Crew Time Tracking for Paving and Asphalt Contractors

Paving runs on the asphalt plant's clock, and a crew of eight standing around waiting for the first truck costs money every minute. JobSnap gives paving and asphalt contractors crew time tracking that follows the crew from driveway to driveway, puts the paver and roller hours on the right job, and keeps the scale tickets and photos with the work.

How a paving day actually runs

A commercial crew is six to ten people: the paver operator, a screed operator, two or three rakers, one or two roller operators, someone on the skid steer or the grader for base work, and trucks hauling from the plant. A residential crew is four or five people doing three to six driveways a day. Parking lots for stores and plazas are often done at night or on a weekend so the business can stay open.

The crew is on site before the first load. Once the mix arrives, it has to go down while it is hot, so nobody stops until the last truck is laid. The season runs from when the plants open in spring until it gets too cold in the fall, and rain cancels the day. Driveways are usually priced by the square foot, commercial work by the tonne or by area at a given thickness, with extras for base repair and soft spots.

Where the hours and the proof go missing:

• Waiting on trucks. The plant is behind, the crew is paid to stand there, and the cost lands on whatever job the foreman writes at the end of the day.
• Five driveways, one sheet. A residential crew moves fast. At night nobody remembers which driveway took three hours because of the base.
• Tickets in the truck. Scale tickets from the plant end up on the dashboard, and the tonnage on the invoice is guessed.
• Puddles in May. A customer calls about water pooling after the first rain. Without photos of the grade and the finished surface, it is your word against theirs.

How a paving crew uses JobSnap

• One job per driveway or lot. Each address gets a geofence. When the residential crew moves from one driveway to the next, their hours are attributed to each job, so you see which ones made money. The foreman can clock in the whole crew at once.
• Paver and roller hours. With equipment tracking, assign the paver, the rollers and the skid steer to the job. Their hours sit on the timesheet beside the crew's, so a lot bid at two days and paved in three shows where the time went.
• Base and paving on separate dates. In crew scheduling, one job can have two blocks of dates with different crews: grading and base on Monday, paving on Thursday. When rain is forecast, drag the block on the calendar and both crews see the new day.
• Tickets and photos on the job. The jobsite camera picks the nearest job. Scan scale tickets with the document scanner, and shoot the base before paving and the finished surface after. When the customer calls about a puddle, the photos are on the job with the date.
• Delays in writing. The daily report asks what caused delays. "First truck 45 minutes late" written that night is what you show the plant, or use to price the next job.
• Driveway estimates on the spot. Save your price per square foot, base repair and edging in the cost library, and send the estimate before you leave the house.

Paving companies often do their own base work, which is close to excavation, and many put the same machines and drivers on snow routes in winter.

What it costs for a paving company

$5 CAD per active employee per month, $20 minimum, every feature included. A commercial crew of eight, a driveway crew of five and two people on sealcoating make 15 active employees: $75 a month from May to October. In November, pause the seasonal crew. If a few of them run plows for you over the winter, keep them active and pay only for them. The 30-day trial is free and needs no credit card.

Questions paving contractors ask

Do I pay for the truck drivers I hire by the load?

Only if you add them to JobSnap as employees. You pay for active employees, so brokered trucks you do not track cost nothing.

Can it show how much time we lose waiting on the plant?

The timesheet shows the crew on site, and the daily report shows why. When the foreman writes the delay in the daily report, you have the wait in writing, per job, next to the hours.

Does the paper sheet still make sense for driveways?

For one crew the owner runs in person, it can. Once you have two crews on different streets, or customers who call back about drainage, per-driveway hours and photos are worth having.