The Most Important Features in a Construction Time Tracking App

Construction projects are notoriously complex, with crews juggling multiple tasks across various jobsites. This constant shifting of labor can lead to significant inefficiencies, as managers often spend countless hours traveling to check on their teams.

In fact, Hubstaff reports that 56% of construction company owners and managers dedicate up to 11 hours per week to on-site visits. This time-consuming travel not only hinders productivity but also increases operational costs.

Many construction companies are turning to mobile time tracking apps to streamline operations and reduce unnecessary travel.

While these tools can be invaluable for labor management and time tracking, not all apps are created equal.

Construction projects have unique demands, requiring specialized features that standard time trackers simply can’t provide.

To help you select the right tool for your business, we’ll explore the essential features of a construction time tracking app.

By understanding these critical components, you can make an informed decision and optimize your project management processes.

Key Takeaways for Contractors:

• A robust time tracking app accurately records employee start and end times, aiding in payroll calculation, labor cost determination and productivity measurement.
• Tracking time accurately with an app on the jobsite helps determine labor costs, equipment utilization and overall project performance.
• Using a time tracking solution with GPS location stamps and geofencing can prevent time theft by verifying employee location and tracking movement between job sites.
• The mobile accessibility and offline capabilities in a time tracking app can improve efficiency and accuracy by allowing employees to record time easily.
• Finding a time tracking solution that integrates with accounting and project management software can streamline workflows and provide deeper insights into labor budgets.

Core Time Clock Functionalities

When looking at time tracking software for construction, ensuring the mobile app offers robust time clock functionalities is important.

There are basic features that should be available in your ideal solution that simplify the tracking of your crew’s labor hours.

Time Tracking 

This may seem obvious, but a prominent feature in a time tracking app is the ability to record employee start and end times electronically, based on their physical location, either by clocking in or out on a mobile device.

Accurate time tracking is essential for calculating payroll, determining labor costs and measuring employee productivity.

Having a solution that offers real-time labor tracking with GPS time clock functionalities helps prevent time theft and ensures that all hours worked are accounted for.

Task Management  

Managing projects requires an app with the ability to associate time entries with specific projects and tasks.

By tracking time against specific projects and tasks, construction companies can accurately identify project profitability and allocate resources effectively.

This information can be used for budgeting, creating accurate bids and project management on construction jobs.

Mobile apps also allow workers to change tasks while employee hours is being tracked to monitor progress on projects as they are being completed.

Jobsite Support

Construction companies often work on multiple projects simultaneously at various locations. A time tracking app with time clock features allows the field and office to improve communication and record time spent at different jobsites.

Being able to track time by jobsite helps in determining accurate labor costs, equipment usage and overall project performance.

GPS Location Stamps and Geofencing 

According to the American Payroll Association, 75% of companies lose money due to buddy punching or time theft, which refers to clocking in or out on another worker’s behalf.

A time tracking app can help prevent time theft by confirming accurate time and attendance records.

Using features like capturing GPS (Global Positioning System) location stamps and setting virtual geographic boundaries, or geofencing on the jobsite, can be used to verify an employee’s location when they clock in or out.

This technology can also be used to track employee movement between jobsites to optimize routes.

Labor Management Capabilities

Regardless of your company’s size or number of employees, having construction time tracking software capable of tracking and managing your labor force is fundamental.

Employee Management

Defining roles and permissions helps to manage access to sensitive information and verifies that employees are classified correctly.

This feature involves creating detailed records specific to each employee, including personal information, job roles, responsibilities and wage rates.

Accurate employee profiles can be helpful to reference when completing payroll processing, tax compliance and labor cost calculations.

Timecard Approvals

To help improve workflow for managers, consider a time tracking app with features that simplify the process of reviewing and approving time entries before they are processed for payroll.

Within the app, managers can approve bulk timecards and clock off an entire group of workers at once.

These timecard approvals can help prevent time theft, ensure accuracy and maintain accountability amongst workers.

It also provides a convenient opportunity for managers to review employee performance and productivity.

Integrations

Building an efficient construction tech stack involves ensuring seamless integrations between each of your systems. This can help streamline your processes and ensure a productive workforce.

Payroll

Using a time tracking system that offers seamless integrations with payroll software can be a game changer for managing payroll and tracking project costs.

This feature allows the time tracking data to be directly transferred to a payroll system, reducing manual data entry, eliminating messy paper timesheets while saving time and reducing the risk of payroll errors.

Accounting

Connecting a time tracking app with construction accounting software is extremely useful for a construction company. Budgets can be updated as additional labor data, is collected by the mobile solution.

This type of integration create cost codes as new data is added: streamlining workflows and eliminating the need for manual data entry between systems, freeing up valuable worker time and streamlining processes.

Project Management

Construction companies can gain deeper insights into project performance and resource allocation by integrating mobile time tracking apps with project management systems.

Integration with project management software ensures real-time reporting and timely payment of employees.

Secure software integrations allow you to take the appropriate measures to safeguard field data, project information and financial data from unauthorized access with data encryption and access controls.

Productivity Management

Reducing the amount of paperwork and administration burden can help maximize worker productivity and increase efficiency on the jobsite.

Offline Accessibility

Construction mobile time tracking apps come with offline capabilities to continue recording time even when there is no internet connection.

A mobile application that allows employees to access and use the time tracking system from their smartphones or tablets while working on a construction site.

The offline functionality ensures uninterrupted time tracking, preventing data loss and improving accuracy.

Workers can then easily record time, view schedules and access other relevant information without internet access, improving efficiency and accuracy while minimizing the amount of paperwork.

Progress Reporting

As a time tracking solution gathers data from the field, team members can run reports to compare time against tasks to see how the project is matching up to the timeline and budget of the construction project.

Government Compliance

Non-compliance with labor laws can result in significant penalties and legal issues. Labor law compliance features help construction companies stay up to date with federal, state and local labor regulations.

Overtime Management

Compliance refers to the process of following all laws, regulations and rules set by governments and regulatory bodies, like guaranteeing prevailing wage on Davis-Bacon projects or adhering to fringe benefits within union collective bargaining agreements.

Using a mobile time tracking app for construction with a feature that calculates and tracks overtime hours for each employee can help maintain compliance with labor laws.

Accurate overtime tracking is also crucial for accurately calculating payroll and can help manage labor costs.

Budgeting for overtime hours properly can significantly impact project budgets, so offering a way to effectively track this data can help managers account for it.

Employees can also upload their signatures on the timecard within the app, confirming that the hours worked, and overtime information is accurate.

Managers can also view all break times within the app to verify start and stop times.

Compulsory Breaks

A construction company can make sure they stay in regulation with labor codes by setting notifications and stop times in the time tracking app, so employees take their mandated breaks.

The app can then track how long the break lasts, ensuring that every worker hits the legal amount of break times.

At the end of the day, the app can then collect employee signatures to confirm their breaks and lunches were taken.

Data Security

Data security is essential to protect the privacy of employees and the confidentiality of sensitive business information.

Making sure the time tracking app is loaded with program updates and encryption protections will be crucial to keeping your company’s information safe.

Also, selecting a mobile solution that uses the cloud will keep your data accessible even if a system crash occurs.

See How WorkMax’s Features Can Help Your Construction Business

Selecting the right time tracking app is crucial for construction businesses seeking to optimize operations, improve efficiency and maintain compliance.

By carefully considering the functionalities, labor management features, productivity tools and government compliance capabilities, construction companies can streamline their processes, reduce costs and gain valuable insights into their operations.

Investing in a comprehensive time tracking solution empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions, enhance project management and ultimately achieve greater success.

If you’re looking for a mobile time tracking solution, consider WorkMax! Our easy-to-use mobile time-tracking app allows you to get live field data down to the minute.

Equipped with patented biometric facial recognition and pin entry while a GPS tracks their location, WorkMax verifies that the employee who is clocking in is the correct employee.

Regardless of its size, our construction time tracking software empowers businesses to better track and manage their labor force.

Chat with a specialist today to learn more about WorkMax!