What do you use to keep time for payroll?

[gngren]

We've been looking into getting some form of time clock systems in order to cut back on time keeping inaccuracies. Seems that we have some people that are trying to steal time and we want to take care of the problem before it spreads. I was wondering what others out there are doing to keep time for your field guys. We currently have our lead men call us everyday (once a week in reality) to turn in there time for all there guys. We have done it this way since the company was founded, it isn't working any longer. We are looking at some time clock options for on each job, but I just thought I would get an idea of what other contractors are doing to keep time.

 

[bdarnell]

Our lead men are responsible for turning in all of the time worked on their jobs. Service guys turn in their own time. We are looking at the new card swipe or key fob clocks because as you say, it's a growing problem.

 

[JohnE]

We are a small company with 7 employees not including myself, my wife, and my father. I have them handwrite time cards. I tell people before hiring them that if I can't trust them, I can't employ them. With quality people, I haven't had a problem.

I just feel employees can cheat or steal from you even while on the clock, so it's more important to have hardworking trustworthy employees than to try to track every minute.

I also allow a flexible break schedule, so they can take a 10 - 20 minute break in addition to lunch whenever they feel necessary. Just put in for what you worked. Again, works great with the right employees.

 

[bradleyelectric]

my fax line has an answering machine in line. Anyone that has run a job is to call in there own time and lead man is to call in everyones time for the day. There is some overlap as some peoples time gets called in twice for the same day. Hope it checks all out.

 

[satcom]

I just feel employees can cheat or steal from you even while on the clock, so it's more important to have hardworking trustworthy employees than to try to track every minute

It takes a long time, and some managers will never learn how to manage skilled workers, they are not monkeys, they don't need a bell to ring, to preform an act, and constant monitoring of an employee, in the long term will drive production down.

The answer is, to communicate with your employees, tell them you need a short report of how the job went, don't stress the time element, let them tell you what happened, problems with the job, material missing, job conditions changed, or how well the job went, and why, the time, is something you should already know, from your estimates, this should take no more then 5 minutes of their time.

 

[77401]

I piad for a camera phone for my foreman
Every day they are to take pictures of the crew holding todays newspaper at the start time & end of the day or when they men show up.
He then sends it to the office.

 

[Minuteman]

I piad for a camera phone for my foreman
Every day they are to take pictures of the crew holding todays newspaper at the start time & end of the day or when they men show up.
He then sends it to the office.

That might work for me too, except my guys would be holding the comics page.

 

[tshea]

I piad for a camera phone for my foreman
Every day they are to take pictures of the crew holding todays newspaper at the start time & end of the day or when they men show up.
He then sends it to the office.

My guys are SOOOO smart, they would have tomorrow's paper and take the day off! :lol:

 

[77401]

The first day I got mooned in the group photo!

 

[charlie b]

All the engineering companies for which I have worked have done it essentially the same way. Each employee turns in a time card either once a week or perhaps twice a month. They are usually typed into a computer, with paper printout being signed by the employee.

I have never worked for a company that had a daily verification of the time of arrival or the time of departure. However, I have also always been classified as "Exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act," meaning I was on a salary and not an hourly wage. So they could not dock my pay if I left 15 minutes early, and would not give me extra money if I stayed 2 hours late. It's an entirely different world for "exempt" employees.

 

[iwire]

Our lead men are responsible for turning in all of the time worked on their jobs. Service guys turn in their own time.

Same here.

If the job is large the foreman may have a time clock installed in the gang box to make life easer to keep track of who is in, out, late early etc.

But this foreman is still responsible to transcribe these time cards to his laptop and sending the files to payroll.

We are looking into tablet PCs similar to the UPS guys for the service trucks. A docking station in the truck would tie it back to the shops servers

The idea is to be able to print a bill right in the the van and the info would be at the shop the same day.

The hurdle seems to be finding a system to interface with the shops existing billing software.