ClockShark pricing for a crew that changes with the season

You are adding a summer crew, and the time-tracking bill needs to make sense when those workers leave. ClockShark pricing depends on the plan and active users. Its pricing page says users are charged for their active days, with prorated invoices, and states a three-year contract term. Dollar amounts did not appear in the public page data available for this review on October 23, 2026, so a current dollar total remains unverified.

Start with Standard if the required job is time capture, scheduling, manager approval, and a payroll handoff. Evaluate Pro when you need its additional PTO, department controls, or advanced job costing controls. Keep your current time clock if those steps already work and switching would only change the invoice. Test a replacement when the crew cannot capture the right job or payroll repeatedly needs corrections.

Choose the plan around the approval and coding work

Kartik Deshpande prepared this evaluation from official product pages, without testing a paid account. The decision criteria are the billable roster, who approves hours, which job codes workers can choose, and how approved records leave the system. Both plans can cover a basic time-to-payroll workflow; the extra controls need to address a specific problem in your operation.

The pricing page says the trial includes Pro features for 14 days. Ask the salesperson to demonstrate the disputed requirement on the edition you intend to buy. For example, if the problem is workers selecting an unrelated job, show which control restricts that choice and who can override it. An approval button alone does not establish that the job allocation is correct.

If the required workflow still does not fit, compare construction time-tracking software using the same crew and payroll destination. That comparison covers alternative products; this page concentrates on the ClockShark buying decision.

Build a seasonal quote from the same roster

Use a hypothetical roster of 12 year-round workers and six additional workers for four full months. That is 168 worker-months: 12 × 12 + 6 × 4. Keep administrators and supervisors as separate rows until the vendor confirms which accounts incur a charge. A person who reviews time may still need a paid account, so a field-worker count alone is not a complete quote request.

For a quote with monthly base fee B and monthly active-user rate U, the annual subscription worksheet is 12B + 168U, before separately chargeable office accounts, taxes, and extras. Apply that formula once to Standard and once to Pro. This is a budgeting formula, not a published ClockShark price or an assumption that an annual contract is billed monthly.

Request separate totals for monthly billing and any annual prepayment offer, both in US dollars and for the same staffing calendar. Keep promotional discounts and renewal rates on different lines. Also request the committed total across the proposed term, any minimum account charge, and what happens when you reduce staffing. Active-user proration does not by itself establish cancellation rights or eliminate a contract commitment.

For partial months, ask for a sample invoice with a worker activated midway through the month and deactivated before month-end. Check which action changes billable status, when it takes effect, and whether stored records remain accessible. Do not assume an employee with no punches is automatically an inactive billing user.

Follow one approved shift into payroll and job cost

ClockShark’s QuickBooks integration page describes importing approved time, mapping jobs to QuickBooks customers and service items, and processing payroll in QuickBooks. Verify the QuickBooks edition and payroll product you use. A vendor logo does not establish that every configuration or pay code transfers.

For a proposed trial, create one employee, two test jobs, and the task codes your accounting team expects. Record a hypothetical eight-hour paid day split into five hours on Job A and three on Job B. Have a supervisor correct an intentionally wrong task, review the record, and approve it. These are acceptance-test instructions, not results from a product test.

Export the approved time to a safe test destination and reconcile the employee total to eight hours and the job totals to five and three. Then try exporting the same period again and inspect how the integration handles already-transferred records. Test a correction after approval separately, because an edited source record must not silently leave payroll and the job report disagreeing.

ClockShark documents PDF and CSV reporting. Download a sample before choosing the product and check whether it contains stable identifiers, dates, job codes, and enough detail to investigate a disputed total. A printable summary and a reusable row-level export serve different tasks.

Check location access on the devices workers use

ClockShark’s time-tracking page says it does not request GPS information when someone is not clocked in. Test the intended phone configuration with an employee account, including a denied location permission and a lost connection. Record what reaches the supervisor and what remains missing rather than interpreting every absent location point as evidence about attendance.

Give each foreman the access needed to review the assigned crew, then check another crew’s records from that account. Keep access to pay rates and payroll exports limited to the roles that need them. Confirm the available controls with the vendor before purchase; this evaluation does not establish their exact behavior in your account.

Where Permute fits after time approval

Permute sells governed business data and custom applications, so this evaluation has a commercial interest. We can scope a reporting workflow that combines approved time exports with accounting and project records, resolves job identifiers, and retains the evidence behind a total. ClockShark is not being presented here as a native Permute connector; file availability and a supported connection path need verification.

Once the job mapping and accepted-period rules are defined, the same output can support recurring labor reports. A controller could inspect a job’s approved hours alongside posted labor cost and see which source records explain a difference. The construction job-cost report explains the wider report, including costs a time clock does not capture.

Keep payroll decisions in the payroll workflow

This reporting scope does not replace the time clock, approve wages, decide employment rules, or promise a write-back into payroll. Your payroll owner remains responsible for approved hours and pay treatment. Connection setup, mappings, access controls, and the cost of a custom reporting workflow require their own scope.

Preserve the old records before moving the crew

Export historical time and job assignments before ending the old subscription. Preserve employee identifiers, closed-period reports, and the evidence your payroll team needs, then rebuild job codes, supervisor assignments, schedules, and payroll mappings in the new account. Do not assume a CSV carries approval history or attachments; inspect what the export contains and retain the missing evidence separately.

Run one controlled payroll period through the proposed workflow, keeping the existing payroll process authoritative until the results reconcile. Name the person responsible for resolving rejected records and reconnecting credentials. Move the remaining crew only after the approved totals, job allocations, and correction procedure meet your acceptance criteria.

For a seasonal crew, the ClockShark decision starts with the active roster and written commercial terms. Standard is the starting point when basic time capture and approval cover the job; Pro needs a specific additional requirement. Verify the price against the staffing calendar and prove the payroll handoff before committing. If the current setup already passes those checks, a switch needs another concrete benefit.

Questions about buying ClockShark