Why your subcontractor should ditch paper timesheets.

Your subcontractor shouldn’t be using paper timesheets for their employees; let me tell you why.

On a day to day basis, I have the pleasure of working with owners of many types of contractor firms to help them streamline their processes. I’ve been keeping tabs on pain points I’ve heard and the most common one that pops up is trusting the paper timesheets submitted by subcontractors.

Firstly, let me say that the there are a lot of great subcontracting companies out there, but unfortunately, some employees within those companies spoil it for everyone.

Here’s the issue; contractors have to delegate trust and authority to subcontractors in order to complete a larger job. Typically these jobs are abroad which are outside of the control, geography and scrutiny of the main contractor.

To introduce some form of control, paper timesheets are typically used for billing the time and work done by the subcontractor. Unfortunately, this introduces some problems.

Particularly, when filling out timesheets, employees that work for the subcontractor are naturally incentivised to look after their own interests. That may include:

• Covering for their colleagues when they have failed to turn up, checked in late, or moved off-site.
• Fudging the total number of hours worked perhaps to increase their billable hours.
• Rounding up hours unknowingly i.e. 8 am — 6 pm when really it was 8.05am — 5.50pm.

When combining this with the time taken for an administrator to retrieve, process, and approve timesheets, the lost time and money adds up to squeeze profit margin out of an already tight project budget. In fact, if you had a subcontractor with 50 employees each rounding 10 minutes in favour each day (on a £15 hourly rate), that time lost is costing you £32,500 each and every year.

So what can be done to eliminate this cost? It’s simple — ditch paper timesheets for software that runs on your everyday tablet or mobile.

Time and Attendance software has many advantages over traditional paper timesheets including:

• Update and communicate timesheet information in real time with the office HQ
• GPS clock entries with their device location
• Enforce geofences at building sites for authorised entry
• Eliminate buddy clock ins with facial recognition
• Automate those time-consuming administration tasks such as payroll
• The employee can review their timesheets via their own device via app or browser.

This is what TimeKeeper enables companies to solve through our simple time and attendance software that works especially well for companies in construction sector. We’re helping companies save thousands by making an investment in ditching their paper timesheets for modern software.

Feel free to contact TimeKeeper directly to talk some more about this issue at sales@timekeeper.co.uk. Additionally, if you run a company that experiences problems with employee time and attendance, why not sign up to our 14 day free trial at www.timekeeper.co.uk.