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TAB contractor time tracking

TAB contractor time tracking for techs who balance two buildings before lunch.

TAB contractor time tracking has to follow a balancing tech through short visits at several buildings, return trips for deficiencies and long test days that are mostly waiting. ZeroBadge does it with a company-managed badge: power on starts the shift, each report lands at the building you've drawn, drives are measured on their own, power off ends it. You get hours per job and per visit without a field log.

Get startedSee a worked bid check
  • Hours per visit, per building
  • Return trips visible on their own dates
  • One month or more of battery life*

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

Tue Oct 6

6:30 AM3:50 PM
SODOEast WaterwaySR 991st Ave S4th Ave SI-5S Lander St1 · SHOP & OFFICE6:30 AM · 25M2 · RIVERSIDE7:35 AM · 45M3 · CASCADE SUPPLY8:45 AM · 25M4 · HARBOR YARD9:40 AM · 6H 10MLena
Lena · route
© OpenStreetMap contributors
  1. 6:30 AMShop & OfficeClocked in at the shop, loaded fittingsOn site · 25m
  2. 6:55 AMTransit to RiversideDrive to Riverside Medical PavilionTransit · 40m
  3. 7:35 AMRiverside Medical PavilionCrew hand-over with Marcus T.On site · 45m
  4. 8:20 AMTransit to Cascade SupplyDrive to Cascade Supply Co.Transit · 25m
  5. 8:45 AMCascade Supply Co.Vendor stop: valve pickupVendor · 25m
  6. 9:10 AMTransit to Harbor YardDrive to Harbor YardTransit · 30m
  7. 9:40 AMHarbor Yard Distribution CenterOn site with the Harbor Yard crewOn site · 6h 10m
One shift from 6:30 AM to 3:50 PM.

What ZeroBadge does for you

How ZeroBadge helps testing, adjusting and balancing

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 tech alone in an electrical room or a basement can press the alert button or SOS, and the office sees which building the alert came from.

    Learn more

  • 02

    Workforce management

    See which balancing techs are in which buildings and who is on a return trip, and spot a late start on a test day.

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  • 03

    Automated timekeeping

    Two buildings in one shift stay one shift, with each visit, drive and return trip on its own line from badge on to badge off.

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  • 04

    Workforce productivity

    Compare hours against the bid for each job and see how a return trip nobody bid moved it from on budget to over.

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  • 05

    Location analytics

    GPS and Wi-Fi positioning place each visit at the building you drew, answering which building, not which air handler or terminal unit.

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  • 06

    Field logistics

    Plan balancing teams across schools, offices and medical buildings using the record of visits and return trips for each job.

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  • 07

    AI advisory and analytics

    Ask how many return-trip hours a job has used and get an answer from your own badge records, with each figure linked to the visits 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 balancing hours go

A balancing job is bid as one number and worked as many short visits.

A TAB firm prices a building by its air handlers, terminal units, pumps and coils, then works it over weeks: the air side when ceilings are open, the hydronic side when the plant is running, and whatever trips the deficiency list adds.

  • Two buildings in one shift

    A tech reads a pump and three coils at a school in the morning, then traverses ducts at a medical office in the afternoon. The timecard says eight hours. Neither job knows its share.

  • Return trips nobody bid

    A VAV box with no controller yet, a fire damper still shut, a strainer nobody cleaned. The tech goes back, and the hours land on the job as if the first visit ran long.

  • Test days spent waiting

    Functional testing needs the controls tech, the mechanical foreman and the commissioning agent in the same room. When one is late, your tech is on the clock at the building with nothing to read.

  • The report after the field work

    Readings become a report at the office, often against a closeout date. Report hours are real labor on the job, and they rarely make it onto the job's cost.

A balancing tech's Wednesday

A school, a medical office and a trip back for nine boxes.

Illustrative day for one TAB tech, start to finish.

Field notes and a day total

  1. 6:30The tech picks up the flow hood and the hydronic meter at the office and drives to the school.
  2. MorningPump and coil readings at the school mechanical room. Start and stop times go in the notebook, roughly.
  3. AfternoonAir side at the medical office, then a stop back at the school for nine boxes the controls contractor finished at noon.
  4. FridayThe PM splits the day between two jobs by feel. The return trip disappears into the school's first visit.

Badge record

  1. 6:30Badge on at the office. Instrument pickup is office time on its own line.
  2. MorningArrival and departure at the school are recorded, with the drive there as transit.
  3. AfternoonTime at the medical office, then a second, separate stretch at the school on the same date.
  4. FridayEach job shows each visit. The return trip is its own line, ready to match against the deficiency log.

Commissioning and test days

Pre-functional checks and functional tests are long days at one building.

On a commissioned project the TAB firm supports the commissioning agent: pre-functional checklists, functional performance tests, and sometimes a seasonal retest months later.

  • Pre-functional days

    Checklist work moves around one building for a day or two. The badge places the tech at the building, not at each unit, so the record is one long stretch of time on site.

  • Functional test days

    The full day at the building is recorded, waiting included. Put it beside the test schedule and you can see which tests ate the hours.

  • Seasonal retests

    A heating-season or cooling-season retest months later is a new visit on a new date, against the same job, so it doesn't vanish into last spring's numbers.

  • Who caused the delay

    Not something the badge can tell you. It shows how long your tech was at the building on that date. Back-charge arguments still need the commissioning log and your notes.

Electrical acceptance testing

NETA-style electrical testing crews have the same shape of day.

Firms that also do electrical acceptance and maintenance testing, often to the InterNational Electrical Testing Association (NETA) standards, send crews to switchgear rooms and substations for short, scheduled outages.

  • Night and weekend outages

    An outage window at 10 PM on a Saturday is a shift like any other: badge on, time at the building or yard, badge off. The hours carry their real times.

  • Electrical rooms and basements

    Indoors the badge places itself from the Wi-Fi networks it can see. Where signal drops, it stores reports and uploads them with their original timestamps when it reconnects.

  • One crew, two kinds of work

    A tech who balances air on Monday and tests breakers on Thursday stays on the same badge and the same weekly timesheet.

Report deadlines

Report writing is office time, and the record shows how much of it there was.

  • Draw the office

    Draw your office as a location. Hours spent turning readings into a report show as office time on each tech's day.

  • Which report

    The badge knows the tech was at the office, not which job's report they were writing. Assign office hours to jobs in your own process, as you do today.

  • Closeout crunch

    The week before a closeout date, office hours climb. Seeing it by tech and by week tells you whether the field work or the paperwork is the bottleneck.

  • Credentials

    Many specifications call for a balancing agency certified by AABC, NEBB or TABB. ZeroBadge does not track certifications; keep those records where you keep them now.

Rolling it out

Badge a balancing team in a week.

  1. 01

    Draw the office and active buildings

    Type each active job's address and ZeroBadge draws a geofence you can adjust. Add the office where instruments live and reports get written.

    Office · first day

  2. 02

    Badge each tech

    Every TAB tech and test technician gets a badge tied to their name. Nothing is installed at the building.

    Office · first week

  3. 03

    Add new buildings as jobs start

    A visit to an address you haven't drawn still shows on the tech's day and goes into the review list. Add the building once and later visits land on it.

    PM · as jobs start

  4. 04

    Review, approve, send

    Timesheets build for each Saturday-to-Friday week. Clear the exceptions, approve, and approved hours are sent to your payroll provider.

    Payroll · weekly

Go deeper

Where TAB contractors usually look next.

ZeroBadge AI

Ask ZeroBadge AI about your balancing crews

ZeroBadge AI is read-only. It answers from your badge records, and your admins control who can use it.

  • You ask

    How many hours has the Eastside Clinic job used compared with the bid?

    Eastside has used 118 of 140 bid hours, 84%, including 22 hours across three return trips. The visits are listed by date and building.

  • You ask

    Which buildings did each tech visit yesterday?

    Tech 2 visited a school and a medical office: 6h 10m on site and 1h 05m in transit. Each visit is its own line on one shift.

  • You ask

    How many return-trip hours did we record this month?

    Return trips used 96 hours across 14 visits, with the largest share at Eastside Clinic. Each visit links to its shift 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 TAB contractors ask.

How do TAB contractors track time across several buildings in one day?
Draw each building as a location and give each tech a badge. Every report is placed at a building, so one shift becomes a list of visits with arrival, time on site and departure, plus the drives between them. More in multi-jobsite time tracking.
Can the badge tell which air handler or terminal unit a tech was balancing?
No. Location answers which building, not which unit, floor or room. Your readings and report say what was balanced; the badge says when and where the hours were spent.
Can we use the record to bill a return trip for a deficiency?
The record shows the date, the building and the hours your tech spent there. Whether the trip is billable depends on your contract and the cause, which comes from the deficiency list or commissioning log, not from the badge.
Does it track report writing time?
Time at your office is recorded as office time. The badge can't tell which job's report a tech was writing, so assign those hours to jobs in your own process.
Does ZeroBadge track AABC, NEBB or TABB certifications?
No. ZeroBadge records shifts and time at locations, not credentials or instrument calibration dates. Keep those in your HR or quality records.

Last updated

Get started

See a balancing job's visits, return trips and test days in one record.

We'll walk through ZeroBadge with your techs' days, your bids and your report process in mind.

Get startedSee the platform

What we will walk through

  • 01Hours per visit and per building, drives on their own line
  • 02Return trips dated so they match the deficiency log
  • 03Weekly timesheets, review and the payroll integration