Clock in the whole crew from the foreman's phone.

How a crew time clock works

A crew time clock puts the clock in the foreman's hand. Everyone gathers where the day starts, at the yard gate, the truck or the first stop, and the foreman scans each badge in turn. Each scan clocks that person in, and the next scan of the same badge clocks them out.

Every scan is stamped with the time, the scanner, its location and, if you turn it on, GPS. In the office, the owner watches people appear on the live who's-working board with their timers running, without calling anyone to ask who showed up.

Late arrivals are easy too. If a worker gets to the site after the crew has left the yard, the lead scans them when they walk up, and the punch is stamped with the lead's scanner and location.

Scanning badges vs tapping names

Several crew time tracking apps let a foreman clock people in by tapping names in a list. It's quick, and it works without employee phones. The weak spot is proof: a tapped name shows the foreman tapped it, not that the worker was standing there. "Clock Marco in, he's parking the truck" is an easy favor to do.

Scanning a badge needs the badge. The worker hands it over or holds it up, the foreman sees who's holding it, and the scan goes through. It won't make a dishonest foreman honest, but it removes the casual favors that turn into paid hours nobody worked.

The cost-code row is worth being fair about. If you bill clients by task or cost code, a crew app with job costing does something TrackBadges doesn't. See TrackBadges vs ClockShark and TrackBadges vs busybusy for side-by-side details, or the best crew time tracking apps for the wider field.

A crew's day, scan by scan

Here's a normal day for a framing crew whose lead has a paired phone:

1. 16:45 at the yard. The lead scans six badges at the gate. Their phone is a scanner assigned to the yard.
2. 27:10, driving to the site. The crew is already on the clock. When workers are required to meet at a set place first, the drive from there to the job site is work time under 29 CFR 785.38.
3. 311:30, lunch. Each worker is scanned out, then back in at noon. A break is simply a scan out and a scan in.
4. 41:00, a split. Two framers drive over to help the roofing crew. They stay on the clock, since travel between job sites during the day is work time too, and the roofing lead scans them out at the end of the day, so their last punch is stamped at the roofing site.
5. 53:30, quitting time. Everyone else is scanned out at the truck before it leaves.
6. 6Someone was missed. A shift left open closes itself after the limit you set and is flagged for review, so it doesn't become a 14-hour day on the timesheet.

On Friday the timesheets already have daily and weekly overtime applied, ready to approve and export.

Multiple crews, multiple scanners

Every crew lead's phone can be a scanner, and so can a tablet at the shop door. Scanners and locations are unlimited on every plan, with no per-supervisor seats. Pair each phone with its setup link, assign it to a location, and any of your badges works on any of your scanners.

When a lead is out sick, send a setup link to whoever is covering. There's no shared password to pass around. The owner sees everything in one place: who's on the clock, at which site, scanned by whom. At the end of the week, approve each timesheet, then export a CSV for payroll or send your bookkeeper a view-only link. Our guide to tracking time across job sites covers the payroll side, and a printable crew timesheet makes a good backup for the truck.

When a crew time clock isn't the right fit

It's built for crews that start together. If your people each drive alone to a different house or site, nobody's there to scan them, and a GPS app on their own phone fits better. And if you need hours split by task or cost code for job costing, TrackBadges records locations, not codes.