Time tracking for general contractors
Time tracking for general contractors who run several projects at once.
Time tracking for general contractors has to cover two groups at once: the self-perform crews who get moved between projects, and the superintendents who split a week across several jobs. ZeroBadge gives each of your own employees a company-managed badge. Power on starts the shift, every report is placed at the project you've drawn, and the weekly timesheet shows hours by project, crew and day without a daily crew sheet.
- Supers' time split by project
- Self-perform hours by job and day
- One month or more of battery life*
*Under qualifying operating conditions. Battery life varies with reporting frequency, signal conditions, usage, and configuration.
Crews by jobsite
Jobsite | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Riverside | 6 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 375.0 |
| Harbor Yard | 10 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 300.8 |
| Northgate | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 328.9 |
What ZeroBadge does for you
How ZeroBadge helps general 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
A self-perform laborer or carpenter can press the alert button, and the office sees which project raised it, with restricted areas drawn around hazards.
Learn more02
Workforce management
See the contractor's own crews and general-conditions staff by project, and spot a late start before the day's work is sequenced.
Learn more03
Automated timekeeping
Badge on starts the day for self-perform crews and superintendents, so a super's week across several projects is recorded in one place.
Learn more04
Workforce productivity
Compare self-perform hours with the budget for each project, so owners and lenders get recorded labor rather than estimates.
Learn more05
Location analytics
GPS outdoors and Wi-Fi inside place each employee at a project, with manpower by day coming from the badge record.
Learn more06
Field logistics
Move self-perform crews between projects using recorded hours and progress against plan, so the project falling behind gets people first.
Learn more07
AI advisory and analytics
Ask ZeroBadge AI how many of your own employees were on each project each day last month, from the badge 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 a general contractor's hours hide
The hours that go missing are the ones nobody owns.
A subcontractor's labor sits in one scope. A general contractor's own labor is spread across general conditions, self-performed work and the people holding several projects together.
The super who works three projects
A superintendent covering a ground-up building, a tenant improvement and a closeout is on the clock for all three. The week's hours get split across the jobs by estimate, so one project is charged for a day the super spent somewhere else.
General-conditions labor with no home
Cleanup crews, temporary protection, daily dumpster swaps and site setup are paid labor that belongs to a project's general conditions. On a crew sheet they become a round number on whichever job the foreman remembered.
Self-perform crews moved on short notice
When the framing sub slips, the super sends the carpenters to another project for two days. The first job still carries the full week, and the second one looks cheaper than it was.
Warranty and punch crews on finished jobs
A small crew returns to a building you closed out in the spring to fix a door frame and a ceiling tile. Those hours are real cost against a project that already shows as done.
The question an owner or lender asks on a Monday
How many of your people were on that job last Thursday, and how many hours did they put in? Answering from memory takes a phone call to the super, and the answer is rounded.
A general contractor's week
A week with three projects open, and who was actually where.
Illustrative week for a GC with a ground-up building, a tenant improvement and a closeout all active.
Crew sheet and daily log
- MonThe super splits the day across two projects in her head. The daily log shows one.
- WedTwo carpenters and a laborer are moved to the tenant improvement after lunch. The sheet still says the ground-up job.
- ThuA lender's inspector asks for last week's manpower. The PM calls three supers.
- FriThe office rebuilds the week from daily logs, texts and each foreman's best recollection.
Badge record
- MonThe super's badge shows morning hours at the building, a drive, and the afternoon at the tenant improvement.
- WedThe transfer appears on the day it happened. Each carpenter's afternoon is on the second project, the drive is transit.
- ThuHeadcount and hours for any project and day are one lookup, taken from the badges your people wore.
- FriTimesheets are already split by project. The office clears the flagged items and approves.
When the super moves a crew
The transfer shows up on the day it happened.
General contractors reshuffle self-perform crews constantly, because the schedule moves under them. The record keeps one shift per worker and shows which project each stretch of it belonged to, with the drive in between kept as its own line.
That is the evidence behind a back-charge conversation or a change order: not what the foreman recalls, but which of your people were recorded at that building on those days. More on how site transfers are kept in multi-jobsite time tracking.
Crew allocation
On site
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
- Riverside610999
- Harbor Yard107777
- Northgate88888
Site transfers detected
- Ben C.Harbor Yard → Riverside · Tue
- Mateo G.Harbor Yard → Riverside · Tue
- Rosa D.Harbor Yard → Riverside · Tue
Lena O. · Tue Oct 6
4 locations in one shift, 1h 35m in transit, still one record.
Phases and cost codes
What the record covers, and what stays with the foreman or accounting.
ZeroBadge allocates hours to the jobsite. It knows where a person was, not which line of the estimate the work belonged to.
Self-perform scopes inside one project
Concrete flatwork, rough carpentry, drywall patching and finish work on the same job all land on that job's hours. Splitting them by cost code is the foreman's split or your accounting system's, but the total to split now comes from the record, not an estimate.
General conditions versus direct labor
Draw the project once. Pull hours for the dates cleanup and protection ran, or for the people on your general-conditions list, and you have that line without a separate timecard.
Phases by date
A phase is a stretch of dates. Mobilization, structure, enclosure, interiors and closeout are each the project's recorded hours for the weeks they ran, which is how you compare them from one project to the next.
Labor against budget
Enter a labor budget per project in hours, dollars or both, and update completion as the job moves. See labor cost tracking. A worker with no rate entered shows an unknown cost, never $0.
Payroll wrinkles
The payroll questions that come with several projects and mixed funding.
Overtime across projects
Weekly overtime belongs to the person's whole week, not to one job. The record keeps each project's share of the hours so you can allocate the overtime after the fact by whichever rule your company uses.
Public and private projects in one week
A carpenter can spend Monday on a public school and the rest of the week on a private tenant improvement. Hours by worker, day and project stay separate on export. Rates, fringes and any certified payroll forms are handled in your payroll process; confirm each contract's rules with your payroll provider or counsel.
Travel between projects
The drive from one project to the next is measured as transit and shown on its own line. Whether it is paid, and at what rate, follows your policy and your state's rules.
Salaried staff
Superintendents and project engineers on salary can wear badges too. The hours do not change their pay; they tell you how a project's general conditions are really staffed.
Why phone-based clocks fail a general contractor
Your own workforce changes faster than an app can keep up.
Laborers and temporary hires without a company phone
Seasonal laborers and short-term hires are the people a super moves around most. Asking each of them to install an app on a personal phone is a rollout you repeat every time the roster changes.
Site rules about phones
Owners and insurers on some projects limit phone use in the building, and a clock that lives on the phone leaves the foreman punching for the crew from memory.
A geofence per project, set up per person
App-based clocks usually tie each person to a job list. When the super moves a crew, someone has to change the list first or the hours land on the wrong job.
Rolling it out
Start with the people you move, not the whole company.
- 01
Draw every active project and the yard
Type each address. ZeroBadge draws the geofence and you adjust it. Add your shop, laydown yard and the supply houses your supers use.Office · first day
- 02
Badge the self-perform crews and the supers
These are the people whose hours get split. Add the rest of the roster once the first week looks right.Office · first week
- 03
Ask one new question each week
Start with headcount by project, then supers' time, then labor against budget. Each one reads from the same record.PMs · weekly
- 04
Approve and send
Weekly timesheets run Saturday to Friday. Clear the flagged items, approve, and approved hours go to your payroll provider.Payroll · weekly
Go deeper
Where general contractors usually look next.
- Industry guideConstructionGeneral and specialty contractors with crews across several jobsites, the shop and the supply house.
- SolutionMulti-jobsite time trackingSite transfers, transit and supply runs inside one shift record.
- SolutionLabor cost trackingLoaded rates, job budgets and forecasts from badge-recorded hours.
- SolutionWorkforce productivityCrew allocation, labor by project, overtime trends and weekly workforce scores.
- SolutionPayroll integrationApproved hours sent to your payroll provider automatically. Nobody re-keys a timecard.
- Industry guideSpecialty contractorsSmall crews on many small jobs, with shop time and drives separated, and a page for each specialty.
- Industry guideMechanical contractorsField, fab shop and supplier time for HVAC, piping and sheet metal crews.
- Platform tourThe platformA walkthrough of what the office sees: crews, jobsites, timesheets, analytics and payroll.
ZeroBadge AI
Ask about manpower and projects
Plain-English answers come only from your own company's records, and every number links to the records behind it.
You ask
How many of our own workers were on the Civic Center project each day last week?
Civic Center had 14, 16, 16, 12 and 9 of your own employees Monday to Friday. Each day's list of names links to its badge records.
You ask
How many hours did the superintendent spend at each project this month?
The superintendent recorded 74 hours at Civic Center, 52 at Maple Lofts and 31 at the office. The split links to the daily visits.
You ask
Which projects are using self-perform labor faster than budget?
Maple Lofts is at 68% of budgeted self-perform hours and Civic Center at 52%, and both link to their weekly hours.
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 worksQuestions
Questions general contractors ask.
Can a general contractor track subcontractor headcount with ZeroBadge?
How do you split a superintendent's hours across several projects?
Does ZeroBadge give owners or lenders a manpower report?
Does it track labor by cost code?
Do project engineers and salaried supervisors need badges?
Last updated
Get started
See your projects, your supers and your self-perform crews in one week.
We'll walk through ZeroBadge with your active projects, the people you move between them and the manpower questions you get asked.
What we will walk through
- 01How a super's split week and a crew transfer are recorded
- 02Headcount and hours by project and day
- 03Weekly timesheets, review and the payroll integration