You collect timecards. You run payroll. You cut checks.
It gets done—but not without frustration, delays, or second-guessing. Maybe your admin has to chase down missing hours. Maybe you’re re-entering handwritten time into a spreadsheet. Maybe you’re fixing the same certified payroll mistakes week after week.
Sound familiar?
What most contractors don’t realize is this:
Manual payroll isn’t just annoying—it’s expensive.
We’re talking:
Lost admin hours chasing and correcting time
Job cost reports that don’t reflect reality
Compliance exposure on union or prevailing wage jobs
Cash flow slowdowns from delayed billing
And the worst part? You’re paying for it every single week.
Manual payroll systems look “simple” from the outside. But inside your business, they create hidden waste and risk that piles up fast.
In this article, we’ll show you:
The hidden financial and compliance costs of manual payroll
What it’s doing to your job cost visibility and labor forecasting
How modern GCs are ditching paper and spreadsheets for mobile time tracking
And how tools like hh2 Remote Payroll let you fix it—without a massive system change
Let’s break it down.
Manual payroll might not show up as a line item on your budget—but it’s bleeding time, money, and accuracy from your business.
Here’s where the real damage happens:
When payroll is run manually, your team spends hours:
Collecting timecards from multiple jobs
Decoding handwriting and fixing math
Re-entering the same data into spreadsheets or your ERP
Chasing down approvals, signatures, and corrections
The true cost:
You’re paying back-office staff to manage inefficiency instead of focusing on high-value work like billing, forecasting, or reporting.
If time isn’t collected daily—or if it’s stuck on paper—you can’t see how jobs are performing until it’s too late to act.
The true cost:
You miss early signs of overruns
Labor forecasting becomes guesswork
Your job costing reports are already outdated when they hit your desk
When time is manually calculated and re-entered, errors are inevitable.
Especially if you’re dealing with:
Union pay rules
Certified payroll
Prevailing wage
Multi-state jobs or split shifts
The true cost:
One wrong rate or late report can trigger compliance issues, audit risk, or even fines.
Without real-time data:
Timecards get padded or misclassified
Missed cost codes throw off billing
Change order work gets performed—but never recorded or billed
The true cost:
You lose money for work you completed because it wasn’t documented correctly.
Chronic rework and outdated processes frustrate your field and admin staff alike. Manual payroll creates extra work—and it’s the kind no one wants to do.
The true cost:
Field teams disengage
Office staff gets burned out
You risk losing good people over preventable pain
Imagine running payroll without chasing down timecards.
No spreadsheets. No re-entry. No second-guessing.
Just clean, approved time data—entered once, synced automatically, and ready to process.
That’s not a fantasy. That’s what modern construction payroll looks like with the right tools in place.
Here’s how smart GCs are streamlining their payroll process without overhauling their ERP:
Instead of clipboards or memory, foremen or crew members log time on their phones or tablets—by job, cost code, and activity.
Why it works:
Hours are submitted in real time
No need to “rebuild the week” on Friday
Better accuracy and accountability from the start
Time entries are reviewed and approved in the field—no delays, no stacks of timecards sitting in trucks.
Why it works:
Issues are caught early
Approvals are centralized and trackable
Admin doesn’t have to guess who signed off
With tools like hh2 Remote Payroll, time data flows straight from the field into your ERP or payroll platform.
Why it works:
No re-entry or batch processing
Instant visibility for job costing
Faster payroll runs with fewer errors
No more reformatting spreadsheets or manually building certified payroll reports.
hh2 formats time data for:
Davis-Bacon
Prevailing wage
Union locals and rates
Multi-state job compliance
Why it works:
You stay compliant without extra steps
Reports are always audit-ready
Nothing gets missed or miscoded
With accurate labor data flowing daily, your team can:
Forecast labor needs better
Bill faster and with confidence
Spot trends that impact project profitability
And that’s the real win:
Payroll stops being a liability—and starts driving smarter decisions.
Most GCs don’t need a new payroll provider.
They just need a better way to collect, approve, and sync time from the field.
That’s exactly what hh2 Remote Payroll was built to do.
Designed for contractors who self-perform, hh2 captures time where it happens—on the jobsite—and syncs it directly into your ERP or payroll system. No more chasing timecards, fixing cost codes, or scrambling for compliance.
Here’s how it simplifies everything:
Crews log hours using phones, tablets, or a kiosk—online or offline. Entries are coded by job, phase, and labor type.
What it eliminates:
Paper timecards
End-of-week guesswork
Bad handwriting, missing hours
Foremen approve time on the spot. Admins can track approvals from the dashboard—no signatures needed, no paper trail required.
What it eliminates:
Delays in getting time to payroll
Unapproved or inflated hours
Uncertainty at processing time
hh2 integrates with systems like Sage 100, Sage 300 CRE, Viewpoint Vista, and Foundation. Time flows straight into your payroll module—accurate and already coded.
What it eliminates:
Re-entry and batch uploads
Time-consuming error checks
Disconnects between field and finance
hh2 automates complex requirements:
Union locals and fringe rates
Davis-Bacon and certified payroll formats
State-specific compliance and reporting
What it eliminates:
Manual spreadsheet gymnastics
Compliance headaches
Audit panic
Instead of stress every pay period, you get:
Daily visibility into labor
Clean records for every crew and job
Faster, simpler payroll that everyone trusts
👉 See hh2 Remote Payroll in Action
Every paper timecard, spreadsheet, and rekeyed hour is costing you.
Not just in admin time—but in accuracy, job costing visibility, and compliance risk.
hh2 Remote Payroll helps you:
✅ Capture time in the field—daily, by job and cost code
✅ Eliminate manual entry and approval delays
✅ Stay compliant with certified and union payroll rules
✅ Sync time straight into your ERP without added complexity
You don’t need to rebuild your payroll system.
You just need to connect the field to the office—the right way.
👉 Talk to hh2
👉 Schedule Your Free Demo
Your next payroll run doesn’t have to be a mess. Let’s make it smooth—starting now.
Manual payroll often involves paper timecards, handwritten notes, spreadsheets, and rekeying data into payroll systems. This leads to delays, errors, and compliance risks—especially on union and certified payroll jobs. It also slows down billing and job costing.
On average, GCs lose several hours per week per project just collecting, correcting, and re-entering time data. That doesn’t include time spent chasing approvals, fixing cost codes, or formatting reports for compliance.
Mistakes in rates, hours, or documentation can lead to failed audits, fines, or withheld payments. Manual systems increase the chance of human error, which puts compliance at constant risk.
Yes. Tools like hh2 Remote Payroll are mobile-friendly, easy to use, and even work offline. Crews can enter time daily, by job and cost code, and supervisors can approve from any device—no paperwork needed.
It eliminates re-entry. Once time is submitted and approved in the field, it syncs directly to your ERP or payroll system. That means no spreadsheets, no transcription errors, and no more hunting for signatures or corrections.
Absolutely. hh2 handles union locals, fringe rates, prevailing wage rules, and certified payroll reporting requirements out of the box. It formats data for federal and state reporting automatically.
No. hh2 integrates with systems you already use—like Sage 100, Sage 300 CRE, Vista, and Foundation—so you can digitize the field side of payroll without replacing your backend.