Digital timecards replace the paper slip a foreman stuffs in his truck with hours logged on a phone, tagged to a job and cost code, and sent to the office the same day. For a specialty trade sub, the payoff is simple: payroll stops depending on someone's memory on Friday afternoon, and job costing starts using real hours instead of guesses. Here is what to capture, what the law says you must keep, and how to switch without wrecking a pay cycle.
TL;DR
- The Department of Labor does not require any particular timekeeping format. Paper, spreadsheet or app all work if the records are accurate and complete. Digital wins on proof, because it leaves a time-stamped trail.
- Capture hours by job and cost code, not just by person. That is what turns timecards into job profitability data.
- Keep actual clock-in and clock-out times. Automatic rounding is a compliance risk for a small sub.
- If you work on federally assisted projects, weekly certified payroll is due within 7 days of the regular payment date. Clean daily hours make that far easier.
- Test one full pay cycle with one crew before you roll out to everyone.
Table of Contents
- What a digital timecard replaces
- What the law requires you to keep
- What to capture on every digital timecard
- Paper vs. spreadsheet vs. app
- How trade subs actually use digital timecards
- Perspective: why timecards belong with the job, not in a separate app
- Rolling out digital timecards in one pay cycle
- Where Subascent fits
- FAQ
- Sources
What a digital timecard replaces
Picture a masonry foreman with a crew of six. On Monday he writes hours on a scrap of paper. By Thursday he is reconstructing Tuesday. On Friday he hands the office a sheet with two crossed-out numbers and no cost codes. The office admin retypes it into payroll, guesses at the job split, and calls him with questions while he is trying to run the next day's work.
A digital timecard fixes four things in that chain:
- Recall. Hours are entered the day they happen, from the job site.
- Retyping. The numbers go in once. Nobody re-keys a handwritten 7 that looks like a 1.
- Job split. Each entry carries a job and a cost code, so hours land in the right budget line.
- Proof. Every entry has a timestamp, and every edit can be logged.
If you want the foreman's side of this in detail, we wrote up how foremen track crew hours on the job site.
What the law requires you to keep
This part is not optional, and it is where digital records earn their keep. We are a software company, not your attorney. For a specific situation, such as a wage claim or an audit, talk to an employment lawyer or your payroll provider.
No required format, but the records must be complete
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, every covered employer keeps certain records for each non-exempt worker. The Department of Labor's Fact Sheet #21 on recordkeeping says the Act requires no particular form for those records. Hours worked each day and each week, regular hourly rate and total wages paid all have to be there.
So a spreadsheet is legal. The question is whether you can prove what it says. When a crew member disputes his pay or an auditor asks how you got a number, a log with timestamps and an edit history answers the question. A pencil sheet does not.
How long to keep timecards
The same fact sheet says payroll records must be kept at least three years, and records used to compute wages, such as time cards and work schedules, at least two years. A digital system makes this easy: nothing gets lost in a truck, a flooded trailer or a box in someone's garage.
Certified payroll on public work
If you sub on federally assisted construction, the Davis-Bacon rules apply. Contractors and subcontractors submit weekly certified payrolls, and the Department of Labor's WH-347 instructions describe the form for doing it. Under 29 CFR 3.4, each certified payroll is delivered within 7 days after the regular payment date of the payroll period. The WH-347 page also says to preserve the records for 3 years after the prime contract is completed.
Seven days is tight if your hours arrive late and half-legible. It is easy if each day's hours are already sorted by worker, job and classification. Check with the contracting agency on which trade classification applies to each worker. That call belongs to the agency and your payroll person, not to a timecard app.
Rounding and "small" amounts of time
Many timeclock systems round punches to the nearest quarter hour. The DOL's position, in 29 CFR Part 785, Subpart D, is that rounding is acceptable only when it averages out and does not, over time, shortchange employees for time they actually worked. The same subpart addresses insubstantial periods of time, but that exception is narrow: it covers time that cannot practically be recorded, not time you would simply rather not pay for.
Our advice for a trade sub: record actual clock-in and clock-out times and skip automatic rounding. A crew that arrives, loads out and drives to the site has enough gray areas already. If you pay for travel or load-out time under a union agreement, a prevailing wage contract or your own policy, set the rule once and write it down. If you are unsure how the FLSA treats a particular type of time, ask a wage-and-hour attorney before you encode it in software.
What to capture on every digital timecard
The difference between a good timecard setup and a glorified punch clock is the data on each entry. At minimum:
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Worker name | Payroll, certified payroll |
| Date, start and stop times | FLSA hours records |
| Job | Job costing, billing |
| Cost code or phase | Budget vs. actual by line |
| Foreman or approver | Accountability, edit history |
| Notes (weather, delay, rework) | Change order and delay documentation |
| Location stamp at punch | Confirms the crew was at the site |
The cost code is the field most subs skip, and it is the one that pays you back. Say you bid 400 labor hours for rough-in on a tenant improvement and you are at 380 hours with the work 60% done. You want to know that this week, not after closeout. Without coded hours, you find out when the job is over and the money is gone.
On notes: when a crew loses half a day because the GC's drywall was not ready or the lift was not on site, a timecard note tied to that day is the start of a delay claim. We cover that workflow in how foremen document delay events.
Paper vs. spreadsheet vs. app
| Paper | Spreadsheet | Mobile timecard app | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost to start | Near zero | Near zero | Subscription |
| Entered when | End of week | Back at the office | Same day |
| Cost codes | Often skipped | Manual | Built into the entry |
| Retyping into payroll | Yes | Often | No, export or sync |
| Audit trail | None | Weak | Timestamps and edit log |
| Works with poor signal | Yes | No | Depends on the app |
The signal question is real. Basements, parking structures and rural sites lose coverage. Before you commit, ask any vendor whether the app records entries offline and syncs when the phone reconnects. Test it in your worst building.
What it saves
We have put numbers on this for trade subs in our post on mobile timecards for trade subcontractors. The short version: the savings come from admin hours spent retyping and chasing, from payroll errors you stop paying twice for, and from jobs where you finally see overruns early. Your number depends on your crew size and how messy your current process is, so run the math on your own last month of payroll.
How trade subs actually use digital timecards
Trades differ in what they need from the same tool.
- Electrical and low-voltage: crews split days across several small jobs and service calls. Job and cost code selection must take seconds, or foremen will skip it.
- Plumbing and HVAC/mechanical: rough-in, trim and startup phases have different budgets. Phase-level coding shows which stage is bleeding hours.
- Masonry and concrete: weather days and production matter. Pair hours with output, as in our masonry daily production report examples, so you see hours per 100 block, not only total hours.
- Steel/rebar and framing: crews move between sites and often have multiple foremen. Our steel contractor timecard collection guide covers how to collect from scattered crews.
- Drywall, painting, flooring, glazing, insulation, roofing, fire protection: piece-rate or production-based work makes it worth recording quantities alongside hours, which feeds your next estimate.
Once you have a few jobs of coded hours, crew productivity tracking becomes possible. Your estimator can stop using a gut-feel labor rate and start using what your crews did on the last five similar jobs.
Perspective: why timecards belong with the job, not in a separate app
We build software for specialty trade subs, and we see the same mistake again and again. A sub buys a stand-alone time clock, gets clean punches, and then still has no idea whether the job is making money. The hours live in one system, the budget in a workbook, the invoices in QuickBooks.
Our view is that a timecard is job data. It should land on the job it was worked on, against the budget you bid, next to the daily report and the photos from the same day. That is why foremen's hours in our system sit beside the estimate and the schedule of values, and why we sync with QuickBooks instead of asking you to re-enter payroll totals.
We also think software built for general contractors misses this. GC tools track the project as a whole. A sub needs to know that its own 12-person crew spent 31 hours more than bid on level three. That is a smaller, sharper question, and it needs hours coded to your budget lines. We go deeper in our guide to construction software built for subs.
And one practical rule from running crews: if entering time takes a foreman more than about a minute, he will not do it. Design the process around the worst-tempered foreman on your worst day.
— Dave
Rolling out digital timecards in one pay cycle
Do not switch the whole company on a Monday. Use a pilot.
- Pick one crew and one foreman who is not allergic to phones.
- Set up your jobs and cost codes first. Keep the list short. Ten codes per job beats forty.
- Run both systems for one pay cycle. Compare paper and digital totals line by line. Differences show you which habit to fix.
- Train in ten minutes on the tailgate. Punch in, pick the job, pick the code, punch out. Nothing else.
- Set a daily cutoff. Hours are in by end of day, approved by the foreman, reviewed by the office next morning.
- Review the edit log after the first cycle. Frequent corrections point to a confusing screen or a missing code.
- Expand crew by crew.
We walk through the full approach in Mobile Timesheet Rollout: Test One Full Pay Cycle.
Common objections
- "My guys don't want to be tracked." Be clear about what is recorded and why. Hours entered on the day mean fewer disputed checks, and that helps the crew too.
- "Half my crew has no smartphone." The foreman can enter time for the crew from one device, with each worker's hours confirmed. Keep an approval step so the record stays honest.
- "We're too small." A five-person crew loses just as many hours to guessing. The setup is smaller, that is all.
Where Subascent fits
Subascent is job and bid management software for specialty trade subcontractors. Foremen log hours in CrewTrack, our mobile app, which is free for foremen as part of the subscription. The hours tie to jobs and budgets, sync with QuickBooks, and show up beside your estimates, submittals, daily reports and profit analytics, so you see budget vs. actual while the job is still running. You can see how it works at Subascent and try it before you commit.
FAQ
Are digital timecards legally acceptable for payroll records?
Yes. The Department of Labor's Fact Sheet #21 says the FLSA requires no particular form for records. What matters is that they are accurate, complete and retained for the required period. A digital system with timestamps and an edit log makes that easier to prove.
How long do I need to keep construction timecards?
Under the FLSA, wage-computation records such as time cards must be kept at least two years, and payroll records at least three. On Davis-Bacon work, certified payroll records must be preserved for 3 years after the prime contract is completed. Keep them for the longer period if both apply.
Should I round time to the nearest quarter hour?
We recommend against it. The DOL accepts rounding only when it averages out and does not shortchange workers over time. Recording actual start and stop times avoids the question entirely. If you have a specific rounding policy, have an employment attorney review it.
What is the difference between a timecard and a timesheet?
In practice, crews use the words interchangeably. A timecard usually means one person's daily or weekly hours. A timesheet sometimes means a crew-level sheet covering several workers. What matters is that each worker's hours, job and cost code are recorded.
Sources
- Fact Sheet #21: Recordkeeping Requirements under the FLSA, U.S. Department of Labor
- Instructions for Completing Form WH-347, U.S. Department of Labor
- 29 CFR 3.4, Submission of certified payroll, eCFR
- 29 CFR Part 785, Subpart D, Recording Working Time, eCFR