How to track time across multiple job sites

Do you have to pay travel time between job sites?

Yes. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, travel that's part of the day's work counts as hours worked. 29 CFR 785.38 puts it directly: time spent in travel as part of an employee's principal activity, "such as travel from job site to job site during the workday, must be counted as hours worked."

The same section covers the morning meet-up. If you require workers to report to a shop, yard or meeting place to get instructions, pick up tools or load a truck, the trip from there to the job site is part of the day's work "regardless of contract, custom, or practice." Once the workday has started, the clock keeps running until the last work task is done.

Commute vs. work travel

The line is the start and end of the workday. Travel before the first work task and after the last one is commuting. Everything in between is work.

State law can count more travel as work. In California, for example, time spent on transportation the employer requires, such as a mandatory company bus to a remote site, is generally hours worked (Morillion v. Royal Packing Co., 2000). Check your state's rules.

One daily punch or a punch at each site?

Clock in once when the workday starts and once when it ends, and the travel in between is paid automatically. Punch at each site and you can see hours per site, but you have to add the drive time back yourself.

The second approach catches a lot of employers out. If the crew scans out at 11:00 at site A and in at 11:20 at site B, those 20 minutes are paid work time even though no clock was running. Either add travel as its own line on the timesheet, or use the first approach.

Worked example: a three-stop landscaping day

Here's one worker's day on a landscaping crew that meets at the yard:

Paid time is 7:00 to 11:20 (4 hours 20 minutes) plus 11:50 to 3:50 (4 hours), for 8 hours 20 minutes, or 8.33 hours. If only the time on site were recorded (7:45 to 11:00 and 11:50 to 3:10), the timesheet would show 6 hours 35 minutes, which is 1 hour 45 minutes short every day.

Over a five-day week that's 8.75 missing hours per worker. Because the true week is 41.67 hours, 1.67 of those missing hours are overtime at time and a half. Convert minutes with the minutes to decimal tool, or total the week with the timesheet calculator.

The simplest fix is for the crew lead to clock everyone in at the yard at 7:00 and out at the yard at 3:50, with a scan out and back in for lunch.

What location-stamped punches tell you

A location-stamped punch records where a clock-in or clock-out happened. There are two common kinds of stamp:

• The scanner's assigned location. A tablet at the yard, or a phone assigned to "Site A," labels every punch it makes with that place.
• A GPS stamp. The device's position at the moment of the scan.

Together they answer "where was this person when they clocked in?" They don't show where anyone went between punches. That takes continuous GPS tracking, which some employers use for drivers and which raises more privacy questions. A geofence is a different thing again: a virtual boundary around a site that blocks or flags punches made outside it.

Job costing: what tracking time by location can't do

Hours by location tell you how long a crew spent at each site, which is often enough to bill a client or check a bid on a small job. They don't tell you what the crew did there. If you need hours by phase or task, like framing versus drywall on job 2041, you need a time clock with job or cost codes and a habit of switching codes when the task changes. Cost codes are more precise, but every switch is one more thing for someone to record. Decide which you need before you choose a tool; time clock apps for construction compares options built for crews.

Setting up time tracking across sites

1. 1Decide what you need per site: payroll only, client billing or job costing.
2. 2Pick a punch approach from the table above and write it down.
3. 3Put a scanner, or a crew lead with a phone, wherever crews start work.
4. 4Label every scanner with its location, and turn on GPS stamps if you want a record of where each scan happened.
5. 5Write a travel pay policy: when the workday starts, and that site-to-site driving is paid.
6. 6Review the gaps between punches each week before you approve hours.

For the broader picture, see how to track employee hours.

Where TrackBadges fits

TrackBadges is built for crews that start together. The crew lead scans each worker's printed badge with their phone at the yard or first site, and again at the end of the day, so drive time between sites stays on the clock. Every punch records the time, the scanner, the scanner's location and, if you turn it on, a GPS stamp of where the scan happened. Scanners and locations are unlimited on every plan.

Be clear about the limits. TrackBadges tracks locations, not job or cost codes, so if you need hours by task, choose a tool that has them. And a solo worker who goes to a different site alone each day, with nobody to scan their badge, is better served by a GPS app on their own phone.