5 Signs You're Losing Money on Payroll Every Week

If you're running a construction crew, there's a good chance you're losing money every single week—and you might not even know it.

We've talked to hundreds of contractors, and the pattern is always the same: they trust their crews, they use paper timesheets or basic punch clocks, and they're shocked when they realize how much money has been slipping through the cracks.

Here are the 5 biggest warning signs that your payroll is costing you more than it should.

1. Your crews are always "arriving early"

Look at your timesheets. Do your workers consistently clock in 15-20 minutes before the job officially starts?

That might seem like dedication, but here's the reality: with paper timesheets or basic clocks, there's no way to verify when someone actually showed up. A 15-minute padding on both ends of the day, across a 5-person crew, adds up to 12.5 hours per week of paid time you can't verify.

At $25/hour, that's $312.50 per week—or $16,250 per year.

2. Lunch breaks are... flexible

The 30-minute lunch break is a unicorn in construction. Here's what actually happens:

Workers take 45-60 minute lunches but log 30
Some workers leave the job site for lunch and don't come back for an hour
Weekend crews especially stretch their breaks

Without GPS verification, you have no way to know if someone left the job site for 20 minutes or 2 hours.

3. You're doing payroll on Sunday nights

If you're spending hours every Sunday sorting through timesheets, deciphering handwriting, and doing math, that's a red flag.

Not just because it's eating your weekend—but because manual payroll entry creates errors. Studies show that manual timesheet processing has an error rate of 1-8%. Even at the low end, those errors add up.

Modern time tracking should take 20 minutes, not 2 hours.

4. You've had disputes with workers about hours

Have you ever had a worker insist they worked 42 hours when you're only showing 38? Or a subcontractor claim their crew was on site all day when you know they left early?

These disputes are symptoms of a bigger problem: you don't have proof. Paper timesheets become he-said-she-said arguments that damage relationships and cost you money whether you win or lose.

5. You "trust" your guys

Look, we get it. Your crew is like family. You've worked with some of these guys for years. You trust them.

Here's the thing: it's not about trust. It's about accuracy.

Even honest workers make mistakes. They forget when they arrived. They round up or down. They estimate instead of tracking precisely. And the nature of these errors means they almost always favor the worker, not the employer.

Trust your crew—but verify the hours.

The Solution

GPS-verified time tracking eliminates all of these problems. Workers clock in on their phones, the app verifies they're actually at the job site, and you get accurate, undisputable time logs.

No more Sunday night payroll marathons. No more disputes. No more wondering if you're paying for hours that weren't worked.

The average contractor saves $1,200+ per month with GPS time tracking. That's not a sales pitch—it's math.