The problem this solves
Payroll Friday. Your foreman texts you the hours for the week. Three of those numbers are wrong because the helper "thinks" he worked nine hours on the Smith job Wednesday but you remember sending him to the Garcia job for two of those hours. You ask. He shrugs. You pick a number.
Six months in, this happens enough that the per-job profit numbers you look at every Friday have a margin of error of about 15 percent. The Smith pool that "made" $4,800 maybe made $2,200 once the labor was actually allocated right. You bid the next one off a bad baseline.
The duct-tape fix is a paper timesheet or a Connecteam-style time-clock app that lives separately from the rest of your business. Both work, in the sense that they capture hours. Neither one ties the hours to the right job at clock-in time, which is the moment when the data is still accurate. By Friday, the helper has worked four jobs and the allocation is a guess.
How Workhand handles it
Time tracking lives inside the job, not outside it. The worker opens the Smith pool job, taps Clock In. Workhand starts the timer. A banner across every screen shows "On the clock, Smith pool, 1h 23m" until they tap Clock Out. They can navigate to other parts of the app, take a photo for the daily log, send a chat message, scan a receipt, the timer stays accurate the whole time.
If they get a call to swing by the Garcia job, they tap Clock Out on Smith, open Garcia, tap Clock In. Two separate entries, two separate jobs, zero memory required. The hours land where they belong from the start.
Owners and admins see the company-wide Time report. Hours per user, hours per job, hours per period, billable versus non-billable. Export to CSV for payroll. Same numbers feed the per-job profit calculation so margins update in real time.
| What you get | How it works |
|---|---|
| Per-job clock in and out | Open the job, tap Clock In. Hours land on that job automatically. No allocation guessing. |
| Active timer banner | Top-of-app banner stays visible across every screen until clock out so workers never forget. |
| Billable hours toggle | Yes or no per entry. Billable hours feed customer invoices and profit. Non-billable stays in the report. |
| Offline support | Clock in and out without signal. Hours queue locally and sync within 30 seconds of regaining connection. |
| Edit after the fact | Owner or admin can fix a forgotten clock-out, add notes, correct the start time. Audit trail kept. |
| Employee role scoping | Employees see their own time only. Owners and admins see the full company time report. |
| Time report | Hours per user, job, and period. CSV export for payroll Friday. |
| Feeds profit per job | Labor hours times rate roll into the per-job cost total. Margin updates as time gets logged. |
Why per-job clock-in beats general time clocks
Most construction time-clock apps are general-purpose. The worker clocks in for the day, the office figures out later which jobs the hours should hit. That is fine for a roofing crew that does one roof per day. It falls apart for any contractor whose crew hits two or three jobs in a single day, which is most small contractors.
Two specific things change when the clock-in starts from inside a specific job:
- The allocation is accurate at the moment it happens. Not reconstructed Friday from memory. Not assigned by a foreman who was somewhere else. The worker tapped Clock In on the Smith job, the hour landed on Smith.
- The job costing math becomes real. When 90 percent of hours are allocated right at clock-in, the per-job profit number you look at on Friday is actually true. You stop bidding next year's pool $4,000 too low because last year's pool "made" money that it didn't.
Why we don't do GPS
Workhand intentionally does not require GPS tracking or geofencing. Three reasons.
First, geofencing is a trust signal in the wrong direction. The contractors we work with run crews of two to ten people who they've known for years. Putting them on a leash sends a message that costs more in morale than it saves in time theft. Second, GPS surveillance creates legal and labor relations exposure that small contractors do not need. Third, the actual time theft problem at small scale is "the helper forgot to clock out at 5pm and didn't notice until 8pm," which is solved by the per-job clock-in flow and the edit-after-the-fact tool, not by geofences.
If your crew is over 50 and you genuinely need geofencing, ServiceTitan or Connecteam can give you that. Workhand is built for the contractor for whom that level of surveillance is overkill and bad for the working relationship.
Who this is built for
- Pool builders running crews across concrete, plaster, equipment, and screen install on overlapping builds
- Remodelers with crew rotating across kitchens, baths, and additions in the same week
- HVAC service techs hitting four to six jobs a day where per-job allocation is the whole point
- General contractors with field PMs running multiple jobs and needing accurate labor cost per job
- Solar installers running install crews where one big job hits over multiple days
- Landscape and hardscape contractors with crews moving between maintenance accounts and design-build jobs
- Roofers and framers where the same crew lands on a different job most days
Try Workhand free
Free plan includes time tracking on 1 active job. Upgrade to Pro at 34.99 per month for unlimited jobs, or Team at 89.99 per month for up to 15 users. 14-day free trial on paid plans.
Get the app See pricingCommon questions
How does crew time tracking work in Workhand?
Each worker opens the job they are working on, taps Clock In, and Workhand starts counting. A banner at the top of every screen shows the active timer until they tap Clock Out. Hours land on the right job automatically because the clock-in started from inside that job. No timesheets at end of week, no guessing which hours belonged to which build.
Does Workhand use GPS to verify employees are on the jobsite?
No. Workhand does not require GPS tracking, geofencing, or location surveillance. Crews report what they worked, owners trust them, and the per-job clock-in flow makes it harder to clock in on the wrong job by accident. If you need geofencing, the trust model in Workhand probably is not the right fit for your crew. For most small crews under 15, GPS surveillance is overkill and bad for morale.
Does time tracking work offline?
Yes. Clock in, clock out, and time entry edits all work without signal. The action queues locally and syncs automatically the second the device gets signal again. The active timer banner stays accurate even when offline so workers can see they are on the clock. This is the difference between losing an hour in a basement remodel and capturing it.
Can my employees see each other's hours?
No. Employee role only sees their own time entries. Owner and admin (PM) roles see the full company time report with hours per user per job. This is enforced at the database level, not just hidden in the UI, so an employee cannot get around it by switching screens. Sales and sub roles do not see time data at all.
Can I edit hours after the fact?
Yes. If a worker forgot to clock out at end of day, owners and admins can edit the end time with one tap. Notes can be added per entry to explain corrections. The edits are tracked so payroll Friday has a clear audit trail of what was modified and when.
What is the billable hours toggle?
Each time entry has a billable yes/no toggle. Billable hours feed customer invoices and per-job profit. Non-billable hours (training, internal meetings, equipment moves, lunch breaks for hourly crews) stay in the report but do not roll into invoiceable time. Default is billable. Flip it to non-billable on the specific entries that should not be charged.
Does time tracking cost extra on Workhand?
No. Time tracking is included on every plan, including Free. Free supports 1 active job and 1 team member which covers solo operators. Pro at 34.99 per month adds unlimited jobs. Team at 89.99 per month supports up to 15 users so the whole crew can clock in and out from their own phones.
How do the hours connect to payroll and profit per job?
Time tracking is wired into both reports. The Time report shows hours per user per period for payroll, exportable to CSV. The per-job costing report rolls labor hours times rate into the cost-of-job total, which feeds the profit and margin number you see on the job. One source of truth, two ways to slice it.