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Drywall contractor time tracking

Drywall contractor time tracking for crews of twenty, where labor is most of the bid.

Drywall contractor time tracking has to count big crews on short phases: framers lay out and stand studs, hangers cover a floor in days, finishers tape and coat in rounds with dry time between, and sanders come last. Labor is most of the bid, so an hour lost is margin lost. ZeroBadge records every worker from a company-managed badge, places the day at the building you drew, and gives the office a headcount and an hours total by building and day.

Get startedSee hours per phase
  • Headcount by building and day
  • Hours per phase against the bid
  • One month or more of battery life*

*Under qualifying operating conditions. Battery life varies with reporting frequency, signal conditions, usage, and configuration.

Paid vs on site

Paid time · 1,045.2 h

On a jobsite 96.1%

  • Jobsite
  • Shop / office
  • Supplier stop
  • Between locations
  • RiversideJobsite375.0 hOT 38.3 h · $28,070
  • Harbor YardJobsite300.8 hOT 3.8 h · $20,530
  • NorthgateJobsite328.9 hOT 17.6 h · $24,008
  • ShopShop / office15.3 hOT 14.8 h · $1,496
  • Cascade SupplySupplier stop6.2 hOT 5.8 h · $386
  • Transit between locationsBetween locations19.0 hOT 15.4 h · $1,595

Loaded labor cost

$76,085

Overtime share

11.6%

OT hours at loaded rate + premium

Overtime rule shown: after 8 hours in a day or 40 regular hours in a week. Overtime cost adds a 0.5× premium on base wage to the loaded hourly rate. Your own payroll rules apply.

What ZeroBadge does for you

How ZeroBadge helps drywall and framing contractors

One company badge per worker covers safety alerts, timekeeping, labor analytics and ZeroBadge AI. Here is what each part does in your line of work.

  • 01

    Worker safety

    On a floor with twenty or thirty workers, anyone can press the alert button and the office sees which jobsite raised it.

    Learn more

  • 02

    Workforce management

    See how many people are on each floor's job today against the plan, and who is late or missing before the crew falls behind.

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  • 03

    Automated timekeeping

    Badge on starts the day for every hanger, taper and framer without a phone, and hours stay recorded per worker even when pay is by the sheet.

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  • 04

    Workforce productivity

    Compare hours recorded for frame, hang, tape and finish against the bid for each project, so a phase running long shows early.

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  • 05

    Location analytics

    GPS outdoors and Wi-Fi inside place each worker at the project, so the record counts real crew size by day, not by floor.

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  • 06

    Field logistics

    Move hangers or finishers between projects using recorded hours per phase, so the crew sized for tape is not still on hanging.

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  • 07

    AI advisory and analytics

    Ask ZeroBadge AI how many people worked each phase of a project, and the answer links to the daily records.

    Learn more

Safety alerts support your safety program. They do not replace supervision or training, ZeroBadge does not monitor alerts or contact 911, and in an emergency workers should call 911.

Where drywall hours hide

Twenty-five people on a floor produce a crew sheet that is a guess.

Drywall is bid on labor: so many hours per thousand square feet to hang, so many to finish. When a foreman is running a crew that size, the sheet at the end of the day is built from memory.

  • A foreman can't watch twenty-five arrivals

    People come in over forty minutes. Some start with the framers, some pick up material on the way, some are sent to another floor. The sheet shows a round start time for everyone.

  • Floors that overlap phases

    Hangers are on six while finishers coat five and framers are still laying out seven. One crew sheet for the building cannot say how many people were in which phase, so no phase has its own hours.

  • Dry time and return rounds

    Joint compound has to dry between coats. The finishing crew leaves a floor and returns the next day for the second coat, then a third. Hours for the same floor appear over several days, and the estimate for finishing is a single number.

  • Backing, blocking and the work nobody priced

    A change in a wall layout means opening and closing frame that was already hung. That rework lands on whatever phase is open that day.

  • Material handling

    Board is delivered to a dock or a hoist and moved to the floor by hand. For a big job that is a labor line of its own, and it is almost never coded as one.

  • Punch list in the last week

    Dents, patches and touch-ups after other crews are paid labor on a floor that is supposed to be finished.

A headcount you can read

How many people were here, for how many hours, on which day.

Draw the building as a jobsite. Every badge placed there that day is a person on the job, with their own arrival, departure and total. A twenty-five-person day reads as twenty-five lines, not a foreman's rounded estimate.

To split hours by phase, use the schedule you already keep. Hangers were on floors 5 and 6 from Monday to Wednesday; finishers were on 4 and 5 from Tuesday to Friday. Pull the building's hours for each group on those dates. The badge supplies who and how long. Your schedule supplies what they were doing.

Jobs

Job labor · week

$72,608

Overtime cost

$5,736

Need attention

2 of 3

  • Riverside Medical Pavilion

    At risk

    Budget used 62% · work done 58%5,578 / 5,200 h (+7.3%)

    This week 375.0 h · $28,070 · OT $3,683

  • Northgate Tower

    Watch

    Budget used 44% · work done 44%9,702 / 9,600 h (+1.1%)

    This week 328.9 h · $24,008 · OT $1,672

  • Harbor Yard Distribution Center

    On track

    Budget used 71% · work done 73%7,234 / 7,400 h (−2.2%)

    This week 300.8 h · $20,530 · OT $380

Work complete, as entered · bar = budget hours used

Projected final = hours to date ÷ completion % entered by the project manager. Cost applies each worker's loaded hourly rate.

Piece rate and hourly

Paying by the sheet doesn't remove the hours.

Many hangers are paid by the sheet or the square foot. The badge doesn't change how anyone is paid. It records the hours, which a piece-rate worker's week still needs.

  • Hours worked are still hours worked

    A hanger paid per sheet still spends a measurable number of hours at the building. Those hours are recorded by worker, building and day so they're available for whatever your payroll rules and your state's wage rules require. Confirm the details with your payroll advisor.

  • Rate per hour as a cross-check

    Divide a worker's piece-rate earnings by the recorded hours. It's a quick way to see whether a rate is being met or where a hanger spent time on non-piece work like moving material.

  • Output stays in your system

    The badge doesn't count sheets hung. Your foreman's takeoff or your pay sheet supplies output; the badge supplies hours. Together they give hours per thousand square feet.

  • Mixed pay on one job

    Hourly framers beside piece-rate hangers need no special setup. Each worker's hours are separate and your payroll provider applies the pay rule that belongs to them.

Payroll wrinkles

Public jobs, overtime pushes and crews that move up and down.

  • Large crews on public work

    A school or a courthouse can mean twenty or thirty names a day. Hours carry each worker's name, building and date, which is the shape certified payroll preparation needs. Those forms stay in your payroll process; see payroll integration.

  • Manpower that swings week to week

    Crews ramp up for hang and drop off for finish. A worker added midweek has a short week with no special entry; the record starts the first day their badge was on.

  • Overtime to hold a schedule

    A Saturday push to beat a ceiling or paint start shows on that day by building, so the overtime goes against the job that required it.

  • Late arrivals and early departures

    With a crew this size, the exceptions list shows late starts and early finishes against the schedule, so a foreman's word is not the whole record. How attendance is handled stays your policy.

Why phones don't work on drywall

Mud on the hands, dust in the air, stilts underfoot.

  • Wet compound and fine dust

    Finishers' hands are covered in mud, and sanding fills the air and every surface with gypsum dust. A phone in a pocket takes it all, and a punch is the last thing on anyone's mind.

  • Stilts and ladders

    Taping a ceiling on stilts or hanging overhead board takes both hands and full attention. Reaching for a phone isn't part of the job.

  • A crew too large to punch for

    When one foreman punches in the whole crew from a list, mistakes follow. Each worker's own badge is switched on at the start of their shift.

Rolling it out

Badge a full crew on one building first.

  1. 01

    Draw the building and the supply stop

    Type the address, adjust the geofence, and add the board supplier if crews pick up material.

    Office · first day

  2. 02

    Badge one whole crew

    A partial crew gives a partial headcount. Put every framer, hanger and finisher on the building on badges together so the day reads completely.

    Office · first week

  3. 03

    Compare hours per thousand to the bid

    At the end of a phase, divide recorded hours by square feet completed and set the result next to your bid rate.

    Estimator · each phase

  4. 04

    Approve and send

    Timesheets run Saturday to Friday. Clear the exceptions, approve, and approved hours are sent to your payroll provider.

    Payroll · weekly

Go deeper

Where drywall and framing contractors usually look next.

ZeroBadge AI

Ask about crews and phases

Answers come from your own recorded hours in plain English, every number links to its records, and ZeroBadge AI only reads, never changes.

  • You ask

    How many hours did the hanging crew record on the Kensington Tower fourth floor?

    The hanging crew recorded 412 hours across 11 days, with a peak of 31 workers on one day. The daily crew counts link to the records.

  • You ask

    Which projects have more finishing hours than bid so far?

    Kensington Tower has used 540 of 480 bid finishing hours, and Lakeside Clinic 190 of 200. Both link to the weekly hours.

  • You ask

    What was the largest crew we had on site last Wednesday?

    Kensington Tower had 29 badges on site at once on Wednesday. The time and names of everyone present are in the linked record.

Answers come only from your company's own records. Every number links to the records behind it. Read-only; admins control access.

How ZeroBadge AI works

Questions

Questions drywall and framing contractors ask.

How do I track hours for a large drywall crew without a foreman punching everyone in?
Give each worker a company-managed badge. It is switched on at the start of their own shift and placed at the building you drew, so every arrival, departure and total belongs to a person, not to a foreman's list.
Can it separate hang hours from finish hours?
Not by itself. A badge places a person at a building, not on a task. Use your schedule for which group was on which floors and which dates, then pull the building's hours for those dates. That gives hours per phase against your bid.
We pay hangers by the sheet. Do we still need hours?
Recorded hours are still available for each worker, and wage rules for piece-rate work vary by state and by agreement. Check with your payroll advisor. ZeroBadge supplies the hours; it doesn't set how anyone is paid.
Does it count sheets hung or square feet finished?
No. The badge records presence and time, not output. Your takeoff or foreman's report supplies the square feet, and dividing recorded hours by it gives hours per thousand square feet.
What does it do for a jobsite with several floors in different phases?
It records the whole building as one location, so several phases at once show as one headcount. For floor-level costing, note which floor each group was on and pull hours for those dates. See labor cost tracking for budgets.

Last updated

Get started

See a twenty-person floor as a real headcount and an hours total.

We'll walk through ZeroBadge with your crews, your active buildings and the way your bid is built by phase.

Get startedSee the platform

What we will walk through

  • 01How a large crew's day reads by worker, not by foreman's list
  • 02Hours per thousand square feet against your bid
  • 03Weekly timesheets, review and the payroll integration