How Home HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Replaced Paper Time Cards with a Digital System That Actually Tracks Every Job

“Connecteam has certainly helped us implement a better process for our time clock. It helped clean up our payroll system.”

Hallye Newton, Plumbing Operations Manager

Key Results

• Payroll prep time cut dramatically. Hours that were spent manually reading and entering handwritten time cards are gone.
  
• Job-level cost visibility. Field techs clock into specific projects, giving management a clear view of hours spent per job versus revenue earned.
  
• Overtime caught before it costs more. The operations manager now monitors hours daily and flags overtime before the pay period closes.
  

The Challenge: Paper Cards, Guesswork, and No Project Visibility

With 31 employees spread across residential service calls and multi-month commercial projects, tracking labor costs accurately was harder than it needed to be. Payroll relied entirely on handwritten time cards that techs submitted weekly.

1. Handwritten time cards were illegible, unreliable, and had to be manually entered into the payroll system one by one.
2. There was no way to see which employees were working on which jobs, making it impossible to compare budgeted hours against actual hours on commercial projects.
3. Overtime was difficult to catch in real time, creating compliance risk and unpredictable labor costs.

“Employees used to hand in handwritten time cards every week, and payroll had to go through them one by one, hoping they were legible, and manually enter everything into the system.”

Hallye Newton, Plumbing Operations Manager

How Home HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Uses Connecteam to Manage Time and Job Costs

The team adopted Connecteam to replace paper time cards with a digital clock-in system tied directly to specific jobs and projects. Every field tech uses the app on their personal device.

• Techs clock in and out against specific job codes built inside Connecteam, separating billable hours, prevailing wage jobs, and non-revenue work.
• The operations manager reviews timesheets daily, catching missed clock-ins and overtime flags before they become payroll problems.
• Employee profiles store certifications, contact details, and key records in one place, replacing scattered paperwork.

“We built detailed job categories in Connecteam so employees can clock into the exact project they’re working on. That gives us accurate tracking for non-revenue work, prevailing wage jobs, and anything else that impacts payroll.”

Hallye Newton, Plumbing Operations Manager

Results That Affect Home Plumbing’s Bottom Line

Payroll That No Longer Depends on Legible Handwriting

• Manual time card entry is eliminated. Hours flow digitally from the app into payroll processing.
• The payroll manager no longer spends hours deciphering handwritten cards each week.
• Missed clock-ins are caught and corrected the same day, not days later when memory fails.

Project-Level Labor Tracking Built Into Every Clock-In

• Each job in Connecteam is a separate clock-in code, giving the team a clean breakdown of hours by project.
• Prevailing wage job hours are tracked separately, keeping compliance records accurate.
• Management can now compare budgeted hours to actual hours on commercial projects and measure real profit margins.

“It’s helped us a lot with project tracking because now we can see specifically the jobs that they’re working on. It’s certainly been a benefit to our company.”

Hallye Newton, Plumbing Operations Manager

Before vs After Connecteam