This is sort of a funny thing to me. SYNCrew has a patent on the concept of system with required photo clock in and it’s really been out signature feature over the years. It’s almost always mentioned as a top reason why our clients love SYNCrew. So I was surprised when our team built a feature so that users could be set up so some workers can clock in WITHOUT a photo. Huh? Why allow a user to disable our best feature?

It turns out that some people who were shopping for timecard apps were not choosing SYNCrew because they didn’t think they needed this and didn’t want it. By allowing it to be disabled, these people can now choose SYNCrew. This makes sense but I do hope that they will try the photo clock in to see if they love it as much as everybody else.

Ok, fine. Really, it’s fine. Not the “fine” that my wife uses when something is most definitely NOT fine, but I’ll drop the rope on this and trust the team.

However, readers are not getting off this easy and I want to share a few real examples that our clients have shared with me over the years. There are MANY more out there, but these highlight the primary reasons:

  • Location at time of clockout (aka “the bus picture”): This was the first cheater I’m aware of SYNCrew catching. Every morning, this worker was clocking in with a picture of the SF MUNI bus he was riding. The GPS put him 3 miles from the jobsite and the photo proved it. When the manager confronted him, he admitted he did it because it’s what he used to do on his paper timesheet – the manager was previously unaware that he was paying $30 an hour for 1 hours of bus rides per day!
  • Are those cracks in the building new? A local property owner who’s onsite managers use SYNCrew to log daily building walks. There was an earthquake a few years ago and shortly after, they noticed cracks in front of the building – alarming to be sure! Since the manager checked in with SYNCrew every day, they were able to go look at the clock in photos and confirm that not only had the cracks been there the day before the earthquake, but had in fact been there for the entire time they were using SYNCrew.
  • Proof your person did the work: Pool cleaning is hard work and even harder for a homeowner to know if the pool was cleaned on any given day. One client got a call from an angry client saying that the pool was not cleaned that day – he could tell because there was a week’s worth of leaves on it. The owner of the pool cleaning company was able to pull up and email the time/date/GPS stamped photo to the client within a minute to prove the work was done. Only then, did the homeowner remember the unseasonal wind that had come through that day. Customer saved thanks to a 1/2 second photo snapped at clock out.
  • What are you hiding? This is something I have noticed over time and always find amusing. Often times, when a worker wants to hide where they are, they put their finger over the lens. It’s great because, while a picture of a random building may not jump out at you while viewing the dashboard, this jumps out as a black or red picture and it’s clear something is not right. It’s like a photo confession!

Since SYNCrew makes it so fast and easy to snap that photo, why not just have them take it? You never know when it will be handy to have!

–John