The Ultimate Guide to Construction Financial Management | hh2.com

Track Labor in Real Time Before It Breaks Your Budget

Written by David Spivac | May 10, 2025 4:00:00 PM

Do you know exactly how much labor you’ve used on each job today? Or are you left waiting until next week to find out? If you’re not tracking labor in real time, you’re already a step behind. 

Labor is the biggest expense for most construction companies. Without up-to-the-minute visibility of labor costs, it’s impossible to maintain full financial control over your projects. That’s why construction labor tracking software is essential.

With real-time labor tracking, you can spot inefficiencies early, prevent costly delays, and avoid budget overruns before they happen. Keep reading to discover how this software connects your field to your back office, streamlining job costing and helping you allocate labor accurately — so you stay on budget.

 

Why Tracking Labor is Key for Profitability in Construction

Labor is a major cost driver in construction, accounting for 50 to 60% of total project costs. Even small inaccuracies in labor tracking can significantly impact your project’s profitability by: 

  • Inaccurate job costing: Without accurate, real-time labor tracking, job costing is less reliable. You may misallocate costs or not spot inefficiencies before they erode your profit margin. 
  • Delays: Lags between when labor is performed and when time is entered and approved prevent project managers and controllers from making mid-project corrections.
  • Budget overruns: While the cost of materials can greatly fluctuate year to year, most budget overruns in construction come from labor. Overbilling, time theft, or payroll errors from inaccurate labor tracking can quickly eat away your budget.

 

The Pitfalls of Manual Labor Tracking

Construction firms using traditional labor tracking face significant hurdles due to inefficient and error-prone manual processes. A lack of real-time insights and increased risk of errors impact everything from project costs to resource management, turning potential profits into losses.

Manual Timecards Costs Time

Traditional construction labor cost tracking relies on slower, outdated practices like paper timecards and manual data entry. Timecards won’t even make it to the supervisor’s desk until Friday. Project managers and controllers are left waiting on data that’s entered days or weeks later, preventing them from making timely decisions that protect your project’s profit margin. 

Hours and Cost Codes Aren’t Aligned

Unlike modern labor productivity software in construction, traditional labor tracking has no tie-in between hours worked on-site and corresponding cost codes. There’s no way to monitor the real cost of a specific task or know if a crew was 10% over hours on a given day. Project managers and controllers are left operating blind until end-of-month reports, making it impossible to accurately track progress or make data-driven decisions to stay on budget until after the fact. 

Lack of Forecasting Capabilities

Understanding your actual labor costs versus your predicted costs allows you to effectively forecast expenses in ongoing projects and create more accurate estimates for the future. But traditional construction labor cost tracking methods lack these capabilities, leaving project managers and controllers to make forecasts based on their best guesses or outdated information — putting your profitability at risk.

 

Top Features To Seek Out in Construction Labor Tracking Software

What if you could access labor data and track crews in real time? That’s exactly what construction labor tracking software offers. It connects your field to your back office — instantly — through features like:

  • Mobile time entry: Waiting on paper timecards is a thing of the past. Instead, mobile apps capture crew hours and code tasks in real time so you can track labor costs as they occur.
  • Supervisor approvals: With built-in workflows, supervisors can instantly review and approve labor data via mobile devices, ensuring that hours and costs are accurately aligned.
  • Real-time dashboards: Analyze trends or patterns in your construction labor data in real time through easy-to-understand charts, tables, and graphs. You can even filter data by job, crew, or employee to track hours, costs, and project progress. 
  • ERP integration: Time and cost code data automatically sync with your enterprise resource planning (ERP) and job costing tools, reducing delays, eliminating time-consuming data entry, and improving accuracy for more effective labor cost management. 
  • Cloud-based access: Not in the office? No problem! Field employees can track, code, and approve hours from anywhere, connecting your back office with the field for real-time insights. 

 

How hh2 Achieves Real-Time Labor Tracking

Real-time labor tracking is a game changer for project managers, controllers, and CFOs, giving you the visibility needed to control costs and keep projects on track. With hh2’s construction labor tracking software, you gain a powerful tool that streamlines labor tracking and improves job costing, ensuring accurate, up-to-the-minute visibility across your projects.

Instant Updates From the Field

With hh2’s cloud capabilities, field time entries update instantly via mobile devices, so project managers don’t have to be on-site to know if a crew is on track or going over their hours today.

Captures and Assigns Costs

Automatic cost code tagging ties specific tasks to hours as time is entered, eliminating the tedious, manual process after the fact and helping prevent budget overruns.

Approve Hours From Anywhere

Automated approval workflows ensure accuracy while reducing approval delays. Site supervisors and foremen can quickly view and approve coded hours while in the field, getting critical labor costing data to their team faster for more timely decisions.

Unmatched Account Integration

hh2 seamlessly integrates with top construction ERPs like Sage Intacct, Viewpoint Vista, ProCore, and more. It eliminates manual data entry and improves data accuracy for real-time visibility of labor costs and crew management from the tools you already use.

Automatic Syncs

Labor data automatically flows into certified payroll, job cost reports, and forecasting tools in real time so you’re always seeing the freshest data to ensure compliance with labor laws, prevent budget overruns, and protect your profit margins. 

 

How Miller Construction Reduced Job and Cost Coding Errors by 99%

Costly mistakes and inefficient processes from traditional labor tracking were plaguing Miller Construction, causing undue stress and ballooning overtime expenses. They turned to hh2 for real-time labor tracking in hopes of saving time — and money. 

With hh2’s compatibility with Sage and timesheet automation, Miller Construction eliminated data entry and improved labor tracking. “hh2 reduced job and cost-coding errors by 99% — we just don’t have those errors anymore because the pre-existing integration with Sage makes the process much more fluid,” shared Whitney L. Medes, Senior Director of Operational Excellence. 

hh2’s user-friendly mobile feature allows their employees to enter coded hours from anywhere, connecting field crews to the back office in real time to benefit their project profitability and forecasting. 

 

Stay Ahead of Labor Costs With hh2’s Remote Payroll

When it comes to labor costs, you can’t control what you can’t see. Real-time labor tracking eliminates job cost surprises and empowers you to make strategic decisions. 

Construction labor tracking software like hh2’s Remote Payroll offers real-time tracking capabilities, connecting your project managers, controllers, and back office staff with field crews and supervisors. You’ll gain up-to-the-minute visibility into labor costs to proactively manage costs and address inefficiencies so labor doesn’t break your budget.

Know where your labor stands — every hour, every job. Discover how hh2’s Remote Payroll helps you track labor in real time and protect your margins. Explore Remote Payroll