www.jobclock.com - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

pstorey · 06-09-2007, 09:14 AM

Anyone use this for timetracking?

Chris Johnson · 06-09-2007, 03:05 PM

Yea, we used the 30 day trial, I have returned to my old fashioned way, I did not really see the need, as guys changed jobs i.e. concrete forming to steel work to conventional framing they had to go to the truck sign out, sign back in etc, etc. it seemed to cost me more time waiting for that then to save a few bucks on a guy a minute or so late in the morning or leaving early. I'm on site daily (First in, Last to leave) so I know if I have a habitually late guy or a slacker

SmithBuilt · 06-09-2007, 05:57 PM

After they sent me a price I decided it was not for my co.

**denick** · 06-09-2007, 08:57 PM

We have used it for three years. We had 5 employees when we started. We figure it took 5 months to get our investment back. We also figure it has saved us money for the other 31 months. If you have specific questions I would be glad to answer them.

Mike Finley · 06-09-2007, 09:06 PM

I think Job Clock or one of it's rivals is a must have, the think I just don't like is the idea of having to buy a palm computer to use it.

plazaman · 06-11-2007, 04:57 AM

I could only it useful when doing a large project with a good amount of crew.

I mean, do we really need to track man hours on bath remodel? Pros should have the experience how long it takes and how many man hours

Mike Finley · 06-11-2007, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by plazaman

I mean, do we really need to track man hours on bath remodel?

I don't need to track man hours with a device like Job Clock, I need to maximize profits by not paying for rounded up hours and eliminate any 'forgetfulness'. I also need to be able to verify consistant workday starts with out being there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by plazaman

Pros should have the experience how long it takes and how many man hours

So I'm supposed to tell one of my guys that this job was supposed to take exactly 33.65 hours for your part of it so that's all I'm paying you for?

What you are saying doesn't make much sense.

SeanATL · 06-11-2007, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Finley

I don't need to track man hours with a device like Job Clock, I need to maximize profits by not paying for rounded up hours and eliminate any 'forgetfulness'. I also need to be able to verify consistant workday starts with out being there.

So I'm supposed to tell one of my guys that this job was supposed to take exactly 33.65 hours for your part of it so that's all I'm paying you for?

What you are saying doesn't make much sense.

Here's something to consider. I don't know how much job clock is, but I can tell you one thing I use for my estimator. My jobs are peicework, so I don't need anything for that.

For about $300 upfront and $15 a month, you can put a GPS device on the car and know when it started, when it got to the job site, when it left the job site, etc. I love it. If I know someone was suppose to be somewhere, I can make sure they were. They also know I can know where they are at all times, so it's like I'm riding everywhere with them.

No telling me you "couldn't find the address" when I know good damn well you never left your house.

I got this idea from work I've done with trucking companies.

Here's what I use:

www.vehiclepath.com

MattCoops · 06-11-2007, 04:15 PM

Does Microsoft Project supplement this device?

**denick** · 06-11-2007, 07:21 PM

When we were looking at the jobclock system we looked at the simplest application of the system. Clocking in, in the morning and out in the afternoon. If you save 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon = 30 minutes x 5 days = 2.5 hours x 50 weeks = 150 hours x your cost???? ($25.00) = $ 3,750.00 in 1 year for 1 employee.

We had actually looked at the system for a documentable recording of our presence at the job-site. Our customers are almost never around during the week. And 1 incident really made it clear to us we should do something.

We did find that an employee that was with us for a long time that is always on time when he goes to the shop for 7 AM. Who always had 7 AM on his time card when going directly to a job. Could never get to a jobsite before 7:20 AM after we started using the system.

There are other things that we have found to be benefits.

Mike Finley · 06-11-2007, 07:29 PM

Sean, somebody told me you can get some of those GPS benefits from cell phones now too. Would be pretty cool if you supplied company cell phones anyways and could log on and see where they are.

POOLMANinCT · 06-11-2007, 08:29 PM

is this a trust thing or a billing thing?

plazaman · 06-11-2007, 09:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Finley

I don't need to track man hours with a device like Job Clock, I need to maximize profits by not paying for rounded up hours and eliminate any 'forgetfulness'. I also need to be able to verify consistant workday starts with out being there.

So I'm supposed to tell one of my guys that this job was supposed to take exactly 33.65 hours for your part of it so that's all I'm paying you for?

What you are saying doesn't make much sense.

Mike, in a sense yes and no. I dont know how you pay your guys.... but i pay per day and any overtime. In most cases, i assign task to my guys that must be completed for the day. I dont overkill, but from experience, you can tell how much a man is capable of doing.

If i sent 2 guys out to demo a bath, theres no way i will accept an excuse from them that it will take 2 days instead of 1. Unless any unforseen problems.

Catch my drift? And i wasnt personally attacking you there, just making a reference.

Mike Finley · 06-11-2007, 10:02 PM

I should have said, what you were saying didn't make any sense to me.

Now how do you manage this pay by the day thing? That's a new one for me. What is a day? 8 hrs? Interesting concept anyways.

pstorey · 06-11-2007, 10:15 PM

Poolman, It's a trust thing but it should help for tracking project labor totals also.
Perfecto, so what do you do when your guys come back to you and say that it took 2 days but you only budgeted 1. You gotta pay them for the 2 right?

I'm interested in the jobclock for getting the most out of my employees, paying them for the time they work and eliminating people forgetting to fill out a timesheet till payday. Too many times i remember guys cutting out 15 or 30 mins early but that not getting reflected on the timesheets

ARCS · 06-11-2007, 11:32 PM

I have used jobclock for about 5 years, and it is essential if you have any hourly employees. Just the time it saves me in decyphering handwritten timecards is worth it for me not to mention the paid time saved. I bet any company that has 5 employees would pay for the system in less than one year. Jobclock keeps track right down to the second. I almost sound like a salesman for jobclock, but really it is worth it, if anyone has any questions please PM me, I would be glad to help.

By the way the palm piolot you need can be the most simple model they make and I believe you can get one for about forty bucks, not really a big investment even if you have no other use for a palm.

fathersonfab · 06-12-2007, 06:53 PM

So how much does it cost???

mdemt · 01-18-2009, 03:45 PM

We went to Job Clock a few months back. Our average payroll prior to job clock, $21K. Our first payroll after job clock, $16K. Same crews, same jobs. Paid for itself right away (we originally had a 90 day ROI.) It was a tough call not to explode and fire everyone (although now that I think about it, most of them are gone now...)

We went with three keytabs per employee. "IN" "OUT" and "TRAVEL."

Nothing works without a policy to enforce it. Lost keytabs cost the employee $30bucks (replacement.) Missed or erroneous clocks (that have to be manually corrected due to "I Forget..." costs the employee two hours, or some other punitive action such as time off, etc... They have to clock out for lunch, back in wherever they are assigned, and travel ONLY if going between clocks or for official business (lumber yard and back, etc...)

It only works when you have a clock locked on each jobsite, one on the office, and one at the shed as well as one handheld. It provides a lot of different and complicated uses to track other times, such as billing per "task" (a tab for each task or billable rate, which is a PITA for the employees to run out and clock in the new tab if switching from "framing" to "drywall," etc..)

The handheld has GPS logging for the supervisor (no truck clocking 15 minutes out, or fudged timesheets.) It also acts as a backup timeclock using PIN codes for the employees, or manager override for any site (he can recieve a phone call and clock them in if need be from anywhere, or stand on the site and clock them in as they arrive for short term jobs.)

Every week we collect data using the PDA (sorry, you HAVE to use an IR device at each site (the PDA or a couple of qualified phones,) and their software is easy to use once we get back to the office. The employees respect the system, and at this time we pay full rate for travel (as we have learned that we have very little clocked travel due to responsible management sending them to the site directly.) We learned a lot about our operation in a short period of time. The guesses we had when discussing the payroll were dead wrong. The accurate employees turned out to be fudging, and the travel time seemed to be real after all.

We also changed job costing dramatically. You can provide your client with a REAL timesheet per jobsite whenever there is a need. If your billing T&M, this is a godsend as long as your work is for their site. Travel up to a client site is automatically added to the site, so deliveries, setup time, etc. is billed to the client (travel at the shed when gathering tools, green when at the client site, covers everything from the time the yellow struck previously.)

Job costing becomes a cinch, as you can report by jobsite, employee, and more.

They offered us a payment plan for startup, but my suggestion is to by a couple of extra clocks, and 25% more keytabs than you need. They are VERY responsive, the system is auditable for any changes, as it should be, and the printed timesheets make payroll disagreements easy to settle with the employee. (You clocked in here, and out here... (it gives confirmation beeps, so it is almost always an employee error on their pocket timesheet they kept when we first went to the system.)

Why play with the largest expense we have? Use the strongest tool to keep it together, make it simple to use and trustworthy to employees. Job Clock pulled it off. We highly recommend it.

Mike Finley · 01-18-2009, 04:37 PM

Glad it's working out so well for you. For us it's right now an adequate system but it wouldn't take much for somebody to come up with a better product that I would switch to in an instant.

You definitly need as you said to have a punitive method in your company for missed clocking or you're screwed, the entire system falls apart if you don't have employees using the system.

I personally think their Time Summit software needs a lot of revisions. It's the most un-intuitive software I have used in a long time, not being able to keep a window open of what you are working on is a real pain in the ass, if you have to go to another feature of the program you can't go back where you were easily at all. This happens all the time when you are auditing the time sheets. Simply being able to keep multiple windows open like the way Quickbooks works would solve that.

Enter changes into time sheets is bizarre, when you click on a day to edit and the software makes you fill in all the dates???? WTF???? What day do you think I'm trying to edit if I clicked on that day to edit it?????

I'd like to see a wireless feature to gather the job clock data and in real time, that would change their product dramatically.

It would also solve one of the worst problems I have with this product, the inability to have a running total for a man's hours. If you're a company that avoids overtime it's nearly impossible to monitor weekly hours and when you get to Friday it's a total guessing game as to how many hours a man has left before he hits overtime.

I'm happy with a lot of what Jobclock can do, but they have a lot of room for improvement. They are leaving themselves wide open to a competitor creating a competing product that fills in the gaps they have.

olduser532 · 04-02-2009, 07:54 PM

yyy