The 7 Best Time Clock Apps with GPS in 2024
There are two main benefits of using time clock apps with GPS functionality.
The first is reducing time theft. By capturing an employee’s location when they clock in and out — or restricting them from punching in and out when they’re not at a job site — you can reduce the likelihood that employees will bill you for hours when they weren’t working.
The second is improving client invoicing. Real-time location tracking enables you to identify exactly when employees arrive at and leave job sites, so you know down to the second how much time they spent on the job for a customer.
The best time clock apps with GPS offer these benefits and more, with features that go far beyond basic GPS tracking to help you reduce payroll costs and increase incoming revenue.
The 7 best time clock apps with GPS
The seven GPS time clock apps below are the best for helping employers reduce time theft and create more accurate client invoices.
| Tool | Overview | Capterra Rating | Pricing |
| Buddy Punch | Best overall construction time tracking software. | 4.8 out of 5 | Starting at $3.99 per user per month |
| QuickBooks Time | Best for companies already using QuickBooks Payroll Premium or Elite. | 4.7 out of 5 | Starting at $10 per user per month |
| Clockify | Best for agencies and consulting companies. | 4.7 out of 5 | Starting at $7.99 per user/month |
| BusyBusy | Best for construction companies. | 4.5 out of 5 | Free plan available with limited features |
| Jibble | Best free option for small businesses. | 4.8 out of 5 | Free plan available with limited features |
| Hubstaff | Best for healthcare companies. | 4.6 out of 5 | Starting at $4.99 per seat per month |
| Hellotracks | Best for transportation companies. | 4.1 out of 5 | Starting at $10 per user per month |
1. Buddy Punch
Best overall GPS time clock app.
Buddy Punch’s GPS feature can capture your staff’s GPS coordinates whenever they punch in to or out of work. Once that timestamp data has been captured, you (or an administrator on your team) can look into their dashboards and analyze the location of each punch on Google Maps.
Additionally, you can see each employee’s timecard and look at all punches on a map within a specified timeframe.
Buddy Punch also keeps track of your employees’ locations during their entire shifts. This means you can see whether or not they’re where they’re supposed to be. This is perfect for remote workers, workers traveling to different job sites, on-site technicians, and more.
The GPS location tracking feature in Buddy Punch is optional. You can turn it off or require it on a per-employee basis.
This all makes it easier than ever to keep track of employee time as they move from location to location, never worrying whether or not your staff showed up where they were supposed to be. Verify punches from the administrator dashboard, and use it to keep your team members accountable without any hassle.
And if you need more advanced features, Buddy Punch has those, too.
Geofencing
Buddy Punch’s geofencing functionality allows you to create a specified radius around a location where your employees can clock in and out of work. If the employee is not inside the radius they were assigned, they’ll be prevented from clocking in or out and receive an error notification.
You can create as many geofences as you’d like and assign job codes for each. This allows you to easily track and allocate time to multiple customers and projects.
Geofencing makes it so your employees don’t have to worry about manually inputting where they are working — it automatically detects if they’re within a specified geofence and sends the information back to the administrator so you know what job sites your staff worked at that day.
There’s one main distinction between geofencing and GPS tracking: geofencing is a punch limiter, meaning it stops punches outside the radius, while GPS tracking simply tracks where your employees are when they punch in or out.
Related: The Best Geofencing Apps
IP address locking
With IP address locking, you can limit the IP addresses where your employees can clock in or out. Every time someone on your team clocks in or out, the app automatically detects what network they’re on and only allows them to punch in or out if they’re connected to one of your chosen networks.
Just as with geofencing, if the employee tries to clock in or clock out when connected to an unauthorized IP Address, Buddy Punch will show them an error message stating that they’re using an unauthorized IP Address.
This feature works best for businesses where employees work in the same premises, such as an office. It ensures your employees are only able to punch in and out while connected to your office network instead of, for example, while in the parking lot.
Geofencing and IP address locking can also be used in tandem if necessary.
Photos on punch
Buddy Punch’s “Photos on Punch” feature adds another layer of accountability to all your employees’ punches. Once this feature is activated, your staff will be prompted to take a photo of themselves when clocking in and out of work.
If you activate this feature on top of GPS/geofencing/IP locking, you now also have photos of your employees proving they were on-site. You can view those photos on timesheets, helping you prevent time theft acts like buddy punching where an employee gets another employee to clock in or out for them.
Additional features
Beyond these GPS-focused features, Buddy Punch also has additional employee management tools like scheduling, time off tracking, overtime calculations, and payroll processing, with integrations for popular payroll providers like Quickbooks, ADP, Gusto, Workday, and more.
Your administrators can easily access Buddy Punch using its web app, mobile apps for iPhone and Android, iOS app for iPads, or Chrome app for Chromebooks. When employees are in the field, they can clock in and out using their mobile devices or a kiosk you set up.
Finally, Buddy Punch is one of the highest-rated GPS time clock apps on Capterra both overall and for things like ease of use and customer support. It’s our overall pick because of its intuitive, user-friendly interface and wide range of features.
Buddy Punch pricing: Plans start at $3.99 per user/month + $19 base fee.
Want to learn more about Buddy Punch? Start a free 14-day trial — no credit card required — watch a recorded demo, or request a personalized demo.
2. QuickBooks Time
Best GPS time tracking app for companies using QuickBooks Payroll Premium or Elite.
Like Buddy Punch, QuickBooks Time offers both real-time GPS location tracking and geofencing. These features can be used separately or together.
In terms of GPS tracking, QuickBooks Time captures employees’ locations when clocking in and out. You can see this data in employee timesheets or view all employees’ locations on a map.
The geofencing feature offers some more advanced functionality. Use geofences to automatically clock employees in and out when they arrive at or leave a worksite, or send them notifications when they arrive within or leave a geofence to remind them to clock in/out.
Geofences can be attached to job codes for accurate job costing, and you can automate the process of creating job locations and attaching them to codes using the QuickBooks Time API.
However, QuickBooks Time is one of the priciest apps on this list, making it better for large businesses or those who already pay for QuickBooks Payroll Premium or Elite — Quickbooks Time is included for free as part of those packages.
QuickBooks Time pricing: Plans start at $10 per user/month + $40 base fee.
3. Clockify
Best GPS time tracker for agencies and consulting companies.
Clockify is primarily designed for agencies and consulting companies that do online work for multiple clients. It’s combined project management and time tracking software that lets you create projects, estimate project hours, assign tasks to employees, and track time spent on tasks, clients, and projects.
It isn’t terribly robust in terms of its location-tracking features, but it has basic GPS tracking that logs location data when employees clock in and again when they clock out.
Additionally, if employees leave the office while clocked in, Clockify will add the time and new location to the timesheet, letting you easily identify when employees took breaks or forgot to clock out when leaving work.
Clockify pricing: Plans with GPS time tracking start at $7.99 per user/month.
4. BusyBusy
Best GPS time clock app for construction companies.
BusyBusy’s GPS feature lets you track employee and equipment locations. Employee location data is added to timesheets, and employee and equipment locations can be viewed on a map at any time. These features are available on a free-forever plan which includes unlimited users.
This makes it a great option for construction companies that are just looking for an inexpensive way to track employee locations. However, for some of BusyBusy’s more advanced features, you’ll have to upgrade to one of its higher-cost plans.
To access geofencing or GPS breadcrumbing (the ability to see employee locations across the day and not just when they clock in or out), you’ll have to upgrade to BusyBusy’s Pro plan, which is $9.99 per user per month.
BusyBusy’s paid plans offer a lot of features designed to help construction companies streamline their operations and monitor labor costs, such as project document storage, project progress photos, PTO approvals, payroll automation, and budgeting and scheduling tools.
BusyBusy pricing: Free plan includes basic GPS time tracking for unlimited users; paid plans start at $9.99 per user/month and include geofencing and GPS breadcrumbing.
5. Jibble
Best free GPS time clock app for small businesses.
For small businesses with very basic needs, Jibble’s free-forever plan could provide everything you’re looking for. You can use it to monitor the locations of unlimited employees using either location logging or real-time tracking on a map. You can also create up to two geofences.
Jibble also offers offline functionality through its mobile time and location tracking apps. If employees don’t have an internet connection through their mobile phones or Wi-Fi, Jibble will simply log the data and then sync it to your system later when a connection is re-established.
Jibble pricing: Free for GPS tracking and up to two geofences; paid plans start at $2.49 per user/month and include unlimited geofences, custom policies, and overtime rules.
6. Hubstaff
Best GPS and geofence time clock for healthcare companies.
Hubstaff’s timekeeping app has all of the features you see in the other apps on this list. You can use it for employee scheduling, PTO tracking, logging work hours, and overtime calculations. It works as a GPS tracker and has a geofencing feature for creating geofences in bulk.
Hubstaff also has productivity monitoring tools that let you track which websites and apps your employees are using while working. Administrators can turn these features on or off for the entire organization or set up tracking by individual employees.
What makes Hubstaff a great option for healthcare is that it has HIPAA compliance built in. So if you need something to track employee locations and productivity that won’t potentially compromise patient privacy, it’s a great option.
Hubstaff pricing: Plans start at $4.99 per user/month; plans that include HIPAA compliance start at $25 per seat/month.
7. Hellotracks
Best GPS time clock app for transportation companies.
Hellotracks is completely built around GPS tracking. It uses same-second GPS technology to let you see exactly where all of your off-site field workers are at any given point in time on a map. Route optimization functionality also lets dispatchers see and optimize routes.
On the employee side, they use the Hellotracks app for navigation. When they arrive at their destination, the dispatcher receives a notification, and another notification is sent when they leave the location. Hellotracks also logs the employee hours spent at specific locations.
As far as geofencing, Hellotracks has the most customizable options of all of the apps on this list. It lets you create any geofence shape you’d like — circles, squares, triangles, etc. — so you can be really specific about which areas employees can be in while billing time to your business.
Hellofence pricing: Starting at $10 per user/month.
Legal considerations for employee GPS tracking
One final thing to consider when selecting the best option for your company is compliance.
Some states have specific regulations around GPS tracking, so before you begin this type of tracking, review the laws in the locations where your business operates.
Generally speaking, businesses can only track employees using GPS during their working hours and when using company-owned vehicles.
Before you begin GPS tracking, you should establish a written policy for employees describing how they will be monitored and how this data will be used. It’s always best to get employees’ consent whether your state requires you to do so or not.
