Labor cost tracking for field crews
Know which projects are consuming your labor.
Tracking labor cost by job takes three things: the hours each worker spent at each jobsite, a loaded rate for each worker, and a budget to measure against. ZeroBadge supplies the hours automatically from badge-recorded shifts, applies the rates you set, and shows each job's labor cost, budget used, overtime cost and projected final hours at the current pace, with the jobs drifting over budget at the top of the list.
- Labor cost by job, every week
- Budget used against work complete
- Jobs Needing Attention, askable in ZeroBadge AI
Jobs
Job labor · week
$72,608
Overtime cost
$5,736
Need attention
2 of 3
Riverside Medical Pavilion
At riskBudget used 62% · work done 58%5,578 / 5,200 h (+7.3%)
This week 375.0 h · $28,070 · OT $3,683
Northgate Tower
WatchBudget 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 trackBudget 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
How labor job costing works
The inputs that decide whether a labor number can be trusted.
The method is standard. What usually breaks it is the first input: hours by job, written down after the fact.
Hours by job
Recorded from badge-on to badge-off and allocated to the jobsite where each minute was spent. Shop, supplier and transit time stay on their own lines.
Loaded labor rate
Set per worker by office admins: wage plus taxes, insurance and benefits. A worker with no rate shows as unknown cost, never as zero. To work the rate out, see how to calculate labor burden or try the labor burden calculator.
Overtime cost
Your daily and weekly thresholds split each worker's hours into regular and overtime, and the premium is allocated across the jobs that worker's hours went to. See overtime tracking.
Budget and completion
Enter a job's labor budget in hours, dollars or both, and update its percent complete. Projected final hours follow from the two.
Paid vs on-site time
Every paid hour, side by side with the hours actually spent on a jobsite, so travel and stops are visible as a cost.
Who sees it
Labor rates and cost are visible to office admins only. Supervisors and workers never see pay data.
Paid vs on-site time
Every paid hour, and where it was actually spent.
Labor cost by location for the week, at each worker's loaded rate: jobsites first, then the shop, supplier stops and transit between sites. The bar across the top shows how much of the paid week was spent on a jobsite.
Overtime is broken out by location too, so a premium that's building at one job shows up as that job's cost, not as a company-wide average that hides it.
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
Projected final hours
How the projection is calculated, line by line.
Hours to date divided by the completion percentage your project manager entered. No modeled curve and no guessed progress: if completion isn't entered, ZeroBadge shows budget used and stops there.
Riverside Medical Pavilion · project to date
Recorded before this week
Badge-recorded hours to date
2,860 h
+ This week
Week of Oct 5, 2026
375 h
= Hours to date
62% of the 5,200 h budget
3,235 h
÷ Work complete
Entered by the project manager, Fri Oct 9
58%
= Projected final hours
At the current pace
5,578 h
− Labor budget
Over by 7.3%
+378 h
Labor at stake at this week's average loaded rate
378 h × $74.86 ≈ $28,297
A job budget, week by week
Setting up a job budget takes four steps and one number you keep fresh.
The job-cost method is the same whether the job is a tenant improvement or a plant shutdown. The steps below are what you actually do in ZeroBadge, in the order that makes the later numbers trustworthy.
- 01
Set the labor budget
Enter the budget in hours, in dollars or in both. Take it from the bid: the hours you priced, and what you priced them at.Office admin · once per job
- 02
Set loaded rates
A rate for each worker who will charge the job. Leave a rate blank and that worker shows as unknown cost, so the total is flagged as incomplete instead of understated.Office admin · once per worker
- 03
Let the badges record hours
Hours at the jobsite arrive from the shifts. Nobody enters them by job code at the end of the week.Automatic · daily
- 04
Enter percent complete
The project manager updates it weekly. It is the one input that is an estimate, and the projection below is only as good as it is.Project manager · weekly
Worked arithmetic, with the assumptions labelled
Elm Street, week 5: budget used is 51.7%, work complete is 40%, projected labor is 29% over.
Assumptions, all invented for this example: a labor budget of 600 hours at an average loaded rate of $65 an hour, 310 hours recorded at the jobsite to date, and 40% complete as entered by the project manager. Overtime premium is left out to keep the sums readable.
Labor budget in dollars
The sum
600 h × $65
The result
$39,000
Labor cost to date
The sum
310 h × $65
The result
$20,150
Budget used
The sum
310 ÷ 600
The result
51.7%
Projected final hours
The sum
310 ÷ 0.40
The result
775 hours
Projected variance in hours
The sum
775 - 600
The result
+175 h, which is 29.2% over budget
Projected final labor cost
The sum
775 h × $65
The result
$50,375, or $11,375 over the $39,000 budget
Budget used is ahead of work complete by 11.7 points, and that gap is the early warning. The projection assumes the rest of the job burns hours at the pace the first 40% did, so a job with a slow start and a fast finish will read worse than it ends up. Re-enter the completion each week and watch whether the projected final hours settle or keep climbing.
Decisions for ops and finance
What ops and finance do with each number.
Budget used is ahead of work complete
What ZeroBadge shows
Hours used against the labor budget, next to the completion you entered.
The decision
Re-sequence or re-staff the job while most of the work is still ahead.
Projected final hours exceed the budget
What ZeroBadge shows
The projection, the variance in hours and percent, and the job's status in Jobs Needing Attention.
The decision
Price a change order for added scope, or reset the forecast with the owner before closeout.
Overtime cost concentrated on one job
What ZeroBadge shows
Overtime hours and premium cost by job and by week.
The decision
Add a crew member or move one over, instead of paying the premium for the rest of the phase.
A gap between paid and on-site time
What ZeroBadge shows
Transit, shop and supplier time as hours and labor cost.
The decision
Stage material on site, batch supply runs, or change which crew covers which job.
Labor variance month to month
What ZeroBadge shows
Weekly labor cost and hours by job, with change against the prior period.
The decision
Support WIP reporting and over/under billing with recorded hours instead of estimates.
Final labor by job at closeout
What ZeroBadge shows
Recorded hours and loaded cost for the finished job, week by week.
The decision
Feed real labor back into the next bid for similar work.
Scope
ZeroBadge supplies the labor side of job cost. Your accounting system keeps the books.
Materials, equipment, subcontracts and the general ledger stay where they are. ZeroBadge gives your job cost reports badge-recorded hours by job, cost at your loaded rates and a forecast you can explain, and the same hours go to payroll through the payroll integration.
ZeroBadge AI
Ask ZeroBadge AI which jobs are running hot
Ask about budget the way you would ask your estimator. ZeroBadge AI works from labor hours and cost rates already in your records, shows the arithmetic and cannot alter a budget or a timesheet. Admins decide who can use it.
You ask
Which jobs need attention on labor budget?
One. The Harbor Road clinic has used 74% of its labor budget with 58% of the work marked complete. Elm Street is at 52% used against 55% complete, so it is on pace.
You ask
What is the labor cost for Pine Ridge this month?
$38,400 across 640 hours, an average of $60 an hour. Workers with no cost rate set show as unknown cost, never as zero.
You ask
How much paid time last week was not on a jobsite?
98 of 1,310 paid hours, about 7.5%, were transit or other. 64 hours were drive time between sites and 34 hours were supplier or other stops.
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 about labor cost tracking.
How do you track labor costs on a construction or field project?
What is a burdened labor rate, and why use it for job costing?
How is projected final labor calculated?
How do job-cost hours relate to the hours sent to payroll?
Is drive time between jobsites charged to a job?
Keep exploring
Next: productivity, unclear hours and AI answers.
- SolutionWorkforce productivityCrew allocation, labor by project, overtime trends and weekly workforce scores.
- SolutionConstruction overtime trackingThresholds, premium cost and where overtime is building.
- SolutionTracking drive time between sitesDecide how transit is coded before it reaches a job.
- SolutionMulti-jobsite time trackingSite transfers, transit and supply runs inside one shift record.
- SolutionThe cost of unclear labor hoursA transparent calculator for the labor value of unclear hours across your crew.
- SolutionAI workforce analyticsPlain-English questions about your crews, answered from your own records.
Last updated
Get started
See your jobs against their labor budgets.
We'll set up a walkthrough with your jobs, rates and budgets: labor cost by job, forecasts and the jobs that need attention.
What we will walk through
- 01Loaded rates and labor cost by job
- 02Budget used, completion and projected final hours
- 03Overtime cost and paid vs on-site time