While many companies are able to take steps to reduce time theft at the office, combating this issue is a bit more complicated for field workers. You can’t see if employees are at work when they clock in, it’s difficult to know if they clocked in on time or left when they were scheduled to, and you don’t know exactly what they’re spending time on while they’re on the clock.

Implementing a field service time tracking app helps solve these problems. These apps come with features like GPS tracking, geofencing, and photo clock-ins to make it easy to keep track of your employees and prevent time theft no matter where your employees work. In this post, we’ll walk you through the seven best field service time tracking apps, sharing their unique features and pricing, to help you find the right one.

The benefits of using a field service time tracking app

Field service time tracking apps deliver a lot of benefits to business owners and admins:

  • Confirm job site attendance: Field service time tracking apps will show you exactly when employees are on the clock, and you can also make sure they were at the right job site when they clocked in with location-tracking features like GPS tracking and geofencing.
  • Prevent time theft: Time tracking apps built for field services teams come with features like GPS tracking and geofencing that prevent offsite punching, and many offer features like facial recognition or photos on punch to prevent employees from buddy punching.
  • Reduce payroll and invoicing errors: Time tracking apps automatically calculate employee hours, PTO, and overtime to ensure your payroll is always correct. Additionally, many apps also allow you to attribute employee hours to specific projects, improving the accuracy of your client invoicing.
  • Improve customer service: Knowing where your team is at any given moment will help you improve your response times. It also helps facilitate better customer communication by allowing you to provide your customers with a more accurate estimate of when a technician will arrive.
  • Save time: An automated time tracking system can simplify many time-intensive tasks. By choosing time card software that syncs up with your payroll system, you’ll no longer have to enter data by hand. It will also save you from having to calculate extra hours, overtime, or vacation time.

The 7 best field service time tracking apps

Below, you’ll find our picks for the seven best field service time tracking apps. We’ve reviewed each app in detail, highlighting who the apps are best for, what unique features they offer, what current customers have to say about them, and how much they cost.

1. Buddy Punch – Most affordable field service time tracking app

Buddy Punch is an affordable and easy to use time tracking app that’s built for field services teams. With features such as GPS tracking, job costing, drag-and-drop job scheduling, notifications, PTO management, customizable reports, payroll integrations, and mobile/tablet device compatibility, it has everything you need to save time, keep a pulse on what’s happening in your business, and reduce your labor costs.

Key features

  • GPS tracking: Buddy Punch offers two different location tracking features: GPS on punch and real-time GPS tracking. With GPS on punch, employees’ locations are logged on their timesheets when they clock in/out, and you can review that data at any time. With real-time GPS, employees’ locations are monitored in real-time throughout the workday.
  • Geofencing: With geofencing, you can create virtual borders around all of your job sites. For employees to clock in or out, they have to be located within one of the geofences assigned to them. If they’re not on site, the app will prevent them from punching and show them where the geofence is located.
  • Job costing: Create job codes for each of the different jobs or projects you’re working on, then employees can select the right job code when clocking in. This lets you run reports showing exactly how much time your employees spent on specific projects for accurate customer invoicing.
  • Facial recognition: Buddy Punch offers two methods for preventing Buddy Punching. If your employees are using Apple devices (iPads or iPhones), you can use built-in facial recognition technology to validate employees’ identities before they can punch. On other devices, you can use photos on punch, which requires employees to take a selfie every time they clock in and out.
  • Drag and drop scheduling: Buddy Punch’s scheduling tools makes it easier than ever to create schedules for your team. Assign employees to specific jobs, departments, and locations, and share schedules with them automatically. Employees can also enter their availability and request shift trades and covers in the Buddy Punch app.
  • Notifications: Set up a variety of alerts for yourself or your employees. You can get a notification when employees are nearing overtime, when someone clocked in late, or when someone missed a shift. Employees can get notifications when new schedules are published, when they forgot to clock in or out, when their timesheet was approved, and more.
  • PTO management: Set up your accrual policies in Buddy Punch, and the system will automatically calculate how much PTO employees have available. Employees can submit PTO requests in Buddy Punch and have those requests sent to managers for approval, and all approved paid time off is automatically added to employees’ timesheets so it’s included in total payroll hours.
  • Customizable reports: Buddy Punch’s customizable reports give you the power to make meaningful decisions with all the data collected during your techs’ work days. With this, you get a detailed overview of your employees, their hours, overtime, locations, and more — all of which can be exported in PDF, CSV, or Excel formats.
  • Payroll integrations: Buddy Punch integrates directly with payroll providers like QuickBooks, ADP, Paychex, SurePayroll, Gusto, Workday, and more. This lets you transfer your timesheet data to payroll in just a couple of clicks, significantly reduce the time it takes you to run payroll.
  • Mobile and tablet apps: Employees and admins can use Buddy Punch on their mobile phones or computers. You can even download one of its iOS or Android apps onto a tablet to create a portable time clock kiosk that all of your employees can use to clock in and out at a specific job site.

Customer reviews

Buddy Punch has a rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars across more than 1,000 customer reviews on Capterra. Here are a few reviews that speak to Buddy Punch’s ease of use and ability to monitor remote employees:

  • “Very inclusive of everything an admin needs to address different scenarios in the field. Multiple customer reps were available via chat to help with setup and answer questions. Rep was very knowledgeable and helped me with every single question and scenario I had trouble with.”
  • “Buddy Punch is easy to use for managing our remote team members. It’s easy to set them up in the system, establish their locations, and manage how they can punch in and punch out.”
  • “Buddy Punch saves my team of managers time when trying to collect timesheets and by being able to approve timesheets remotely. It’s also easier to log in on a daily basis via the app so staff stay members more current on their hours. This makes it easier not having to recall two weeks of time worked like when they were using a paper timesheet.”

Pricing

Buddy Punch’s plans start at $4.49/user per month plus a $19/month base fee. The base fee covers the cost of all admin users you add to your account.

Learn more about Buddy Punch

2. ClockShark – Best for getting updates from the field

ClockShark is a powerful time tracking app with numerous features that can help field services businesses drastically improve the way you manage your employees.

Key features

  • Mobile time tracking: ClockShark allows you to track field workers on the go. This includes monitoring when they clock in and clock out and tracking their time across individual tasks — all in real-time.
  • Real-time GPS tracking: ClockShark has built-in GPS tracking that sends a ping to mark employee locations on a map every 10-15 minutes. This creates a breadcrumb effect that displays their locations as they clock in, clock out, or switch jobs and tasks.
  • Conversations: You can use ClockShark to maintain a record of completed tasks and next steps, updating your crew members on the progress of each job. You can also create comment threads to ensure you and your team are aware of any changes on remote job sites.
  • Job costing: Manage job-related time and labor expenses through ClockShark’s job costing feature. Track remote labor on tasks from start to finish, assign jobs to specific employees, and export timesheets to your chosen accounting system.

Customer reviews

ClockShark has a Capterra score of 4.7 out of 5. Here’s what one user had to say about their experience:

“ClockShark has made our business run more efficiently! We schedule employees to work multiple job locations, we can confirm their work time/location with the GPS feature, and we have their timesheets online. Customer service is great; they hire great people to answer any question you may have, and if they don’t know, they get back with you.”

Pricing

ClockShark’s plans start at $8/user per month plus a $40/month base fee.

3. Workyard – Best for automatic time tracking

Workyard is a GPS time clock app that was built specifically with field workers and their managers in mind. This precise GPS time clock software comes with many automated features to make employee management, payroll, and job costing a breeze.

Key features

  • Precise GPS tracking: Workyard provides precise GPS tracking of employees, including marked map locations, travel distances, and a route tracking system that records your workers’ movement. This minute-by-minute rundown provides business owners with all the information they need to optimize attendance and productivity.
  • Automatic clock in and out: Workyard prevents missed punches by automatically clocking employees in the moment they arrive on site. This feature also works to detect when employees leave a job site to automatically clock when out.
  • Automatic project time recording: Workyard automatically assigns time to projects based on location and customizable rules.
  • Automatic mileage capture: Worker mileage and travel time is instantly recorded, making it easy to reimburse employees for mileage when you run payroll.

Customer reviews

Workyard has a rating of 4.7/5 stars on Capterra. Here’s what one user had to say about their experience:

“We have loved getting onto digital timecards and have found the direct export from Workyard to our payroll company to greatly reduce payroll errors and delays. We strongly recommend this service to any company looking to upgrade their payroll timecards.”

Pricing

Workyard’s plans start at $6/user per month plus a $50/month base fee.

4. Connecteam – Best free time tracking app

If you have a small team and don’t need all of the bells and whistles of apps that are built for field services, Connecteam might be a good choice. It has a free plan for businesses with up to 10 employees that lets you track time with no monthly cost.

Key features

  • GPS tracking: Connecteam tracks GPS locations only while on the clock, preserving team member privacy once they clock out. You can also send automated notifications to remind employees to clock in or clock out.
  • Breadcrumb technology: Connecteam provides full visibility of where employees go during their shift, creating a clear visual of the routes employees take along with associated timestamps. These reports can even be sent to clients to verify worker routes.
  • Automatic calculations: Connecteam has built-in features to automatically calculate break times, absences, overtime, and PTO for your workers, creating a comprehensive overview of your workforce.
  • Training and safety courses: Connecteam gives you the option to create required training and safety courses for your construction workers to complete from their mobile phones.

Customer reviews

Connecteam has a Capterra score of 4.7/5 stars. Here’s what one user had to say about their experience:

“Connecteam helps me validate the work that each employee does without having to be next to that person. We can communicate as a more united team in the work chat and be able to keep an improved order of the tasks that are pending to be done. This software helps me maintain a perfect order and a production with better results.”

Pricing

Connecteam has a free plan for up to 10 users. Paid plans start at $29/month.

5. QuickBooks Time – Best for QuickBooks Online and Payroll users

QuickBooks is a versatile suite of software that offers many different packages and features, and their time tracking offerings are just as strong as many of their others. It’s worth noting that you have to be a QuickBooks Online subscriber to use QuickBooks Time, but the big advantage of it is that the three Intuit products — Time, Online, and Payroll — all sync data between each of them seamlessly.

Key features

  • GPS time clock: QuickBooks Time monitors real-time GPS location data for all of your employees. This data seamlessly syncs with timesheets to improve accuracy and allow you to track mileage.
  • Invoicing: QuickBooks lets you send invoices and estimates for jobs. You can attach plans, contracts, and photos to your invoices and will receive instance notifications when an invoice is viewed or paid.
  • Job costs: QuickBooks lets you track time and expenses accurately for each project. Data on time spent per project can also be synced seamlessly with QuickBooks Online and Payroll.
  • Customizable reports: View income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow all in one place. Generate reports at will and gain greater insight into what works and what doesn’t for your crew.

Customer reviews

QuickBooks has a rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars on Capterra. One happy customer had this to say:

“This software includes tools for tracking employees’ arrival and departure times and locations, as well as the total amount of time spent at each job site. This helps you save time and money by preventing the workers from clocking in from another location. The distribution and use of the software is possible on a wide range of mobile devices.”

Pricing

You must be a QuickBooks Online subscriber to use QuickBooks Time. Its plans start at $8/user per month plus a $20/month base fee.

6. Timeero – Best for mileage tracking

Timeero is a time and mileage tracking app that specializes in location management features for employers. Unlike the other apps on this list that are more focused on field services like plumbing, construction, and landscaping, Timeero also has lots of features for field teams in industries like home healthcare and sales.

Key features

  • GPS time clock app: Timeero can be installed on mobile phones to allow workers to clock in, clock out, and log their breaks as well as overtime while on the go. Additionally, employee punches automatically record team member locations.
  • Geofencing: Timeero lets you create a virtual boundary around a specific area using GPS technology. This restricts where employees can clock in and out.
  • Facial recognition: Timeero uses biometric facial recognition to combat the most common form of time theft — buddy punching.
  • Mileage tracking: Timeero allows you to automatically track your team members’ traveling routes and mileage throughout the day, which is a strong feature if you have remote workers rotating between various job sites. You can even use the route replay feature to get a closer look at how your team members traveled from site to site, and then optimize their travel efficiency to improve productivity.

Customer reviews

Timeero has a score of 4.4/5 stars on Capterra. Here’s what one reviewer had to say:

“The auto clock-in and out feature is the best feature for me, followed by having the ability to have multiple locations enabled for employees who move around and don’t stick to one location. Having the ability for staff to input their schedule as well as input schedules for them helps with the variety of different situations a staffing company faces.”

Pricing

Timeero has a $4/user per month plan that’s available for companies with up to 10 users. For companies with more than 10 users, plans start at $8/user per month.

7. Samsara – Best for logistics companies

Samsara is a digital platform designed to help construction, field services, and warehousing companies achieve better safety, efficiency, and sustainability.

Key features

  • Video-based safety: Samsara makes use of AI cameras, driver coaching, safety reports, and in-cab alerts to ensure that drivers are both protected and empowered to build safe habits. Videos can be retrieved on-demand.
  • Vehicle telematics: Samsara functions as a command center for fleet operations. Observe your workers with real-time data on an interactive map that provides vehicle diagnostics to facilitate improved route performance, fleet efficiency, and customer service.
  • Equipment monitoring: Get 360-degree visibility for your equipment at remote job sites. Prevent loss and theft with real-time GPS and geofence alerts for improved asset tracking. 
  • Workforce apps: Use the Samsara API to connect all your systems to one app. Integrate training and reward programs to provide incentive and capability for your crew to improve.

Customer reviews

As of this post’s writing, Samsara has a rating of 4.4/5 on Capterra. One user had this to say: 

“They have very good response times for their customer service. My drivers are not waiting for hours to talk with somebody about a problem. If it’s a problem that is not resolved immediately, they are quick to move it up the food chain and get the problem or issue solved.”

Pricing

Samsara’s pricing is not publicly available. Contact the company for a quote.

Choosing the best field service time tracking solution

Choosing the right field service time tracking app can make a huge difference in how efficiently you manage your workforce. By leveraging features like GPS tracking, geofencing, and automated payroll integrations, you can reduce time theft, improve accuracy, and streamline operations.

Whether you’re looking for an affordable solution, advanced GPS tracking, or seamless payroll integration, there’s an option on this list tailored to your needs. Evaluate the features that matter most to your business, and you’ll be well on your way to better workforce management and increased productivity.

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About the Author

Eric has more than 20 years of experience owning, operating, and managing businesses — everything from in-person, multi-location shops to fully remote SaaS companies. He uses what he's learned along the way to create helpful guides for other business leaders.