The foreman fixes Tuesday’s timecard after the office has downloaded it. The employee still worked eight hours, but two belong to another cost code. Now payroll has one version and the job report has another. Construction time tracking software should make that correction visible and give the office a clear way to replace the earlier handoff.
Evaluate busybusy Pro for supervisor-managed construction time, ClockShark Standard for job and task tracking with manager approvals, and Workyard Pro when project allocation and controlled timecard review matter together. Keep your current app if it already produces approved, traceable hours and the problem is a missing review step. These recommendations use official documentation checked October 22, 2026. The exercise below is proposed, not a report of hands-on testing.
Decide what a corrected timecard must preserve
Start with employee identity, work date, project, cost code, hours, reviewer, and export status. A supervisor needs enough access to fix the crew’s entries, while payroll needs to know whether those entries changed after approval. A location marker can support a review, but it does not decide which task the employee performed or what pay treatment applies.
Ask the vendor to show the original allocation, the corrected allocation, and what happens to approval. Then ask whether the receiving payroll product accepts a replacement or creates a duplicate. Keep the field narrative alongside the time record when it explains the correction; the daily reporting comparison covers that separate capture workflow.
Three options for the same approval workflow
| Product to evaluate | Documented fit | Decision to resolve in a demonstration |
|---|---|---|
| busybusy Pro | Supervisor tools cover editing time and moving it between projects and cost codes. | Can the payroll reviewer find the change and replace an already downloaded period? |
| ClockShark Standard | Standard includes job/task tracking, manager roles, approvals, and integrations. | Confirm which task identifier reaches your payroll and accounting products, and the contract commitment. |
| Workyard Pro | Pro adds project/cost-code allocation and labor-cost reporting to Starter time tracking. | Confirm how your account handles corrected approved cards and which export includes the allocation. |
busybusy for a foreman who records the crew’s day
busybusy documents crew clocking, time editing, and reassignment in its supervisor workflow. That makes it a sensible candidate when the foreman is responsible for getting the day entered. Its clock-in workflow also describes switching projects and cost codes while tracking time. Check the difference between a worker’s permissions and the supervisor’s before giving the whole crew editing access.
Set up the two cost codes in the exercise below and have the foreman move the mistaken hours. The expected acceptance result is one corrected eight-hour total, an explanation available to payroll, and a usable allocation export. Those are purchasing requirements. The feature description alone does not establish the exact approval reset or downstream replacement behavior.
ClockShark when job and task mapping already fit payroll
ClockShark documents reviewing hours and approving them for transfer in its QuickBooks integration. It also describes PDF and CSV reports showing job time. If you already use the supported accounting workflow, start by testing that connection with your own job and task structure instead of rebuilding the entire payroll process.
For this exercise, configure the job and the two tasks that represent the cost codes. Review the corrected entry before approving it for export. Have the vendor demonstrate what happens when a correction arrives afterward, including whether you must reopen approval and how the receiving system avoids counting both versions. Do not assume that a task label and an accounting cost-code ID are interchangeable.
Workyard when reviewer access needs careful setup
Workyard’s review documentation distinguishes administrators, managers with configured restrictions, and workers with access to their own cards. It also notes that an offline clock-in does not appear until the device reconnects. That distinction matters when an apparently missing card is still on a phone.
Configure the project and cost codes, assign a restricted reviewer, and correct the sample card. Workyard’s current review instructions describe reviewing changes before applying them and reporting skipped bulk edits. Ask which review interface your account uses during the rollout, then demonstrate the approved-card correction in that interface.
Price five users for twelve months
Use one office administrator and four field users, all active throughout the year. Request US-dollar prices without introductory offers. Separate subscription charges, required base fees, payroll service, implementation, and optional hardware. The time app’s bill is not the payroll processor’s bill.
busybusy’s rate card lists Pro at $9.99 per user per month on annual billing or $11.99 on monthly billing, plus a $40 admin license with the first user included. Four additional users therefore represent $479.52 a year at the annual rate, before that license. If the quoted license is $40 each month, the combined annual cost is $959.52; on monthly user rates it is $1,055.52. Confirm the license frequency and invoice schedule in writing. These are conditional calculations, not a checkout quote. Free is also listed, but paid supervisor features are part of this comparison.
ClockShark’s pricing page lists Standard and Pro, but the dollar amounts were unavailable in the retrieved page. It states a three-year contract term for all pricing plans. Request the first twelve months of charges and the full commitment separately. The five-user total remains unknown; do not substitute an older blog’s base fee or call the first year a one-year contract.
Workyard advertises plans starting at $6 per user per month billed annually. Five users at that starting rate would be $360 for twelve months, but this exercise needs Pro project allocation. The full Pro rate, any base charge, and required integration costs remain unverified. Treat $360 as starting-rate arithmetic, not a comparable Pro quote.
Run one correction through both receiving outputs
Use synthetic employee E-104, project J-220, and an eight-hour day. Enter six hours against framing and two against finish work. Then provide the foreman’s correction: framing should have four hours and finish work four. Total hours stay at eight. Use declared sample categories without making assumptions about overtime, breaks, wages, or legal treatment.
Save the first export, apply the correction with a reason, and complete the required review again. Produce a second export with employee and project identifiers intact. Payroll should receive the accepted eight-hour record once; job costing should receive the corrected four-and-four split. Compare the actual files, including their dates and version references. If the receiving product needs a manual reversal or replacement, document that step and its owner.
Where Permute fits after time approval
Permute is the connected-data and custom-app software we sell. We can help configure structured outputs from permitted time records and accounting data, after checking source access. The work includes matching employee and project identifiers and defining which approved version each output uses.
A reusable transformation can keep the payroll handoff and job report tied to the same accepted records, with source references, freshness, and access controls. Hours and posted payroll cost still need separate definitions. The construction job cost report explains that distinction.
What stays with your time and payroll systems
Permute does not replace the mobile clock or payroll processor, determine pay rules, or promise a ready connector to every product here. Confirm available exports or supported integrations before scoping the workflow. Any external update needs an explicitly authorized, supported action; a reporting correction does not itself change a payroll run.
Inspect the records behind your labor report
Start with a permitted time export and identify the fields needed for a reusable reporting output.
Switch after the receiving system accepts the sample
Preserve old timecards, approvals, exports, and correction history before ending access. Rebuild worker accounts, reviewer permissions, project mappings, and payroll connections in the new product. Run the sample alongside the existing process without sending duplicate live payroll records. Name the person who reconciles the totals and signs off on the change.
Choose busybusy for a supervisor-led workflow that passes the correction check. Evaluate ClockShark when its job mapping and approvals fit your existing handoff, and Workyard when project allocation and reviewer controls fit the team. Compare complete quotes on the same five-user scope. If the current system passes the exercise, improving its review routine may be sufficient.
Review a time-to-reporting handoff
Bring an anonymized timecard and its receiving report to scope the missing definitions and correction steps.
Questions before moving field time into payroll
Should a small crew start with a free plan?
Only if it passes the same correction and handoff exercise. A free clock can be enough for simple capture, but the supervisor controls and receiving export matter more than the absence of a subscription. Check those requirements before moving the active crew.
Should the office administrator count in the five users?
Yes, include everyone who needs access in the quote request. This scenario has one administrator and four field users. Ask the vendor to show any included administrator seat so it is neither omitted nor charged twice.
What if payroll hours match but the job report does not?
Check allocation and version references before changing the total. The sample preserves eight hours while moving two between cost codes. A report can therefore have the right payroll total and still carry the wrong job allocation.
Do historical timecards need to be editable in the new app?
Decide that before migration. A readable archive may meet your operational requirements, while open periods may need an editable workflow. Confirm what transfers, what remains in the archive, and how a later correction will reference the original record.