Crew time on a job site: foreman as the timekeeper

The daily time report

A good daily report is short: date, job, crew members with start and stop, tasks and any delay. At the end of the day the foreman signs it. If an employee disputes pay later, the report is the first document the office will look at. Photos of the report on the same day add a second record.

Prevailing wage and certified payroll

On federally funded jobs under Davis-Bacon, and under similar state laws, contractors must pay at least the wage and benefit rate set for each classification and submit weekly certified payroll. The form most often used is the WH-347, and it lists each worker’s classification, hours and pay. If a laborer spends two hours on an operator task, the form needs to show it. The foreman’s notes make that possible.

Weather and delays

Rain stops work but not always pay. Whether workers are paid when sent home depends on state reporting time rules and on union agreements. Record the time of the stop, the reason and when work resumed. Those minutes affect job cost and may matter to a claim for delay.

Travel and tools

Loading tools at the yard, driving between sites and picking up materials are generally working time. On projects far from home, travel pay may be set by the contract or the local rate. Keep a note of the starting point for the day.

Checklist for the foreman

• Count heads at the start of the shift.
• Record start and stop for each person.
• Note any task done at a different classification.
• Write delays and their cause.
• Sign the report and send it the same day.

Small crews and big hours

A three person crew on a two week job may log 280 hours. Mistakes of ten minutes a day per person add up to more than 20 hours. Count hours at start of day and again before leaving, while you are standing with the crew, rather than from memory in the truck. A 30 second check is cheaper than a payroll correction and keeps job costs honest.

The federal rules behind certified payroll

Three federal laws shape crew time on covered public work, and each one leans on the foreman’s record. The Davis-Bacon Act, enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, applies to federally funded or assisted construction contracts over $2,000 and sets the minimum wage and fringe benefit for each worker classification. The Copeland “Anti-Kickback” Act requires the weekly statement of compliance that goes with each certified payroll and bars any arrangement where a worker hands part of their pay back. The Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act requires time and a half for hours over 40 in a workweek on covered federal contracts over $100,000.

Wage determinations for each project are published on SAM.gov. Many states run their own prevailing wage laws with different thresholds and forms, so check the state labor department for state-funded jobs.

A worked example: one worker, two classifications

The numbers below are fictional. Diaz works 40 hours on a covered job: 30 hours framing, classified as a carpenter, and 10 hours of cleanup, classified as a laborer. The project’s wage determination sets $38.00 plus $14.00 fringe for carpenters and $26.00 plus $11.00 fringe for laborers.

Without the split in the daily report, the office has two bad choices: pay all 40 hours at the carpenter rate, which costs $150 more than needed, or pay all 40 at the laborer rate, which underpays a covered worker and puts the contractor at risk of withheld contract payments. The split only works if the foreman wrote it down on the day.

Mistakes that cost foremen hours later

• Writing the crew’s hours from memory at the end of the week instead of the end of the day.
• Recording “whole crew 7 to 3:30” when two people left early or arrived late.
• Leaving the yard load-out and drive time off the report because “work starts on site”.
• Rounding every start time to the nearest half hour in the company’s favor.
• Forgetting to note a change in classification when someone runs equipment for an hour.
• Signing the report without the crew seeing it, which invites disputes on payday.

Each of these is cheap to avoid on the day and expensive to fix in an audit or a wage claim.

Where EZTime fits on the job site

In EZTime each worker can clock in from the mobile app with a GPS stamp, or the foreman can run a shared tablet kiosk or NFC tag at the site entrance. Geofences around approved job sites flag punches made somewhere else. Hours can be tagged by job, client and role, which gives the office the classification split it needs, and reports export to Excel or PDF for preparing certified payroll. Missed punches go through a correction request with manager approval and an audit trail, and task management lets the foreman attach photo proof of a completed task. EZTime does not file certified payroll for you, so keep your payroll provider or form process in place.

See also our daily construction report template and toolbox talks guide.

Questions people ask

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