules.
• Reporting and analytics: The ability to generate detailed reports and analytics on employee time, labor costs, and project performance, enabling data-driven decision-making.

By considering these core features, construction businesses can choose a time clock app that meets their specific needs and helps them achieve their goals. A well-chosen construction time clock app can significantly enhance the efficiency and accuracy of time tracking, leading to better project management and cost control.

Knowify is a great choice for subcontractors and GCs with their own crews. Knowify tracks time via a mobile app that your employees install on their phone. You can set up a geofence around the jobsite to keep your employees honest and see their clock-ins on a map to stay informed. This labor data feeds right into Knowify, tracking against your budgeted labor costs in near-real-time.

Knowify collects location data during clock in and clock out from a job site. When going through the timesheet approval process, managers can quickly see if users clocked-in within a reasonable distance of the job site. This distance can be customized in the Knowify admin section. Knowify does not track your real-time location while working throughout the day.

Knowify’s does not offer facial recognition check in or a kiosk mode. Customers looking for these and other advanced time tracking needs can take advantage of Knowify’s direct integration with BusyBusy, which offers a kiosk mode with facial recognition technology that prevents buddy punching.