5 Best Time Clock Apps for Construction in 2025
Edited by
Eric Czerwonka
If you run a construction business, you know the bottom line matters. With rising costs and the labor shortage, you want to ensure your business is capital efficient. Labor tends to be the highest expense for most construction businesses, so you must track that accurately. Hence it’s essential to keep track of your employee's or contractor's hours.
How do you keep track of construction employees' hours?
It’s simple. A construction time clock can help you accurately track your employees’ work hours and labor costs. Also, a good construction timesheet app will help you track more than just time.
So, here is the list of our top 5 time tracking apps for construction.
* We recognize that this article was written in 2023 and changes may have been made within the apps since this article was published.
Buddy Punch is the ultimate app to track employee time, location, and mileage. If you run a construction business and want to ensure your team members are where they need to be and doing what they need to be doing, then Buddy Punch is the top choice.
You can find more details on the app in our comprehensive Buddy Punch review. But, if you're short of time, here are several things Buddy Punch can do for your business:
Buddy Punch has straightforward pricing with no additional or hidden fees. It starts from $4 per month for access to basic functionalities for up to 10 users. You can subscribe to a monthly plan or choose an annual subscription for a discounted price.
Exaktime is one of the older time clock apps for construction businesses. It comes with a web application and mobile apps for iPhone and Android. It also has a desktop on-premise version, which is slowly being retired in favor of a cloud version.
Exaktime also integrates with several different payroll and accounting software systems, so you can rest assured knowing you can export your data.
There is a wide range of mixed reviews on Exaktime. So reading their iOS, Android, and G2 reviews is a good idea. Below are the pros and cons after talking to past Exaktime customers and also from combing through several reviews:
Pricing starts at $9/user with a $50 base fee and an annual contract. Many GPS time clocks for construction will give you a month-to-month option, so be sure this is the right option before getting locked into a contract. Teams comfortable paying upfront and committing to an annual contract might benefit from Exaktime.
QuickBooks Time is a time-tracking software that is popular among construction companies, contractors, and field service businesses. It has a web application and the QuickBooks Workforce mobile app (formerly known as QuickBooks Time) that crews can use to clock in and out.
QuickBooks Time starts at $8/user/month with a $20 base fee. In addition, there are extra charges for specific add-ons and features.
Workyard is a relatively new construction time tracking software. It used to be a construction staffing company but switched to time tracking over the last few years. Workyard primarily focuses on construction and contractors. Let’s dive into the pros and cons of Workyard. We've tested the app, so to find out more about how it performs in the field, check out our Workyard review.
The introductory pricing is $58 ($8/user with a $50 base fee). Workyard is one of the pricier construction time clock solutions we’ve discussed here. Features like labor costing, project tracking, and certain QuickBooks functionality cost almost double with a ($16/user and $50 base fee).
Busybusy is a time-tracking app for construction and other remote worker industries. It offers web and mobile applications for teams to track time without an internet connection.
With Busybusy there are multiple ways to clock in and out. For example, construction workers and supervisors can log time through mobile and kiosk apps. In addition to time tracking, Busybusy lets you track the whereabouts of your equipment.
Busybusy has a free option that lets you do basic time & equipment tracking. The paid option starts at $11.99/per user per month.
Again, there are many options out on the market, but when it comes to construction time tracking, certain features are a must-have.
Your ideal time clock app should have a mobile app. It’s table stakes when it comes to time tracking these days. Your on-site staff needs to clock in and out from their mobile devices.
Offline capability also means they’ve got to be able to punch in and out when an internet connection is not available. If the app doesn’t have offline capabilities, your crew will most likely not embrace the technology. The last thing you want is for your staff to complain that they can’t clock in because there’s no service in their area.
Have you ever wondered if your crew is working where and when they claim? The ability to track employees' locations while they are on the clock is crucial. It’s essential to do it for accountability and safety reasons. If so, you are not the only one. You can easily put this problem to rest with GPS tracking and time stamps.
An app that only captures the clock-in and out locations is not enough. This is because an employee could clock in, leave the job site, come back, and clock out.
You want an app that will track movement once employees clock in. This way, you can see movement activity logs while they are on company time. If they leave the site and go somewhere else, the app should be able to record the movements.
We tested for you and compared 13 best employee GPS tracking apps.
When you combine geofencing with GPS and time tracking, it adds extra accountability to the work process. For example, using geofencing, you can restrict employees from punching in unless they are at the job site. If you are using paper timesheets or Excel spreadsheets, there is a chance some workers are claiming time for work even though they weren’t at the job site.
Also, by choosing a time clock app with geofencing, your employees can receive notifications to clock in or automatically clock in when they arrive on the job site. Geofencing can efficiently remind employees to clock in or ensure they are consistently clocked in when they are on site.
A geofence time clock can also automatically clock out employees if they leave the job site. This way, you know you are only paying for hours on-site.
When you move from paper time cards and move to digital timesheets, it opens up so many opportunities to improve your workflow. A good construction time card app can connect to some of the best payroll and accounting apps on the market.
For example, if you are using QuickBooks Online or Desktop, you will want a time clock app that can send over time into QuickBooks. The time entries could be marked as billable hours to generate invoices, bills, or expenses in QuickBooks. Also, when integrated with QuickBooks, you can map contractors or employees in QuickBooks to employees or contractors inside the time clock app.
The ability to accurately do labor costing is important. Businesses run on tight margins, so you will want to track time accurately and use that in your job or labor costing. Labor costing is just a small section of job costing, and the best time clock apps for construction can help you easily capture labor hours. In addition, the best apps can help you quickly generate detailed reports and alert you if you are going over the budget for a specific job.
Every business runs differently regarding operations and how things are done. For example, some businesses prefer to have employees clock in and out from a central location. Some construction time clocks will come with a tablet app that allows employees to punch in a specially assigned PIN code before punching in and out.
Some of these so-called kiosk-style time clocks may even come with facial recognition or photo capture to ensure that those clocking in are really who they say they are. In addition, the PIN code and face recognition can add an extra layer of accountability to minimize buddy punching.
Ease of use and customer support is sometimes easily overlooked until things aren’t working out like they are supposed to. Ensure the app offers phone, live chat, and email support. Unfortunately, many apps out there will only offer you email support. In addition to customer support, the company you go with should offer onboarding for your crew and the office admin who will manage the time clock application. Most apps will offer some training materials, but the best time clock companies also provide human support.
If you are looking for an app that checks all the above boxes, you should start a trial of Buddy Punch. Buddy Punch is a top time clock app used by many construction companies in the US and around the world.