Capture it as it happens

The further from the moment, the worse the number. Somebody writing down Tuesday on Friday is remembering, and memory rounds up.

Clocking in and out from a phone takes a couple of seconds and happens at the right time. It is one of the few process changes a crew generally does not fight, because it replaces paperwork rather than adding it.

Make it easy to correct, and keep the correction visible

People forget to clock out. The van has no signal in the basement of a building. Somebody clocks in at home by accident. A system with no way to fix a mistake gets worked around, and once it is being worked around it is not a record of anything.

What matters is that a manager can correct an entry, and that the correction is visible rather than silently overwriting what was there. That is the difference between a tidy record and a trustworthy one.

Approve the week before it becomes payroll

There should be a point where somebody looks at the week and says yes. Not to catch people out — mostly to catch the missing clock-out and the day somebody was on a job nobody logged.

Doing it weekly takes a few minutes. Doing it at the end of a month means reconstructing four weeks nobody remembers.

Use the hours to find out what work actually pays

This is the part that pays for the whole exercise. Once hours are attached to jobs, you can put real hours against what you quoted, and the answer is frequently uncomfortable.

Most shops find at least one job type they have been quoting the same way for years and losing money on every time. You cannot see that from revenue; you can only see it from hours.

Know the rules you are working under

Hours, overtime, breaks, travel time and what records you have to keep are governed by federal and state law, and the rules differ depending on where you are and how people are classified. Travel time in particular is not intuitive and catches shops out.

This guide cannot tell you what applies to you, and anyone who tells you confidently without knowing your state is guessing. Ask an accountant or employment advisor in your state. It is a short conversation and much cheaper than the alternative.

Agree what gets clocked

Decide and say out loud whether the clock starts at the yard or at the first job, whether driving between jobs is on the clock, what happens to the supplier run, and how breaks are handled.

Most disputes about hours are not dishonesty. They are two people holding different, equally reasonable assumptions about what counted — and only finding out on payday.