Management tips Payroll and HR

Improve the
management of
your construction
payrolls with a
mobile punch clock

Spending as much time as possible on the job site and the least amount possible managing administrative tasks is a challenge that many construction companies are trying to meet. Despite this goal, it may be difficult to reduce the time allocated to these office tasks, such as managing timesheets, when your work tools no longer respond to your business reality.

Jérôme Guay understands this reality because he experienced it for several years with his own construction company, Céra-Pose. Week after week, Jérôme lost a lot of time running after his employees’ timesheets, which were spread out over various sites. Timesheets were often submitted on scraps of torn paper and the hours did not accurately reflect reality. Sound familiar?

If this sounds familiar to you, maybe it's time to rethink your timesheet management. That is what Jérôme did by developing Mobile-Punch, a specialized solution for the construction field.

Discover how a mobile punch clock allowed Jérôme to improve the management of his construction company’s payroll (and how you can also benefit from such a solution).

Save time and money

A lot of time is lost at the beginning and end of each day on job sites. Some managers rely on their foreman to manage the employees’ schedule, but Jérôme learned that that is not an effective solution. “The foreman must focus on managing the site and making sure the work progresses, not the workers' arrival time or lateness,” he explains.

But without someone to ensure that schedules are respected, you can never be certain that you are paying the hours actually worked. Scraps of paper with just the number 40 written on them are frequent, whereas in reality, working exactly 40 hours is rare. “Employees don't have bad intentions, it's just easier for them that way, but Mobile-Punch is even easier and provides the exact number of hours worked,” says Jérôme.

In fact, a mobile punch clock with a geo-tracking function saves you a lot of time that would otherwise be spent gathering and deciphering each employee’s timesheet. You will also save a lot of money often spent on hours that were not actually worked.

Follow project costs in real time

In the construction field, the majority of contracts are package deals (a price is set in advance and cannot be modified once the contract is signed). With this type of contract, if your workers take more time to complete their work, you will have to pay them overtime, without being able to bill these hours to your client.

“In a package contract, 50% of the budget spent should equal 50% of the work completed,” explains Jérôme. When this is not the case, it could signal a loss of money. Therefore, it is important to obtain this information on a daily basis.

A mobile punch clock allows you to keep updated on the growth of labour costs in real time. “You don't want to wait until the end of the project to determine your profit or loss,” adds Jérôme. In case of a potential deficit, you should be able to know about it long before the end of the project so that you can make adjustments.

For example, if you have a contract to install ceramic in a five story building, you can get a good idea of your labour costs once the first floor is completed. By using the punch times in the mobile punch clock, you will be able to see how much one story of labour costs and then multiply it by five. It is an approximation, but you will know if your project is on track to be profitable or not.

CCQ rates management simplified

CCQ rates are not the same for residential and commercial construction, and payroll processing can become demanding when several employees work on both types of site in a same week (or worse, a same day).

If an employee has to go to two different sites on the same day, one for a residential project and the other commercial, a mobile punch clock application takes care of gathering the appropriate data. “I can create different projects with different hourly rates to make it easier for my employees to use timesheets. After that, it’s much faster and easier for the payroll officer to process these digital timesheets,” Jérôme adds.

With the right tool on hand, the risk of errors related to CCQ rates will be greatly reduced. No more headaches trying to untangle timesheets on paper and associating them with the right rates. Once again, you will save a lot of time and you can focus on your construction tasks.

Customer satisfaction

There is more than one advantage to following your project costs in real time. For a cost plus contract, following costs with geo-tracked timesheets allows the client to get an overview of the work done and proof that the contractor is billing the client the actual cost of the labour.

By being able to prove the time actually worked on each step of a project, you can easily gain your customers’ trust. Using a solution like Mobile-Punch could encourage customers to renew their contracts with you.

Manage your timesheets efficiently

The difficulties involved in managing timesheets are especially problematic in the construction field given the complexity of payrolls. With different CCQ rates and employees who work on different sites in a same week, efficient timesheet management is essential.

Jérôme created his own timesheet management solution to respond to these numerous needs. Mobile-Punch geo-tracks the arrivals and departures of employees when they punch in on the job site and each site is associated with a project and the appropriate CCQ rates. The application simplifies payroll processing for managers and ensures that they are only paying the hours actually worked.

Contact our experts to learn more about Mobile-Punch and our specialized solutions for the construction field!

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