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Practical guides for hourly crews.
Plain writeups on time tracking, payroll math, compliance, and the day-to-day work of running a small trades business.
120 articles
How to Import Payroll Hours into Paychex Flex (CSV)
Paychex Flex takes hours through a standard payroll import: a CSV of employees and their period hours, matched on the Worker ID that comes from Paychex. It's the same shape as the other big payroll systems, with one Paychex-specific wrinkle worth knowing: import availability and column expectations can vary with how your Flex account was configured, so the first import is worth a five-minute call with your Paychex rep.
De Minimis Time: What Small Minutes Cost You
De minimis is the legal idea that some work time is too small and irregular to track: a few seconds here, an occasional minute there. It's a real doctrine, and it's much narrower than most employers assume. Regular, measurable minutes are not de minimis, even when each instance is small.
Free Construction Timesheet Template with Job and Cost Codes
A construction timesheet has one extra job: telling you where the hours went, not just how many there were. This template adds Job code and Cost code columns to the daily rows and rolls hours up into a per-job subtotal tab, which is the paper version of job costing.
How to Import Time into QuickBooks Desktop with an IIF File
QuickBooks Desktop imports time through IIF, a tab-delimited format QuickBooks has carried for decades. IIF is fast and it is unforgiving: there's no preview and no undo, which is why the first step below isn't optional.
Free Overtime Pay Calculator (Weekly, 1.5x)
Enter an hourly rate and the week's hours, and this calculator splits pay at the 40-hour line: regular pay, overtime at time and a half, and the total. Adjust the threshold or multiplier if your rules differ.
How to Import a Timesheet into ADP RUN (CSV)
ADP RUN imports time through a timesheet CSV, and one field decides whether your import takes a minute or an afternoon: the employee's payroll ID. ADP matches rows to people by ID, not by name, so the setup task is a one-time mapping and the weekly task is nearly nothing.
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Auto-Deducting Lunch Breaks: Legal, but Risky
Auto-deduction means payroll subtracts a fixed lunch, usually 30 or 60 minutes, from every shift without a punch. It's legal under federal law in most situations, and it's one of the most common sources of wage claims in field work, because of one gap: the deduction happens whether or not the worker actually took the lunch.
Free Biweekly Timesheet Template (Excel and PDF)
If you pay every two weeks, a biweekly timesheet keeps the paperwork aligned with the paycheck. This one tracks two full week blocks with daily hours, per-week totals, a period total, and the overtime trap handled correctly, which most biweekly templates get wrong.
How Much Does a Time Clock App Actually Cost in 2026?
Every time clock app quotes a small number, and almost nobody pays the small number. The real monthly cost is a formula, and once you know it, you can read any pricing page in the category quickly.
How to Import Hours into Gusto for Payroll (CSV)
Gusto runs payroll from totals: for each person, the pay period's regular hours and overtime hours. That makes the Gusto handoff the simplest in payroll, and it moves the real work upstream, because the totals have to arrive already split correctly.
busybusy Pricing Explained (2026): Free Plan, Pro, and What Construction Crews Pay
busybusy is one of the few time clocks built specifically for construction, and its pricing is refreshingly simple by category standards: a real free plan for basic time tracking, and paid tiers per user that add the management features. Its distinctive card is equipment tracking, which almost nobody else in the time-clock aisle offers at all.
The 7-Minute Rule for Time Clocks, with Examples
The 7-minute rule is the cutoff that makes quarter-hour rounding work: punches within 7 minutes after a quarter hour round down to it, and punches 8 or more minutes after round up to the next one. This post is examples; the full rules and the neutrality requirement are in the timesheet rounding guide.
Jibble Pricing Explained (2026): Free Tier, Paid Tiers, and the Catch for Field Crews
Jibble's pitch is a free time clock with face-recognition attendance, and the free tier is real: unlimited users can punch in and out at no cost. The paid tiers add the management layer, and the fit question for a trades crew is less about price than about model: Jibble leans into attendance verification, selfies, and monitoring, which lands differently on a job site than in a retail back room.
Free Time Card Calculator (Hours and Minutes)
Enter clock-in, clock-out, and break minutes for each day, and this calculator returns daily hours, the weekly total, and the same numbers in decimal hours for payroll entry. Nothing uploads anywhere; the math runs on this page.
Clockify Pricing Explained (2026): What Free Really Covers
Clockify's free plan is real, and as of July 2026 it covers up to 5 users for basic time tracking. Its huge user base was built in the unlimited-free years. The honest question for a field crew isn't whether free is real, it's whether the features you actually need live on the free plan, and for job-site work they mostly don't.
How to Import Timesheets into QuickBooks Online (CSV)
QuickBooks Online accepts time as a CSV through its time-import flow, and the whole job comes down to two things: a file whose columns match what QuickBooks expects, and employee names that match your QuickBooks employee list exactly. Get those two right and the import takes a minute.
Connecteam Pricing Explained (2026): Hubs, Tiers, and the Free Plan
Connecteam prices differently from every other time clock, and the difference is the whole story: features live in separate hubs, each hub has its own paid tiers, and the price you'll actually pay depends on which hubs you need and how many people you have. There's also a genuinely free Small Business plan for up to 10 users, which is the best free offer in the category if you fit inside it.
Free Weekly Timesheet Template (Excel and PDF)
Here's a weekly timesheet that does the math for you: daily hours from clock-in, clock-out, and break minutes, a weekly total, and a regular-versus-overtime split at 40 hours. No email required, no watermarks. Use it as long as it's useful.
ClockShark Pricing Explained (2026): Plans, Contracts, and What to Ask
ClockShark sells two plans, Standard and Pro, priced per user plus a base fee, with a 14-day free trial that runs on Pro features. The number most buyers miss sits in the fine print of the pricing page itself: as of July 2026, it states that a contract term of three years applies to all pricing plans.
Timesheet Rounding Rules Explained (7-Minute Rule, 2026)
Federal rules allow employers to round punch times, most commonly to the nearest quarter hour. The rule that makes quarter-hour rounding legal is usually called the 7-minute rule: minutes 1 through 7 round down to the previous quarter hour, and minutes 8 through 14 round up to the next one.
Time Tracking for Low-Voltage Installers: Projects, Service Calls, and GC Paperwork
Low-voltage work runs two businesses off one truck: multi-week structured cabling and security installs bid by the project, and a stream of service calls billed by the hour. Each needs different time truth, and both often answer to a GC's schedule and paperwork. Here's the method for a low-voltage shop, keeping the two books honest without two systems.
Can You Pay a Different Rate for Travel Time?
You can pay windshield time at a different rate than tool time. Federal law allows it as long as the travel rate clears minimum wage and everyone knows the deal in advance. The catch is the overtime math: hours at two rates make the overtime rate a weighted average. Here's the worked example, the rules, and how to run multi-rate pay without a calculator on Friday.
Time Tracking for Property Maintenance: Work Orders, Many Buildings, and Owner Statements
Property maintenance is the trade of a hundred small jobs across a dozen buildings, billed back to owners who read their statements. When hours per property are a guess, billbacks get disputed, flat-fee properties eat labor invisibly, and the after-hours call-out gets paid wrong. Here's the method for a maintenance operation, from work orders to owner statements.
The Cheapest Time Clock Apps for Small Crews: Real 2026 Math
Every time clock app advertises a friendly per-user price, and almost none of them bill that way once a real crew signs up. Base fees, feature tiers, add-ons, and admin licenses do the rest. Here's the real monthly math for a 6-person field crew across the tools contractors actually shortlist, including the free plans and what they honestly include, as of August 2026.
What Should Labor Cost Be as a Percentage of a Job?
Owners ask for the right labor percentage hoping for a number to steer by, and the honest answer is that the number worth steering by is your own. Trade, service mix, and materials share move the 'right' percentage so much that borrowed benchmarks mostly mislead. Here's how to compute yours from the last ten jobs, and the four levers that actually move it.
How to Set Up a Job-Site Time Clock Kiosk: Hardware, Placement, and Settings
A job-site time clock kiosk is an afternoon project: a tablet you may already own, a case, a spot every worker passes, and twenty minutes of settings. Done right, it survives dust, weather, and 6:55 am. Here's the complete setup, from hardware choices through the first-week checklist, including the mistakes that kill kiosks in month one.
Off-the-Clock Work: Yard Time, Truck Loading, and Other Hours You Probably Owe
The most expensive hours in a field business are the ones nobody clocked: loading the truck at the yard, the 6:50 toolbox talk before a 7:00 start, the trailer hitch, the end-of-day unload. Federal law says work you allow is work you pay for, whether or not you asked for it. Here's where off-the-clock time hides in a trades operation and how to move the clock to where the work actually starts.
Time Tracking for Pool Service: Route Density, Seasonal Swings, and Flat-Rate Truth
Pool service sells flat-rate route stops priced on a time assumption: twenty minutes for a weekly clean, say. Whether the business makes money is the gap between that assumption and reality, times a thousand stops a month, and almost nobody measures it. Here's the time tracking method for a pool operation, including the seasonal ramp and the repair-versus-route split.
Connecteam Alternatives for Field Crews: An Honest 2026 Guide
Start with the uncomfortable truth: if your team is under 10 and Connecteam's free plan covers what you need, keep it. Free that actually works is rare. The alternative search begins when crews grow past the free ceiling or discover the feature they need sits in a different hub or a higher tier. Here's how the hub pricing works, what it means for a field crew, and the honest comparison.
Cost Codes for Small Crews: The Smallest System That Works
Cost codes fail small crews in one of two ways: there are none, so every job is one blurry number, or there are ninety, imported from a commercial manual, and the crew stops picking honestly by Wednesday. The working answer is 5 to 9 codes that mirror how you actually bid. Here's how to choose them, why a callback code is the single most profitable one, and the rollout script.
PIN Time Clocks: The Simple Way for a Crew to Share One Device
A PIN is the whole login: four to six digits, typed at a shared tablet, and the punch belongs to the right person. For a trades crew it beats badges, fobs, and biometrics on cost, speed, and simplicity. The catch is that PINs can be shared, so here are the hygiene rules that keep a PIN clock honest, and the sixty-second onboarding that makes turnover painless.
Rain Delays, Show-Up Pay, and Waiting Time: What You Owe the Crew
The crew shows up, the sky opens, and now you're doing labor law in a truck cab. Federal law draws the line at whether workers are waiting on your clock or released to go. A handful of states add show-up pay on top. Here's how the rules work, what a clean call-off policy looks like, and how to record the gray time so Friday isn't a debate.
Time Tracking for Tree Care: Weather Days, Storm Surges, and Bids You Can Defend
No trade's payroll swings harder than tree care: a rained-out Tuesday, then a storm week where the whole crew runs 60 hours and every one of them is overtime math. Add per-job bidding where the estimate is mostly labor and equipment hours, and accurate time records stop being bookkeeping and start being the business. Here's the method for a tree care operation.
Workyard Alternatives for Field Crews: An Honest 2026 Guide
Workyard is one of the most respected names in construction time tracking, and its calling card, highly accurate GPS, isn't marketing fiction. What sends small crews searching for alternatives is the pricing: Workyard publishes only a starting price of $6 per user per month billed annually, full plan pricing isn't published, and the features crews want are gathered on the Pro tier. Here's the honest comparison, including when Workyard is worth it.
How to Calculate Labor Cost per Job, Step by Step
Labor cost per job is one multiplication repeated: each person's hours on the job times that person's burdened rate. The formula never trips anyone up. What trips people up is hours that were never recorded per job, overtime that belongs to somebody, and finding out the number a month too late. Here's the step-by-step, a worked example, and how to keep the number live while the job is still winnable.
Clock-In Photo Verification: What a Photo Proves and What It Does Not
A camera at the time clock answers exactly one question: who pressed the button. That happens to be the question behind most timesheet fraud on shared devices, which is why photo verification works. But a photo doesn't prove someone stayed, worked, or worked well, and pretending otherwise is how trust gets burned. Here's the honest case for clock-in photos and the right way to introduce them.
How Long Do You Have to Keep Timesheets and Payroll Records?
Federal wage law wants payroll records kept 3 years and the time cards behind them kept 2. The IRS wants employment tax records for 4. States can want more. Here's the plain-language version of what to keep and for how long, why the practical answer is one retention period instead of four, and what that means for a crew whose timecards are currently a shoebox.
Time Tracking for Pest Control: Routes, Solo Techs, and Honest Stop Times
A pest control tech's day is a route: fifteen stops, alone, across half a county. No trade generates more hours that nobody witnessed. Route businesses live or die on stops per day and minutes per stop, and both numbers are fiction unless they're recorded as they happen. Here's the time tracking method for a pest control operation.
ClockShark Alternatives for Small Crews: An Honest 2026 Guide
ClockShark earned its place in the trades: it's construction-native, with mature job costing reports and a long history with field buyers. The complaints that send small crews looking elsewhere are specific, though. PTO and advanced job costing sit on the Pro tier, a three-year contract term applies to all plans, and the base fee plus per-user math stings on a small crew. Here's the honest comparison.
How to Calculate Labor Burden for a Field Crew, With a Worked Example
The wage is what the worker sees. The burden is everything you pay on top: payroll taxes, workers' comp, insurance tied to payroll, PTO, small tools. Add it up and the $25 worker typically costs around $31, and if your bids use $25, every bid is quietly wrong. Here's the component list, a worked example you can copy, and the shortcut multiplier at the end.
An Employee Time Clock Without Downloading an App: Your Real Options
Some workers won't put a work app on a personal phone, some phones have no room for one, and some owners just don't want to manage installs. You can still run digital time tracking. The two real options are browser clock-in from any phone and a shared tablet kiosk, and most crews end up mixing them. Here's how each works and the honest trade-offs.
The 7-Minute Rule and Quarter-Hour Time Clock Rounding, With Chart (2026)
Quarter-hour rounding and the 7-minute rule come from a 1961 federal regulation written for mechanical punch clocks. Rounding is still legal when it's neutral, but it's also the source of a steady stream of wage lawsuits, and courts in some states have soured on it. Here's how the rule works, the chart, and why paying to the exact minute is the cleaner answer when punches are digital anyway.
Time Tracking for Cleaning Crews: The Method That Survives Night Work and Client Doubts
Commercial cleaning has the hardest supervision problem in the trades: small teams, many client sites, night hours nobody witnesses, and invoices clients feel free to question. The fix is a punch that happens at the site, tagged to the account, on a record you can show the client. Here's the method for a cleaning operation.
QuickBooks Time Alternatives for Contractors: An Honest 2026 Guide
The most common misunderstanding about leaving QuickBooks Time is thinking it means leaving QuickBooks. It doesn't. Your books can stay exactly where they are while the time clock changes. Here's why contractors go looking for an alternative, the four things to require in a replacement, and honest 2026 numbers for what a 10-person crew pays either way.
Job Costing for Small Contractors: The Method That Fits a Trades Crew
Most job costing advice is written for companies with an accounting department. A trades crew needs the minimum viable version: labor hours tagged to jobs at the moment they happen, a burdened rate, and 15 minutes on Friday. That alone tells you which jobs make money, which bids were fantasy, and which change orders you forgot to charge for. Here's the whole method.
The Tablet Time Clock Kiosk for Field Crews: One Shared Device for the Whole Site
One tablet in the trailer, the whole crew punching in and out on it with a PIN. A kiosk is the simplest way to run time tracking on a site where the crew works together, and it solves the problems phone clock-in cannot: workers without smartphones, no-phone site policies, and the punch that happens at one gate everyone walks through. Here's how it works and when to choose it.
Do You Have to Pay Employees for Drive Time Between Job Sites?
The short answer is yes. Once the workday starts, time spent driving from one job site to another is work time under federal law, and it counts toward overtime. The commute is a different story, and the shop stop changes everything. Here's how the rules actually work for a field crew, and how to capture the drive segments without a Friday argument.
Time Tracking for Fencing Companies on Rural and Off-Grid Lots
A fence job happens at the back line of a ten-acre lot with no signal, and it gets billed by the linear foot. Here's the method for getting honest hours on off-grid lots: offline punches that save on the phone and sync later, a single-site geofence as a deterrent, and labor data you can turn into a real cost per foot for your next bid.
Time Tracking for Flooring Contractors: Labor per Room, per Job, per Crew
You bid flooring by the square, but you pay by the hour. This is how to make your hours land against the right room, the right job, and the right crew, so you finally know your real cost per square.
Time Tracking for Carpenters and Finish Crews
Finish and trim work chops the day into short jobs across several houses, and the hours have to land on the right one or the numbers mean nothing. Here's the method for a small carpentry crew: one tap to clock in, punches saved on the phone even with no signal, tagged to each job as the day moves, and a clean split on Friday you can invoice T&M from and bid the next job with.
Time Tracking for Drywall Contractors: Hang, Finish, and Bill the Right Hours
Hang and finish are two trades under one company name, paid two different ways. Here's how to split their labor per job, track it when one crew works two addresses in a day, and reconcile piece-rate pay against the hours it actually took.
How to Record Employee Clock-In and Clock-Out Times Accurately
Recording a clock-in time is easy; recording one that holds up later is not. Here's what a clean punch needs, how to round without shaving pay, how to handle breaks, and how to correct a bad punch without quietly rewriting history.
Time Tracking for Solar Installers: Labor by Project Across a Multi-Day Array
A solar install is a multi-day project, not a shift, and hours end up scattered across days, phases, and crews. Here's the method for capturing labor by array so you know real cost per install and payroll exports clean.
Time Tracking for Painters: Stop Paying for the Paint-Store Run-Around
The paint-store run, the drive to the second house, the wait for a coat to dry: these hours are real, and most painting crews never capture them cleanly. Here's a workflow that tags every hour to the right job so your next bid is honest.
How to Track Employee Hours in a Spreadsheet (and When to Stop)
A spreadsheet is a real way to track hours for a tiny crew, so this guide builds a working weekly timesheet with a weekly-40 overtime formula that matches time-and-a-half. Then it tells you the truth about the five places a spreadsheet gives out, so you know exactly when to stop.
Time Tracking for Concrete and Masonry Crews When There Is No Signal
On a pour day the crew is eight feet down with no bars, and that's exactly when the punch has to land. Here's the offline-first method that keeps every hour.
GPS Time Tracking for Landscaping Crews on Multi-Property Routes
A landscaping crew hits eight properties before lunch, and the only record of who was where and for how long is a foreman's memory. Here's a workflow that turns every stop on the route into a real labor number, using geofenced recurring properties and a one-tap switch between stops.
How to Track Hours Across Multiple Job Sites and Subcontractors
Running crews across several addresses turns "whose hours belong to which job" into a weekly reconciliation chore. This guide shows how to make each punch land against the right site and job at capture, when a spreadsheet is genuinely enough, and the honest truth about subcontractors on their own tools.
Time Tracking for Framing Crews: One Site All Week, Signal or Not
A framing crew lives on one lot for days at a time, starts before the sun, and works subfloors and stick framing where signal drops to nothing. Paper time cards and apps that need a live connection both fail that reality. Here's a method built around the offline punch, a single-site fence, and labor that lands against the house you're building.
Time Tracking for Roofers: Weather Reschedules and Labor per Square
A roofing day is written by the weather. When you push a reroof at 6:40 in the morning, the punches scattered around that call are the first thing to fall apart on paper. This guide is the method: keep every punch honest through a reschedule by moving the schedule and letting the crew's phones follow, pull real labor per square out of hours tagged to the job, fence the single site a crew is parked on all day, and record punches on the phone when a metal roof kills the signal. It sells the workflow, not the pitch.
How to Track Hours for Remote and Field Employees Who Work Offsite
Your people are never in one office, so the office clock never fit them. This walks through tracking hours for a scattered, mobile crew: punches that survive dead zones, a phone-browser option with nothing to install, and rules set per person instead of one blanket policy.
Arizona Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Arizona is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. The Arizona minimum wage is $15.15 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
Time Tracking for General Contractors: Multi-Site Crews and Audit-Ready Records
A general contractor is rarely the one swinging the hammer. You're coordinating several crews, sometimes several subs, across several sites that all bill differently, and you're the one who has to prove where the hours went when a client, an auditor, or your own margin report asks. This guide covers the method: how to make every punch land on the right worksite and job as it happens, how to check sub invoices against your own record, how per-site rollups turn Friday into an approval instead of a reconstruction, and how a signed, tamper-evident record holds up when a dispute lands.
The Best Way to Track Time for a Small Crew
The best way to track time for a small crew is the one that fits how your crew actually works, and sometimes the free one fits. This is an honest comparison of paper, a shared spreadsheet, and a purpose-built app, including exactly where each is fine and where each quietly starts costing you. It ends with why a one-tap app, with your first three users in the base price, turns tracking from a weekly chore into a one-time setup.
How to Connect Clox to Zapier and the Clox API
Clox has a small read-only REST API and a Zapier connection built on it. You generate one API key per organization in the web app, then use two GET endpoints: one to confirm the account, one to pull your most recent completed time entries. This post covers how the key works, exactly what the endpoints return, how the Zapier trigger polls them, a couple of automations that actually work, and the honest limits so you don't build around something that isn't there.
Washington Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Washington is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. The Washington minimum wage is $17.13 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
Time Tracking for HVAC Techs: Service Calls and Installs on Different Math
A service tech hits six addresses a day; the install crew sits at one house for three. Those are different math, and one pile of hours hides both. Here's the day-to-day method for HVAC time tracking: tap at the unit instead of from memory, tag every punch to the job so service and installs sort themselves, keep the punch alive in a dead basement, and read job costing while the changeout is still open. Sell the workflow, not the app.
How to Track Hours for Construction Workers Without Paper Timesheets
It's 6:45 a.m., the crew is scattered, gloves are on, and there's no signal. That's exactly where paper timecards break. Here's the method for tracking construction hours digitally: one tap to clock in, saved on the phone offline, tagged to the job, and exported to payroll on Friday.
How to Export Your Hours to QuickBooks (Online and Desktop)
Two clean paths get your hours into QuickBooks. QuickBooks Online takes a CSV you import in a couple of clicks, plus an optional live sync you connect once. QuickBooks Desktop takes a downloadable IIF file. Here's the exact setup and steps for each, so payroll and job costing stop taking up your whole Friday.
Illinois Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Illinois is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. The Illinois minimum wage is $15.00 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
How Plumbers Track Hours per Job (Service Calls, Rebuilds, and 2 a.m. Emergencies)
A plumber's day is a string of service calls, a repipe in progress, and the occasional 2 a.m. callout. Here's the method for making every hour land against the right job, from the one-tap punch to payroll.
Is Clox Legit? Your Data, Security, and the Guarantees Behind It
A straight answer for a skeptical buyer: who runs Clox, how your data is actually handled, the tamper-evident records anyone can verify at /verify, the honest state of the product, and the trial and refund guarantees that let you try it with nothing on the line.
How to Prove Hours Worked When a Client or Employee Disputes Them
A number on a timesheet is a claim, not proof. When a client challenges a labor bill or a worker says their hours were changed, you need a record that can't be quietly altered. Here's how to produce one that anyone can verify.
Texas Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Texas is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. Texas follows the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
How Much Does Clox Cost? Pricing, Explained in Plain Terms
Clox is $29 a month for a base that includes your first 3 users, then $6 per user after that, with every feature on the one plan. Pay for the year and it's about 20 to 25 percent less. Here's the model in plain terms, with the real math for a 5-person and a 10-person crew, so you can budget before you ever enter a card.
Time Tracking for Electricians: Journeymen, Apprentices, and Prevailing-Wage Jobs
Electrical crews split every morning and mix public and private jobs in one week. Here's the day-to-day method for capturing journeyman and apprentice hours by project, running a trailer kiosk with PINs, and exporting clean to payroll, with prevailing-wage rules framed as check your state.
How to Stop Employees From Clocking In Early
A worker scheduled for seven taps in at six-forty, and that time lands on your payroll every day. You can round it, watch for it, or stop the early punch from being created at all. The real fix is a scheduled shift with an enforcement window that refuses early clock-ins at the source.
How to Export Your Crew's Hours to Payroll
Every pay period ends the same way: the week is over and now you have to get the hours into payroll. Here's the the steps that let you stop typing hours in by hand. Finish the week, open Reports, pick the export for your system, download the file, and import it. Overtime and breaks are already calculated, so the totals are already correct.
Time Tracking for the Trades: Pick the Right Setup for Your Crew
On a trade crew, the hours already exist. They just live in a group text, a foreman's memory, and the back of a delivery slip, and Friday is the night you rebuild the week out of all of it. The fix isn't a stricter honor system. It's moving the moment the record gets created, from memory at night to one tap on-site. But the right setup isn't the same for every trade. A fenced framing crew, a pest route with a dozen stops, a tree crew with no signal, and a solar install that has to cost its labor all need different things. This guide sorts that out. Find the kind of crew you are, and the setup follows.
How to Track Employee Hours for a Field Crew: The Complete Method
Tracking hours for a field crew comes down to four decisions: how workers punch, where you allow it, how you prove it, and how the hours reach payroll. This is the complete method, with an honest comparison of paper, spreadsheets, and a purpose-built app, plus a one-page policy template you can copy today. Read it whether or not you ever buy anything.
Maine Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Maine is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. The Maine minimum wage is $15.10 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
New Hampshire Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in New Hampshire is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. New Hampshire follows the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
Vermont Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Vermont is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. The Vermont minimum wage is $14.42 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
Massachusetts Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Massachusetts is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. The Massachusetts minimum wage is $15.00 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
Rhode Island Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Rhode Island is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. The Rhode Island minimum wage is $16.00 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
Connecticut Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Connecticut is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. The Connecticut minimum wage is $16.94 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
New York Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in New York is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. The New York minimum wage is $16.00 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
New Jersey Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in New Jersey is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. The New Jersey minimum wage is $15.92 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
Pennsylvania Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Pennsylvania is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. Pennsylvania follows the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
Delaware Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Delaware is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. The Delaware minimum wage is $15.00 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
Maryland Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Maryland is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. The Maryland minimum wage is $15.00 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
Virginia Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Virginia is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. The Virginia minimum wage is $12.77 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
North Carolina Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in North Carolina is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. North Carolina follows the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
South Carolina Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in South Carolina is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. South Carolina follows the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
Georgia Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Georgia is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. Georgia follows the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
Florida Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in Florida is time and a half after 40 hours in a week. The Florida minimum wage is $14.00 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
California Overtime Calculator and Time Tracking Rules
Overtime in California is daily and weekly: 1.5x past 8 hours in a day or 40 in a week, and 2x past 12 in a day. The California minimum wage is $16.90 an hour. Use the free calculator below, check the state's wage and hour rules, and see how Clox tracks your crew's hours.
The best time tracking app with geofencing for field crews
You want to know that a clock-in came from the job site, not the parking lot down the road. Here's how geofencing time tracking actually works, how Clox blocks off-site punches, and where the honest limits are.
How Does Geofencing Time Tracking Work?
Geofencing draws a virtual boundary around a job site and checks a worker's phone location before allowing a clock-in. Here's how it works, and how Clox blocks off-site punches instead of only warning about them.
GPS Time Tracking That Blocks Off-Site Clock-Ins
You don't want a report that tells you someone clocked in from their driveway. You want the punch stopped before it happens. Here's how Clox blocks an off-site clock-in at the punch, when a marginal punch is still allowed, and what gets flagged for you to review.
Geofencing vs GPS Time Tracking: What Is the Difference?
GPS tracking tells you where a punch happened after the fact. Geofencing decides whether the punch is allowed to happen at all. Here's the difference, and why it matters at payroll.
A Geofence Time Clock for Construction Crews
Set a geofence around each job site, and clock-ins from outside the fence get blocked at the punch. Here's how a construction crew keeps hours honest and tied to the right job.
The Best Geofencing Time Clock for a Small Business Crew
You run a small crew, not an enterprise. You want a geofencing time clock that sets up in an afternoon, blocks off-site punches for the people who need it, and doesn't nickel-and-dime you per feature. Here's what to look for and how Clox does it.
Time Tracking That Works Offline With GPS
No signal doesn't mean no record. Clox checks the geofence and saves each punch on the phone with its real timestamp, then syncs when the crew is back in coverage.
How to Stop Buddy Punching on a Field Crew
One worker clocks in for another who isn't there yet. It's quiet, it repeats, and it lands straight on your payroll. Here's how to stop buddy punching with layered controls instead of one silver bullet.
Can Employees Fake Their GPS Location? An Honest Answer
The honest answer is yes, a phone's location can be faked. That doesn't make a geofence useless. Here's how Clox turns a geofence into a deterrent that also catches the mock-location and impossible-travel tricks people actually try.
Is GPS Tracking of Employees Legal? What Crew Owners Should Know
You want to know where your crew clocked in without stepping over a line you can't see. Here's a careful, general answer on the legality of GPS tracking at work, and how Clox limits location to the punch itself.
Gusto time tracking for field crews
If you run payroll in Gusto, you already know the Friday routine. You gather texts and paper time sheets, add up the hours by hand, then type them into the Gusto payroll run one worker at a time. Clox tracks your team's hours on the phone all week and gives you a Gusto-ready file to import. This post shows how the export works and what is inside it.
ADP Time Tracking Integration for Field Crews
If you run payroll in ADP, Friday usually means re-typing a week of crew hours from texts, notes, and paper. Clox lets your crew clock in from their phones, then hands you an ADP-ready file to import. Here's how the export works with both ADP RUN and Workforce Now.
Paychex Flex time tracking for field crews
If you run payroll in Paychex Flex, Friday usually means turning texts and paper timesheets into hours and typing them in by hand. Clox lets your crew clock in from their phones all week, calculates overtime for you, and exports a Paychex Flex import file from one page. This post shows exactly what is in that file and how to set it up once.
QuickBooks time tracking for field crews
If you run payroll or job costing in QuickBooks, you already know the Friday routine. You collect hours from texts and paper, add them up by hand, and re-key each one into QuickBooks. Clox tracks your team's hours all week and gives you a QuickBooks-ready import, so you stop typing time twice.
The Best Time Tracking Software for Field Crews Is the One Your Crew Will Actually Use
If you run a field crew, you have probably figured out that the best time tracking software for field crews isn't the one with the longest feature list. It's the one your guys will actually open at 6:45 in the morning, with cold hands and a truck to load. Everything else means rebuilding the week on Friday out of texts, guesses, and whatever the crew remembers. We built Clox for that exact moment: one tap to clock in, even with no signal, and a clean record of who worked where by the time payroll is due.
How to calculate overtime for prevailing-wage jobs (without losing sleep)
If your crew works federal jobs (or state jobs that follow Davis-Bacon rules), overtime math isn't the same as a regular private project. Here's how to actually do it right.
The 5-employee contractor's weekly payroll checklist
When you grew from 2 employees to 5, payroll quietly became a 3-hour Sunday-night chore. Here's how to get it back to 30 minutes, with a printable checklist.
How to switch from paper timecards to a digital time clock (without losing data)
You know paper is the problem. The hard part is making the switch without alienating the crew. Here's a plan you can run in 14 days.
How to bid construction jobs accurately using your own labor data
Most small contractors bid jobs based on gut feel and the last job they remember. Here's how to use the labor hours you already track to bid from real numbers instead of memory.
California overtime rules for trades (2026)
If you run a trades business in California, federal FLSA isn't your problem. The California Labor Code is. Daily OT, weekly OT, double-time, and the 7th-day rule are all enforceable, and the penalties are real.
Workers' comp audit prep: a year-round playbook for small contractors
Every contractor dreads the workers' comp audit. If you keep good records year-round, the audit is a 30-minute review. If you don't, it's a 3-day reconstruction project.
How to spot (and stop) time theft on small crews without losing trust
Buddy punching, padded hours, and "forgot to clock out" disputes quietly leak thousands per year. Here's how to stop it while still being someone your crew respects.
Switching from Buddy Punch, ClockShark, or QuickBooks Time to Clox
If you're paying $80+/mo for Buddy Punch or ClockShark and looking at Clox at half the price, the question is: how painful is the switch? Answer: about a week, if you do it right.