Any Job Clock Users Out There?

Mike Finley

I have finally ordered the Job Clock system. I have a question that maybe the long time users might know how to deal with.

Lets say on Mon-Wed you are on Job A and Thur-Fri you move on to job B. Next week Mon-THur you are still on job B and then on Fri you move back to job A to finish it.

For job costing I always need to know the break out of the 40 hours of an employee's week to assign them individually to individual jobs.

Tony
Week 1
Mon 8hrs - Smith Job
Tues 8 hrs - Smith Job
Wed 9 hrs - Smith Job
Thur 7 hours - Jones Job
Fri 8 hours - Jones Job

Week 2
Mon 8hrs - Jones Job
Tues 8 hrs - Jones Job
Wed 6 hrs - Jones Job
Thur 7 hours - Jones Job
Fri 8 hours - Smith Job

Smith job = 33 hrs
Jones Job = 44 hrs



According to Job Clock you would have to go to the job clock itself anytime you moved to another job and reprogram it so that it will know what job to assign those hours to.

In other words if your job clock moves from job to job, it doesn't know it. It only keeps track of the hours.

How do long time users deal with this situation?

denick

We bought 5 clocks!

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Nick

"Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving" Albert Einstein

Mike Finley

Okay, so don't tease us, let's here about it.

Patrick

Mike what would it cost to outfit a small operation with about 10 guys usually divided between two projects

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Originally Posted by Celtic
Like I said...I'm sure you are very good at what you do ~ whatever that is and where ever it happens.

denick

Mike,

We usually have 2 to 3 jobs going. And there is always the job that isn't 100% finished and we are starting another. So there is a clock on each active job and 2 spares to leap frog from job to job.

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Nick

"Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving" Albert Einstein

BKFranks

http://www.jobclock.com/

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Trimcat

This is the first time I'm seeing this system, and I obviously don't have one, but after watching the video, would there be a way to do what you're looking for with the different color keys? They show it tracking different trades, but couldn't you assign a different color key to different jobs? I don't know. Maybe that's not possible or wouldn't accomplish what you're looking to do. Just a thought.

As far as the system itself, it looks great. I don't think I'd chain it to a single stud though like they show. That would be gone in no time. Also, I"m not crazy about the way you get the info off the clock. You have to have a Palm? It would be nice if they also made it USB to hook directly to your computer. But other than that, I think it's a excellent idea. I've thought many times of getting a regular time clock.

Mike Finley

I ran me about $1700.00. That gives me one clock, a protective cover for it, their software, a palm pilot, cust support, the auto transfer to quick books software and the keys I need.

I'm starting with just the red/green keys, which clock you in and out only. You can upgrade to more keys if you want your guys to clock in for specific tasks. Like yellow for demo, blue for framing...

You could probably do it for $1500 or even less if you buy a used palm or already have one and you don't want the syncing program to quick books. They keys are about $10 a set I think, so 10 guys would only add about $100.00.

I guess I will have to think about that after I get this first round of using it all figured out. We are trying to do it using our job trailer which is what moves from site to site, just keeping the one job clock in the trailer.

denick

"I guess I will have to think about that after I get this first round of using it all figured out. We are trying to do it using our job trailer which is what moves from site to site, just keeping the one job clock in the trailer."

Mike,

In this situation you would need to change the name the the clock (job name) and a time of day you want it to start on the new job. then again and again. There is a window in the program to do this. This just needs to be done before you sync your palm with your computer for any given time period. You could do as many different changes as you want. Each change would need to be a time and date after the last person clocked out of the current job and before they clock in the new job.

This comes from my wife!

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Nick

"Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving" Albert Einstein

cmec

Bought one 2 years ago for davis bacon work , So that no one could question our hours, looked at how to set it up talked to my guys we all felt it was a pain in the a-- , How much has your production increased or man hours decreased ?, If I start watching them with a microscope its probable I will get screwed when I am not looking.

Mike Finley

Mike,

In this situation you would need to change the name the the clock (job name) and a time of day you want it to start on the new job. then again and again. There is a window in the program to do this. This just needs to be done before you sync your palm with your computer for any given time period. You could do as many different changes as you want. Each change would need to be a time and date after the last person clocked out of the current job and before they clock in the new job.

This comes from my wife![/quote]

Yep, that's the way I understand it too. Hopefully there might be another way around this for us. I'd like to avoid having to interact with the thing other than once every 2 weeks.

What a shocker. I'm sure if given a choice my guys would label anything other than showing up when they wanted, leaving when they wanted, doing whatever they wanted all day as a pain in the ass too.

cmec

Our work is negoated and priced out of a manual if hours get close to or go over the book allowance, or I start to see exactly 40 hours a week every week I know where to look for the problem, My key people know if I show up we have a problem and they look out for me.

denick

Mike,

If you will only be reading and downloading the clock once every two weeks, then just before you download you enter the job, date and time changes. Then download the information from the palm.

cmec,

We looked at all the negatives also. After 4 years the only ones who have had a problem are the lazy ones. Only one person has complained after their first three weeks of using it. small mistakes can easily be changed. We documented that our investment was returned in 5 months of use. We are now looking at an incentive quarterly for each person who uses their keys 100% correctly. It does make things that much easier once you get it working. We got that return with 5 men on the system.

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Nick

"Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving" Albert Einstein

Mike Finley

You're already being 'screwed'** when you're not looking. You don't think so? Have you never been an employee before?

**'screwed' is a relative term. I'm only using your own words. I don't see a guy once in a while not clocking his hours correctly down to the last second as screwing anybody. Screwing to me is the bad apple who knowling abuses the trust given him by playing the system to his advantage all the time.

Mike Finley

Thanks, I'll look into that once I get this thing up and running. Sounds like there should be an easy way to do what we need to do.

cmec

IN the shop I started at we came in 1/2 hr early loaded the trucks, stopped at coffe shop 1/2 hr in the am ,so somone called our boss and told him we stopped every morning. So we had a production meeting and were told no more stopping for coffee any more , so we came in at 7 30 instead of 7 , somone got coffee and donuts on the way to the shop and we took our two breaks on the job that we never took before who got screwed?.

Mike Finley

That's the problem between employer and employee.

The employer only remembers last week when he saw the employee take 15 minutes more for lunch and didn't say anything about it to the employee, but forgets about last week when the employee took a short lunch to get the job back on track.

The employee only remembers last week when he took a short lunch to get the job back on track and forgets when the employer looked the other way when he went 15 minutes over on lunch.

Employer and employee tend to have selective memory as it suits them. The hope is a system like Job Clock eliminates that problem. The hours worked are the hours worked. Now time and energy can be directed at something more productive.

Any Season

Mike,

I just bought this system, and have found the best way to avoid stressing over jobcosts, etc. is to have more clocks. I usually have 3 jobs going, but sometimes I move people around if a job is almost done and I want to pull a couple of guys off to get started on the next job. I bought 2 older clocks on Ebay with a palm and the older software. Then I bought 3 newer ones and the new software. It took me a week or so to get everything synced, so if there are any people out there with questions feel free to ask, bc I refused to pay for the tech support and spent time figuring it all out.

Anyways, I have 3 main clocks, a fourth roaming clock, so if I need to start a new job and reprogram, and a 5th clock that I keep at my house/office incase any of my guys need to grab my extra truck or van to move equipment or whatever.

That leads me to keys though. You gotta have a 3rd key. Mine is yellow. For example, if my guy comes to my house to get something, he punches in with green, then out with yellow, which I have tagged for travel/misc., then when they get to the jobsite they punch in and out with green and red as usual. Also, if I send someone to a different job midday or whatever, they punch out of original site with yellow, then in and out with green and red once they get to their destination. It's good bc your guys dont feel like they are losing time, and you can track their travel.(example: if it takes a guy an hour to get 20 minutes away you can nip that bc the clocks don't lie)

Mitch M

I looked at the system and I was really impressed with it. Unfortunately I could not really justify it. I usually have anywhere from 3-5 regular jobs going on and then I have lots of other misc jobs going on. Some for regular customers and then some for new. I have a local college that I do work for and I could have several jobs going on at any given time on top of misc time and material jobs. I have even talked with the rep and he agreed that it probably would not work for me. I have only 3 field employees right now.

Lubs

I looked in to the job clock but found that it was expensive to have to have two to four guys that were always changing jobs. I found abouttimetech.com and there job clock is on a palm pilot that you have a pin number to clock in and out of. I just give my foremen a palm and then everyone can clock in and out on each job.