For decades small businesses have been using paper timesheets, not only because they are easy to implement but also because they were basically the only option around for workers that don’t come into the same office every day. There is a reason why centralized workplaces have never used them, as they had alternatives even before the era of computers.

Today, even with the advent of information technology and smartphones there are still many businesses that use this method to report time worked in the field. Some of this has to do with resistance to change but also because some business owners and managers think it’s “good enough”.

The obvious problem with paper timesheets is the ability to cheat or at least “round up” their hours, and often people in the office have very little visibility into how legitimate the time reported is. But this is not the only problem.

Using paper means that somebody in the office now has to spend a tremendous amount of time translating all this (and I really mean translating, because often reading timesheets is like trying to decipher a doctor’s note) to an electronic format. Because for as much as a business would like to use paper, there is no escaping the fact that payrolls are processed electronically.

This delay affects other parts of the business, from realizing that you went over budget to not being able to invoice a customer. Often it takes a month or more for all the information to be reconciled and that is often too late to do something about it.

Using an app like SYNCrew brings all that forward significantly. Besides improving accuracy of the time tracked by providing site photos and GPS information with each clock in and clock out, all information is immediately available for invoicing, payroll, and other activities.

At SYNCrew we have focused on ways of making this information more useful, for example by providing real-time labor cost budgets so you can see day to day how a project is doing against the budget without having to wait weeks until all the information is reconciled.

Increasing the accuracy and being able to act fast on information related to THE biggest cost in most field-labor intensive businesses are clear advantages and ones that should not make you think twice about making the switch.