Timesheets that build themselves from the job. Payroll in one file.

Paper and spreadsheet timesheets fail the same way in every shop. A tech fills in the week from memory on Friday. Drive time is a guess. Someone forgot to clock out on Tuesday and the timesheet says 19 hours. The office manager spends Monday morning calling techs, then retypes the totals into the payroll site, then does commissions by hand on top.

TradesWork takes the time from the work itself, flags what looks wrong before anyone approves it, and hands your payroll provider one file.

Where the time comes from

There are three sources of time in TradesWork, and each entry says which one it came from:

• From job status: a tech tapping en route starts drive time, arrived starts on-job time, completed ends it. These are the bulk of a service tech's paid hours, recorded with no extra effort.
• Clock: the Time screen in the field app. Clock in at the shop, switch to Training or Meal break, clock out at the end of the day. When a tech completes a job while on the clock, Between jobs starts automatically, so the gap between calls is accounted for.
• Manual: the office adds or edits time, always with a reason.

The field app queues clock taps when there's no signal and syncs later, and each tap is saved once even if it's sent twice. If you use fleet GPS, drives that match truck positions can be marked GPS-verified.

Time codes

Nine codes are built in: Drive, On job, Between jobs, Shop, Travel, Meal break (unpaid), Rest break, Training and Office. Add your own, such as Supply house or Warranty paperwork, relabel the built-ins, or turn off ones you don't use.

Overtime, by the rules you're under

Federal law requires overtime of at least time and a half for non-exempt employees after 40 hours in a workweek, a fixed 168-hour period; averaging across weeks isn't allowed¹. Some states go further. California, for example, requires overtime after 8 hours in a day as well as after 40 in a week, double time after 12 hours in a day, and special rules for the seventh consecutive day of work².

Hours already counted as daily overtime aren't counted again toward weekly overtime, which is the mistake that makes spreadsheet overtime come out high. Rounding can be off, or 1, 5, 6 or 15 minutes, applied neutrally so it doesn't consistently favor either side. Holidays are a list of company dates.

Exceptions, before they reach payroll

The timesheets page shows each person's regular and overtime hours for the week, with five kinds of exception flagged:

1. Missing clock-out: a clock that was never stopped.
2. Overlap: two entries covering the same minutes.
3. Long drive: a drive longer than 90 minutes (adjustable). Sometimes real, often a forgotten status tap.
4. Gap: 45 minutes or more unaccounted for within a day.
5. Long day: a day spanning more than 16 hours.

Fix each one with a reason. Edits, additions and deletions are all audited, which matters if a pay dispute ever goes further than the office. Federal rules require employers to keep payroll records for at least three years and time cards for two³, and an audit trail of who changed what makes those records more useful.

Approval and what it changes

1. 1

   Open

   The week is in progress. Time keeps arriving from job statuses and the clock.

2. 2

   Submitted

   The tech submits from the field app, or the office submits on their behalf.

3. 3

   Approved

   The office approves and the week locks. Labor cost is written to each job at the person's burdened rate, which feeds job costing.

4. 4

   Exported

   The payroll file is downloaded and marked sent. Reopening any locked week needs a reason.

Approval is what makes job costing honest. Until a week is approved, labor on a job is provisional. Afterward, it's the real cost.

The payroll file

TradesWork prepares payroll; your provider runs it. Pick a layout and download a CSV or Excel file:

Approved performance pay is added as earnings: commission, spiff, bonus, guarantee and adjustments. Pay that hasn't been approved is left out with a warning, so nothing half-reviewed gets paid. People paid on commission only, with no time recorded, still get a row.

How different shops use it

• Residential HVAC and plumbing service: most paid time is drive and on-job time, so job statuses do nearly all the work. The clock covers the morning at the shop and the supply house run. Watch the long-drive exception in summer, when techs forget to tap arrived on back-to-back calls.
• Install crews: a lead and a helper assigned to a two-day changeout each get time from the job's statuses, with the clock covering anything else. Helpers and apprentices who work in the field take a seat like any tech, so their time comes from the app rather than from paper.
• Electrical and commercial work: longer jobs mean fewer status taps and more clock time. Custom codes such as Material pickup or Inspection wait help explain long days without editing them away.
• Shops in California: turn on the California preset before the first week, not after the first payroll. Retroactive overtime fixes are the most expensive kind.

Who this fits

This fits shops paying hourly techs with some performance pay, using Gusto, ADP or QuickBooks for payroll, and tired of reconstructing weeks by hand. It's a weaker fit if you need certified payroll for prevailing-wage public work, union fringe reporting, or a provider that only accepts a live API connection.