Payroll and people
Time tracking
How should your team record hours, and does it need to tie hours to jobs?
Six short steps. No email or account.
- Who needs it
- Every employer with hourly staff. Job costing makes it valuable even where hours are predictable.
- When it matters
- With the first hourly employee. Wage and hour records are legally required.
- Compare first
- Location verification
- Matters most when
- growing, mature
Is this the right tool for you?
If hours are written on paper or remembered at the end of the week, payroll is wrong in both directions and you cannot tell which jobs or clients made money. Accurate hours also protect you when a question about pay or overtime comes up.
Signs you need it now
- Timesheets are handed in late, on paper or by text, and someone retypes them.
- You regularly fix hours after payroll has run.
- You cannot say how many labor hours a job or client took against what you quoted.
- You are unsure whether breaks and overtime are recorded the way your state requires.
When another area fits better
- The harder problem is deciding who works which shift, not recording hours. Read the staff scheduling guide
Recognise two or more of these? Sort out time tracking next.
Tell us how your business runs and get a plan that puts time tracking in order with everything else: what to set up first, your must-haves and what to compare.
What matters at your size
Working alone
Track your own time only if you bill by the hour or want to know which work pays. A simple timer or your invoicing tool may be enough.
A small team
A mobile clock-in for employees, hours tagged to jobs or clients, manager approval, and hours that flow straight into payroll.
Several teams or locations
Overtime and break rules set up per state, multiple pay rates, job costing reports and approval by supervisors across crews or locations.
How the way you work changes the choice
- Crews at customer sites
- Staff clock in from a phone at the job. Location records help confirm who was where, and tagging time to each job shows real labor cost. Tell employees how location data is used.
- One location: shop, restaurant, clinic
- A shared clock-in device at the front desk or back office is simplest. Ties to the staff schedule show late arrivals and unplanned overtime.
- Billable office work
- Accountants, agencies and consultants track time against clients and projects so it can be billed. Timers and entries that flow to invoices matter most.
What to compare
Location verification
GPS or geofenced clock-in matters for mobile crews, and is contentious with staff. Set expectations.
Payroll connection
Approved hours flowing straight into payroll is where the time saving is.
Job costing
Hours tagged to a job turn time tracking into profitability data.
Offline capture
Crews work where signal is poor. Clocking must survive it.
Cost and setup effort
- Most tools charge per user each month, sometimes with a base fee. Many payroll, scheduling and job management tools include time tracking, so check before buying separately.
- Setup is getting everyone to clock in consistently and setting up jobs, pay rates and approval. Overtime and break rules vary by state; confirm the tool is set up for yours.
Trade-offs to weigh
- Standalone or built in
- Time tracking inside your job management or payroll tool avoids re-entering hours. A standalone tool can be better at approvals and reporting.
- Control or trust
- Location records and photo clock-in reduce buddy punching but can feel intrusive. Match the controls to the problem you actually have.
- Hours for pay or for billing
- Payroll-focused tools handle overtime and approvals well; billing-focused tools handle clients and projects well. Pick the one that matches where the money is lost.
When to sort it out
With the first hourly employee. Wage and hour records are legally required.
What goes wrong without it
Paper timesheets and text messages lose hours, invite disputes about overtime, and take someone's evening to total up before payroll. For hourly employees, accurate records of hours worked are also something employers are expected to keep, so a reliable system protects you as well as your crew.
Clocking in where the work happens
Crews that start at a customer's site need to clock in from a phone. Location confirmation shows where someone clocked in, which settles questions without accusations; tell your team how it works and when it records. If jobs take crews out of signal, check that clock-ins are saved on the phone and sent later rather than lost.
From hours to payroll and job costs
The real saving comes when approved hours flow straight into payroll without retyping. If you price by the job, recording hours against each job shows which jobs make money, and overtime warnings before the week ends are cheaper than discovering overtime on payday.
Overtime rules and meal and rest break rules differ by state. Use a tool that lets you set your state's rules rather than assuming one standard.
Getting the crew to use it
A time clock only works if people use it every day. Choose one the crew can operate in a few taps with gloves on, show everyone how it works before the first pay period, and run it alongside the old method for a week so nobody's pay depends on a system they have not tried. Fix missed clock-ins the same day while memories are fresh, and let people see their own hours so questions come up before payday rather than on it.
Your next step
Answer six short questions about how your business runs. You get an operating plan: where time tracking fits among your priorities, the must-haves to hold every option to, and what to compare when you choose.
Where this comes first
Trades and businesses that usually sort this out early.
Often decided alongside
Other parts of payroll and people.