Time tracking for mechanical contractors
Time tracking for mechanical crews, from the fab shop to the rooftop.
Time tracking for a mechanical contractor has to follow fitters, sheet metal mechanics and service techs between project sites, the fab shop and the supply house, often inside one shift. ZeroBadge does it with a company-managed badge: power on and the shift starts, every report is placed at the job, shop or supplier you've drawn, power off and it ends. The office gets hours by job without anyone writing up a crew sheet.
- No phones on the roof
- Field, shop and supplier time split
- One month or more of battery life*
*Under qualifying operating conditions. Battery life varies with reporting frequency, signal conditions, usage, and configuration.
Field & shop
Jobsites
1,004.6 h
Shop
15.3 h
Supplier
6.2 h
Transit
19.0 h
Recorded off the jobsite
Lena O.
Foreman
7h 49m
Marcus T.
Foreman
6h 45m
Diego A.
Foreman
6h 45m
Hannah P.
Apprentice
5h 51m
Lucia Z.
Apprentice
5h 48m
Kenji H.
Apprentice
3h 48m
Nia F.
Apprentice
3h 48m
The other 17 of 24 workers recorded jobsite time only this week.
What ZeroBadge does for you
How ZeroBadge helps mechanical
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 service tech alone on a rooftop or in a plant room can press SOS or the alert button, and the office sees which jobsite the alert came from.
Learn more02
Workforce management
See which fitters and sheet metal mechanics are at the shop, the supply house or a job, and catch a late start before a crane day slips.
Learn more03
Automated timekeeping
One shift can run from the fab shop to the supply counter to a rooftop, and every leg is allocated to its own location without a crew sheet.
Learn more04
Workforce productivity
Track labor hours against the budget on each phased job and see overtime from crane days and startups land on the job that caused it.
Learn more05
Location analytics
GPS covers open roofs and Wi-Fi positioning covers plant rooms, so the record shows which jobsite, the shop or a supplier a tech was at, not which room.
Learn more06
Field logistics
Balance fitters between project sites and the service route by seeing where crews actually spent last week, including shop days and supply-house runs.
Learn more07
AI advisory and analytics
Ask how many hours a phased job has used against its budget and get an answer from your own badge records, with each figure linked to the shifts behind it.
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 mechanical labor hides
Mechanical work splits the day more ways than one job number.
Most mechanical contractors run two businesses on one payroll: long-duration project crews and a service operation, both fed by a fab shop and a handful of supply counters.
Fab shop hours that never reach the job
Duct and pipe spools are built in the shop and installed on site. When shop time goes on a crew sheet as eight hours at the jobsite, the install looks cheaper than it was and the shop looks idle.
Supply-house and sheet metal shop runs
The apprentice who drives to the counter for flanges and a valve at 2 PM is on the clock, and that run belongs to a job. A paper timecard rarely says which one.
Rooftops one week, plant rooms the next
Crews set rooftop units in the open, then pipe a below-grade mechanical room. Signal changes, phones stay in the truck, and the foreman fills the gaps from memory on Friday.
Crane days and startup weeks
A crane pick, a chiller startup or a balancing deadline pulls extra hands onto one job for a few long days. That overtime belongs to that job and those days, not to the crew's weekly average.
A foreman's Tuesday
The shop, a crew hand-over, the supply counter and rooftop units in one shift.
This is one foreman's day at a mechanical contractor. The Harbor Yard foreman clocks in at the shop to load fittings, hands part of her crew over to the hospital renovation, stops at the supply counter for valves, then spends the afternoon with her crew on the rooftop units and process piping.
ZeroBadge keeps it as one shift and allocates every minute: the shop to the shop, the hand-over to the hospital job, the counter stop to the supplier, the drives as transit. The vendor counter is a location you drew, so it shows with its own time instead of vanishing into the next job.
Tue Oct 6
- 6:30 AMShop & OfficeClocked in at the shop, loaded fittingsOn site · 25m
- 6:55 AMTransit to RiversideDrive to Riverside Medical PavilionTransit · 40m
- 7:35 AMRiverside Medical PavilionCrew hand-over with Marcus T.On site · 45m
- 8:20 AMTransit to Cascade SupplyDrive to Cascade Supply Co.Transit · 25m
- 8:45 AMCascade Supply Co.Vendor stop: valve pickupVendor · 25m
- 9:10 AMTransit to Harbor YardDrive to Harbor YardTransit · 30m
- 9:40 AMHarbor Yard Distribution CenterOn site with the Harbor Yard crewOn site · 6h 10m
Phases, budgets and crane days
See a job running ahead of plan while there's still time to act.
Mechanical jobs move through phases: sleeves and underground, rough-in, equipment setting, trim, startup and balancing. ZeroBadge budgets labor per job, in hours, dollars or both, and forecasts the finish from the completion percentage your PM enters. To see one phase, pull the job's recorded hours for the dates that phase ran.
In this week the hospital renovation ran past its planned hours at the same time part of another crew moved onto it. The view shows what changed, where the overtime sat and which records to open. It doesn't guess why; that conversation is the PM's. The same record feeds the weekly site scores in workforce productivity.
Labor by jobsite
Recorded
1,045.2 h
Overtime
95.7 h
Workers
24
Riverside Medical Pavilion
375.0 h
▲ +129.9 h vs prior week · OT 38.3 h◆ Plan 340.0 hHarbor Yard Distribution Center
300.8 h
▼ −97.0 h vs prior week · OT 3.8 hPlan 310.0 hNorthgate Tower
328.9 h
▼ −1.4 h vs prior week · OT 17.6 hPlan 330.0 h
What changed
Riverside Medical Pavilion recorded 375.0 hours, up 129.9 hours (+53%) from the week of Sep 28.
3 workers (Ben C., Mateo G., Rosa D.) recorded time at Riverside from Tue Oct 6 after working at Harbor Yard. Their time accounts for 108.8 of the added hours.
On a mechanical job
The details your PMs and foremen will ask about.
Plant rooms and roofs
Indoors the badge places itself from the Wi-Fi networks it can see, including site Wi-Fi it learns over time; on open roofs, GPS. Below grade it stores reports and uploads them when coverage returns.
Fab shop
Draw the shop as an office location. Shop time is its own line on every timesheet, so fabrication hours stop disappearing into the install.
Service techs
A service tech's route is the same record as a project crew's: badge on, each stop placed at a location you've drawn, badge off. No separate app for the service side.
Labor cost
Add a loaded rate per worker and recorded hours become labor dollars against the job budget, overtime included. No rate entered means unknown cost, never $0.
Rolling it out
Put badges on a mechanical crew without a project of its own.
- 01
Draw the map
Type each jobsite, the shop and your supply houses as addresses. ZeroBadge draws a geofence you can adjust. Nothing goes on the roof or in the plant room.Office · first day
- 02
Assign badges by crew
Each fitter, sheet metal mechanic, apprentice and service tech gets a badge tied to their name. Reassign one in seconds when the crew changes.Office · first week
- 03
Add budgets where you have them
Enter labor hours or dollars per job and update completion as the job moves. Jobs without a budget still get recorded hours.PM · as needed
- 04
Review, approve, send
Timesheets generate for every Saturday-to-Friday week. Clear the exceptions and approve. Approved hours are sent to your payroll provider automatically.Payroll · weekly
Go deeper
Where mechanical contractors usually look next.
- 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.
- SolutionPayroll integrationApproved hours sent to your payroll provider automatically. Nobody re-keys a timecard.
- Industry guideElectrical contractorsCrew mix by job across TI work, service calls and public projects, with no phones needed.
- Industry guidePlumbing contractorsService stops, supply-house runs, after-hours calls and new-construction crews.
- Industry guideHVAC contractorsCommercial service techs, start-ups and maintenance agreements, with every visit placed by building.
- Industry guideGeneral contractorsSelf-perform crews, supers across several projects and manpower by job and day.
- Industry guideSpecialty contractorsSmall crews on many small jobs, with shop time and drives separated, and a page for each specialty.
- Industry guideConstructionGeneral and specialty contractors with crews across several jobsites, the shop and the supply house.
- Platform tourThe platformA walkthrough of what the office sees: crews, jobsites, timesheets, analytics and payroll.
ZeroBadge AI
Ask ZeroBadge AI about your mechanical crews
Ask in your own words. ZeroBadge AI reads only your company's records and links each number to its source.
You ask
How many hours has the Harbor Yard job used against its budget?
Harbor Yard has used 1,184 of 1,500 budgeted labor hours, 79%, while the PM's completion estimate stands at 72%. The weekly hours and the forecast are linked.
You ask
How many fab shop hours did we record last week?
The shop recorded 138 hours on its own line, against 612 hours at project sites. Each figure opens the shifts behind it.
You ask
Which service techs spent the most time at supply counters?
Service tech 4 logged 5h 20m at counters across the week, the most in the service group. The visits are listed by day and supplier location.
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 mechanical contractors ask.
How do mechanical contractors separate install hours from service hours?
How do you track a crew that splits time between the shop and the site?
Does time tracking work on rooftops and in mechanical rooms with weak signal?
Can ZeroBadge track labor against budget on a phased mechanical job?
Does ZeroBadge track EPA 608 or other certifications?
Last updated
Get started
See your shop, your jobs and your service side in one week's record.
We'll walk through ZeroBadge with your crews, your phased jobs and your payroll process in mind.
What we will walk through
- 01How a fitter's shop-to-site day is recorded
- 02Labor by job against budget, with overtime where it happened
- 03Weekly timesheets, review and the payroll integration