Why do you need to switch to electronic timesheets for your construction business?

electronic timesheets

Several construction companies would agree that tracking time of labor is the biggest challenge. So, the need for electronic timesheets for construction teams have become the need of the hour. More so, challenges like data inaccuracies, poor productivity, and improper time management hamper the overall work efficiency.

As a construction business has many moving parts, electronic timesheets for construction can prove to be the best solution to process accurate billings. It also helps employees and employers be accountable regarding wages, hours, and overtime.

Timesheets for construction companies are essential. It works as a pillar for contractors to simplify their processes and stay consistent in the market. 

Let us explore why you should switch to electronic timesheets to make your firm productive:

Say No To Paper Timesheets

One of the reasons you should do so is because paper timesheets are inaccurate. As far as bi-weekly payrolls are concerned, most often, a construction firm requires its workers to submit a completed timesheet that is part of a schedule. This might result in employees not recording their hours on the same day or even for a week. It results in discrepancy as employees may struggle to remember when and what time they left early or late, which day they showed up, etc. Overall, this leads to mistakes and errors that can be detrimental for a construction business with razor-thin margins.

This may not appear to be a big deal at first because, after all, what's a few hours here and there? In fact, research proves that construction companies that use electronic timesheets spend less on their wage bills. Other than that, having technology in place helps you track hours as many employees could end up doing the guesswork where the productive hours are concerned, and this may cost you money in the long run.

Electronic Timesheets For Improved Productivity

It's a fact that maintaining paper timesheets and bookkeeping will result in overwork for your staff. Your staff may have to process payrolls and consult stacks of timesheets every other week. It also takes time to collect timesheets and process payroll for each employee. This is significant as it involves calculations and entering critical data into a computer that carries out computation and deductions and records it for later use.

Now when it comes to electronic time, you can skip many steps while processing timesheets as data is captured automatically and labor records are maintained with the help of payroll software. This makes the process simple, effective, and timely as everyone gets paid in an orderly manner.

Maintains Transparency & Improves Visibility

For construction firms that are still relying on old ways and manual operations, here is a piece of newspaper timesheets that are falsifiable. It does not matter whether you are a big construction enterprise or a small firm with a set of skilled workers; you cannot be everywhere. 

Paper-based processes leave much room for errors as they can be filled by workers who may not be present at the job site. Other than that, there is a risk of always wrong entry or false details entered by someone who left early or showed up late. In most cases, people are honest but not having a robust process in place may lead some of them to err. 

Overall take steps to maintain transparency and improve visibility to strengthen your operations. You should always ensure that your choices, such as technology uptake, should enhance your business.

An electronic system makes everyone accountable as there is no need for someone to be present physically on the project site to check who all came in and for the contractor to supervise. But, an electronic system ensures that anyone who records working hours is present or not. This way, you can check who all checked in or checked out and maintain visibility at each phase of construction.

Go Paperless 

Construction firms that are environment friendly and demonstrate that they are moving away from paper-based processes are generally held in high regard by clients. A small firm can reap benefits as the environmental consciousness grows and you become the preferred firm. 

Apart from this, if you are a giant firm, you could save thousands of dollars per year on ink and paper when you choose to maintain timesheets electronically. Other than that, paper timesheets result in a wastage of paper as everyone fills out a new timesheet and submits it, and after it is processed, it goes straight away to the bin.

Improve Efficiency & Accuracy

You ensure safety and security by tracking documents electronically and storing data on cloud-based software. Paper timesheets can easily lead to discrepancies, and there is room for compromised data wherever manual processes occur. 
This may also result in competitors being able to work out your labor costs and might lead to luring your talented workers away from you. Of course, these are worst-case scenarios, but the point is that security is of utmost importance in an increasingly complex construction landscape.

How can ProjectPro with Business Central help?

ProjectPro with Business Central has the feature of a timesheet. It can help you track expenses, monitor change orders, create billings, and record the resource hours. You can easily record work hours and rates to authorize payroll entries. 

To know more about how ProjectPro helps you manage timesheets, schedule a demo or a consultation call with our construction experts. Say yes to a more cost-effective and secure way of electronic time tracking today!