Companies today face immense pressure to deliver quality work on tight budgets and schedules. Efficiently managing employees in the field is essential for controlling costs and staying on track. For many businesses, crew tracking and job management remain mired in manual methods like paper timesheets and spreadsheet tracking. The inefficiencies of these outdated approaches drain productivity and expose companies to compliance risks.
Transitioning to a digital crew tracking app provides a powerful solution to boost productivity, reduce costs and safeguard operations. These apps offer features tailored to simplify field oversight and allow access to real-time data to drive better decision-making. Read on to learn how a purpose-built crew-tracking app can optimize workflows and give your business a competitive edge.
The Basics: What is a Crew Tracking App?
A crew tracking app provides digital tools for recording and managing employee time. These apps help employees across the team:
- Workers can clock in and out on smartphones with GPS verification of location.
- Site supervisors gain oversight of crew hours and location through dashboard views.
- Back office staff get automated data collection from the field to feed payroll and job costing.
Unlike manual processes, crew tracking apps connect the field and office in real-time. This unlocks new efficiencies, like:
- Eliminating duplicate data entry between field and office
- Verifying attendance and timesheet accuracy
- Adjusting schedules and staffing based on real-time insights
- Integrating field data directly with payroll systems
Comparing Manual vs. Digital Crew Tracking
Businesses using paper timesheets likely grapple with repetitive data entry, transcription errors and chasing down missing employee hours. With manual tracking, there is limited oversight of worker location and attendance. This opens the door for buddy punching and doctored hours.
In contrast, automated crew scheduling apps apply technology to problems like:
- Double data entry between the field and office
- Difficulty verifying attendance and hours accuracy
- Lack of timely data to adjust schedules and staffing
- Inability to link hours directly with payroll
A digital solution provides flexible mobile access to a time clock, away from clipboards and office visits. Supervisors gain real-time views of current crew status. Alerts flag potential issues like overtime or absenteeism. Seamless integrations transfer field data to payroll to eliminate manual entry.
The Power of Real-Time Crew Insights
Instant data flow from a crew tracking app delivers insights unavailable with paper tracking. At-a-glance dashboard views showcase:
- Clock in/out status across all active crews
- Individual timesheets for verification
- GPS location of workers
- Job sites with absent or tardy employees
This data means supervisors and management can pinpoint crew on a site map, while back office staff gain transparency into employee hours alongside GPS verification. This real-time visibility facilitates on-the-fly adjustments to improve productivity and safety.
Key Features of a Crew Tracking App
Crew tracking apps balance comprehensive functionality with user-friendly operation. Core features to optimize field tracking include:
Mobile Access
Smartphone apps give workers and supervisors easy on-site access for clocking in/out, managing timesheets, assigning jobs, capturing expenses and more. Apps are available on iOS and Android. Crews can clock in and out with a simple tap, avoiding tedious paperwork. The mobile apps offer full functionality on-the-go, from any location.
GPS Tracking
Pinpoint crew locations via GPS tracking and geofencing. Verify attendance by job site with location-stamped clock ins/outs. GPS tracking provides visibility into worker locations to improve dispatching and prevent payroll errors.
Schedule Management
Create and assign recurring shifts and coordinate crew members’ schedules based on roles and required skills/certifications. Managers can schedule employees and assignments weeks in advance to optimize staffing. Employee scheduling ensures the right crews are staffed at the right sites.
Alerts & Messaging
Custom notifications inform supervisors of overtime, absenteeism or location inconsistencies. In-app messaging enables communication between the field and office. Instant alerts make supervisors aware of potential issues as they occur.
Reporting & Analytics
Generate reports on overtime, prevailing wage compliance, cost tracking, productivity and more. Robust reporting provides insight to make data-driven decisions. Reports can be scheduled, customized and exported to uncover trends.
Payroll Integration
Seamlessly export field data and integrate with 100+ payroll systems for automated processing. Bi-directional sync eliminates duplicate data entry between the field and payroll. Integration reduces payroll processing time from days to hours.
Compliance Tools
Ensure labor law adherence with automatic meal break deductions, rest period enforcement and pay rule applications. Automatic break management simplifies compliance. Compliance features minimize the risk of labor law violations.
Benefits of Adopting a Crew Tracking App
The transition from traditional paper-based processes to a digital crew tracking solution may seem daunting, but companies that make the switch often discover new efficiencies and savings.
Improved Productivity
- Optimized schedules and staffing through real-time data on crew locations, hours worked and job progress to schedule the right crews and skills for projects.
- Reduced time spent on manual data entry of crew hours between the field and office, streamlined payroll processing and eliminated time wasted chasing down missing paper timesheets.
- Streamlined field/office communication with in-app messaging for supervisors to send notifications, reminders or safety alerts to crews in real time to improve response times.
- GPS tracking and geofencing deter falsified attendance, buddy punching and doctored hours by validating identity and job site location for every clock in/out.
Greater Cost Control
- Increased payroll accuracy through automated data collection and integration eliminates manual errors and retroactive pay adjustments that are costly and time-consuming to fix.
- Detailed cost code tracking and reporting of hours worked provides transparency into real-time job costing data to enable precise tracking of labor costs by project.
- Overtime alerts notify supervisors so crew schedules can be adjusted on the fly to avoid unnecessary overtime premium pay.
- Validates billable hours worked on-site via GPS tracking and timestamps, ensuring invoices to customers accurately reflect true work completed.
Safeguarded Compliance
- Automatic pay rule calculations (overtime, double-time, etc.) are built-in and applied per company policies for every timesheet to minimize compliance risks.
- Required break tracking with configurable alerts to notify supervisors if crews miss or have late meal/rest breaks, supporting enforcement.
- Prevailing wage reporting documents pay rates by project for validation and supports certified payroll reporting.
- Permission-based access controls restrict unauthorized edits to crew timesheets that could override pay rules or falsify records.
The bottom line? Embracing crew tracking technology isn’t just about keeping up with the competition – it’s about future-proofing your business for long-term success. So why wait? Take the first step towards a more efficient, cost-effective and compliant workforce by implementing a crew tracking app. Your company’s productivity, profitability and peace of mind will thank you.
Crew Tracking with ExakTime
Arcoro’s ExakTime® offers an all-in-one crew management and workforce tracking solution. The software automates time and location tracking, payroll processing, job costing, compliance oversight, alerting and reporting.
Robust web and mobile apps make ExakTime easy to use for both field crews and office administrators. Real-time data synchronizes across the platform to eliminate double entry and provide transparency into labor hours, while seamless payroll integrations enable accurate, automated paycheck processing.
ExakTime by Arcoro offers a comprehensive crew management and workforce tracking solution designed to meet your business needs. With robust mobile apps, real-time data visibility, payroll integration and advanced compliance features, ExakTime can help your business streamline operations, control costs and mitigate risks. Contact ExakTime today to see how their purpose-built crew tracking solution can provide a competitive advantage for your company.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do crew tracking apps improve productivity?
Crew tracking apps optimize schedules and staffing through real-time data on crew locations, hours worked, and job progress. This allows managers to schedule the right crews and skills for each project intelligently. Automation also eliminates time-consuming manual data entry between the field and office, streamlining payroll and eliminating the need to chase down missing timesheets.
What compliance benefits do crew tracking apps provide?
Crew tracking apps automate pay rule calculations, break tracking and payroll reporting to ensure labor law compliance. Features like geofencing and permissions-based timesheet editing also help prevent time theft and attendance issues that could lead to compliance violations.
How do crew tracking apps improve cost control?
By increasing payroll accuracy through automated data collection and integration, crew tracking apps eliminate manual errors and reduce the need for retroactive pay adjustments. Detailed cost code tracking and real-time job costing data also provides greater transparency into labor costs.
