Track two things separately: paid hours for payroll (clock in, clock out, breaks) and where those hours went (drive, on site, shop and waiting), captured from simple status taps on each job. The first keeps you legal. The second tells you why a tech who worked 10 hours only billed five.
Most companies track the first and guess at the second. That is why "we need another tech" gets decided on gut feel.
The two records
1. Paid hours
This is the payroll record: when the day started and ended, and unpaid meal breaks. For non-exempt employees the U.S. Department of Labor's Fact Sheet #21 on recordkeeping lists what you must keep, including hours worked each workday and each workweek, and says time cards and wage computation records must be kept for at least two years (payroll records three), as of October 2026.
What counts as hours worked matters too. DOL's Fact Sheet #22 says normal home-to-work commuting is generally not work time, but travel from job site to job site during the day is. State rules can be stricter. Check with your payroll provider or an employment attorney before you set policy.
2. Where the hours went
This is the operations record. Split every paid hour into one of four buckets:
| Bucket | Starts at | Ends at |
|---|---|---|
| Drive | "On my way" | "Arrived" |
| On site | "Arrived" | "Done" |
| Shop and supply | Arriving at shop or supply house | Leaving it |
| Gap | Everything else between clock-in and clock-out |
On-site time is your wrench time. Drive time is your windshield time. The gap is the bucket nobody wants to look at, and the one that tells you the most.
Capture it from taps, not from memory
Asking techs to fill in a timesheet at 6 p.m. gets you round numbers and guesses. Three taps per job get you real ones:
- On my way when they leave for the job.
- Arrived when they get to the door.
- Done when they finish.
The taps double as customer updates and as data for the board, so the tech is not doing extra work for the office's sake. In CrewLink, the tech app has on my way, arrived and done buttons, taps are queued when the phone is offline, and time on site is recorded when a job is marked done so future bookings use it. It is not a payroll timeclock; keep paid hours in your payroll system.
What to do with the numbers
Once you have a few weeks of data, run the split per tech per day.
Each bucket points at a different fix:
- High drive is a booking problem: jobs placed without regard to where the truck will be. See the windshield time cost calculator.
- High shop and supply is a truck stock problem.
- High gap is usually waiting: on a customer, on a callback from the office, on a part, or a late start.
- Low on-site share across the whole crew means you may not need another tech; you need the techs you have to spend more of the day on site.
The technician utilization calculator turns these splits into a utilization rate you can track month to month.
Compare booked time to actual time
The other payoff is job length. Line up the booked length of each job type against actual on-site time. If a job type is booked at 60 minutes and averages 85, every day with two of them runs late in the afternoon. Tight job duration estimates do more for on-time arrival than almost anything else.
Keep it fair
Techs worry that time tracking is surveillance. Two rules help:
- Use the data to fix the schedule before you use it to judge people. If drive time is high, that is the office's booking, not the tech's driving.
- Show techs their own numbers. A tech who sees that their day loses an hour to supply house runs will often fix it before you ask.
What to take away
- Keep two records: paid hours for payroll and where those hours went for operations.
- Split every paid hour into drive, on site, shop and gap.
- Capture times from on my way, arrived and done taps, not end-of-day timesheets.
- Each bucket points to a different fix: booking, truck stock or waiting.
- Check federal and state rules on what counts as hours worked, and keep the records they require.
Common questions
What is the best way to track technician hours?
Use your payroll system or timeclock for paid hours, and job status taps on the tech's phone for drive and on-site time. Keeping them separate means payroll stays clean while operations gets real numbers.
Is drive time between jobs paid time?
Under federal guidance, travel from job site to job site during the workday is work time. Normal commuting from home to a fixed workplace generally isn't. Rules for the first and last drive of the day vary, and state law can be stricter, so check with an employment attorney.
How long do I have to keep time records?
DOL's recordkeeping fact sheet says time cards and wage computation records must be kept for at least two years and payroll records for at least three, as of October 2026. Some states require longer.
Will techs push back on time tracking?
Some will, if it feels like surveillance. Use the data to fix booking and stock problems first, show techs their own numbers, and keep the taps to three per job.