The 5 Best Geofence Time Tracking Apps for Field Teams

With the right app, it’s easy to set up geofences for all of the locations where your employees should be working. We’ve compiled this list of the five best geofence time tracking apps, plus what type of company each app is best for, to help you find the perfect solution for your team.

Our top picks, compared side-by-side

Platform	Best For	Rating	Paid Plans Start At
Buddy Punch	Affordability and ease of use	4.8/5	$5.99/user/month
QuickBooks Time	Large businesses	4.7/5	$10/user/month
Hubstaff	Creating bulk geofences	4.6/5	$14/seat/month
Timeero	Rural worksites	4.4/5	$8/user/month
Connecteam	Small businesses	4.7/5	$49/month

What is a geofence time tracking app?

A geofence time tracking app is a type of software that uses GPS to create a virtual perimeter around a job site, kind of like an invisible fence. Geofences interact with cell phones and other devices that use GPS to determine when someone is within or outside of the perimeter. 

For employers, geofence time tracking apps let you track when employees enter a geofence, how long they’re in it, and when they exit it. This can help you prevent off-site punching, automate time tracking, remind employees to clock in and out, and identify when employees leave a job site while clocked in.

What industries use geofence time tracking?

Geofence time tracking is useful for any business where employees work across multiple locations. It lets business owners keep a pulse on what’s happening at worksites where they can’t be physically present.

This is particularly helpful in industries like construction, field services, transportation, and home healthcare. Employers can set up geofences for all of the locations where their employees work to take advantage of the many benefits of the technology.

What are the benefits of geofence time tracking?

Geofence time tracking offers three major benefits:

• Prevent time theft: Geofences can prevent employees from clocking in/out when they’re not on site, alert you when an employee clocks in/out while off-site, and/or notify you if an employee leaves a job site while they’re clocked in.
• Reduce payroll errors: Geofences can remind employees to clock in/out when entering or exiting a geofence, helping to reduce missed punches. Some can even automatically clock employees in and out when entering/exiting a geofence.
• Create more accurate invoices: Many geofence time tracking apps allow you to assign job/project codes to geofences, which automatically assign the time employees spend in those geofences to the appropriate project/job.

All of this leads to improved accuracy in time tracking, payroll, invoicing, and record-keeping.

What features should you look for in a geofence time tracking app?

Essential features to look in a geofence time tracking app include: 

• The ability for employees to clock in and out from the field: This is generally done via a mobile app. Many apps also offer alternative options like time clock kiosks or group punch (where a supervisor or foreman clocks everyone in and out at the same time) for employees who don’t have mobile devices.
• GPS location tracking: In order for geofencing to work, the time tracking app you choose needs to have a GPS tracking feature it can use to identify employees’ locations.
• Automatic timesheets: Look for apps that automatically compile all clock in and out data into timesheets for you and calculate the total hours worked by employee and project. This will save you an incredible amount of time when it comes to running payroll.
• Payroll reports/integrations: Another way to save a lot of time is to choose an app that either provides downloadable reports you can use to get your time data to your payroll provider or, better yet, integrates with your payroll provider directly.

Additionally, you may also need these more advanced features:

• Attach job/project codes to geofences: This helps you keep better track of time spent on jobs/projects by automatically assigning all time spent in a geofence to the correct project. This eliminates the need for employees to select the correct project manually.
• API: If you have a lot of job sites to create geofences for, finding a tool that has an API (or other means of letting you create geofences in bulk) will save you a lot of time.
• Real-time location monitoring: For employees who do a lot of traveling for work, real-time location monitoring can help you keep track of where they are at all times — and access reports showing exactly where they traveled over the course of a day.
• Override mode: If employees have poor internet or phone service, it may not be possible for the app to determine their locations. If your employees often work in rural areas, make sure there’s a way to clock in/out when GPS data is unavailable.

Finally, you’ll want to make sure that the app you choose is user-friendly for even your least tech-savvy employees. If the app you choose is confusing or hard to use, you’ll struggle to get your employees to use it properly to track their time.

The 5 best geofence time tracking apps

This list of the five best geofence time-tracking apps (and who they’re best for) will help you find the right solution for your company.

Buddy Punch is an all-in-one time tracking, employee scheduling, PTO tracking, and payroll app that lets you manage your entire workforce from one tool. You can take advantage of all of its features if you need them or pick and choose only those that are relevant to your business.

Buddy Punch is custom-built for deskless employees with all of the features you need to monitor employees working in the field. Let’s take a look at how geofencing works in Buddy Punch.

Creating geofences

Buddy Punch’s geofencing feature lets you create geofences around all of the locations where employees work. You have complete control over the size of the boundary. Limit it for small office locations by making the radius 50 meters in diameter, or expand it for large job sites to as much as 1,500 meters.

Using geofences

With geofences set up, employees can only clock in and out within those boundaries. Buddy Punch uses GPS tracking on your employees’ mobile phones to identify where they’re located, and if they’re outside of the geofence, they’re prevented from punching in or out.

Geofencing rules

Buddy Punch gives admins a lot of flexibility when it comes to setting up geofencing rules. You can:

• Create a single geofence and assign all employees to it.
• Create multiple geofences and assign different employees to different geofences.
• Make clocking in and out within the geofence required for all employees.
• Make clocking in and out within the geofence required for only specific employees.

Job/project codes

Create job codes in Buddy Punch for all of your different projects. Employees can either select a job code when clocking in, or you can assign job codes to specific geofences. This makes it easy to see exactly how many employee hours were spent on each project.

Data/battery usage

With Buddy Punch, you don’t have to worry about your employees complaining about the app draining their data or the battery life of their phones. For geofencing, less than 10 KB of data is used on average for clocking in and out. And since the app only needs to be active at clock in/out, there isn’t any battery drain associated with it.

Additional features

In addition to geofencing, Buddy Punch comes with lots of other features that help you reduce labor costs, prevent time theft, and streamline all of your administrative work:

• GPS on punch: Capture GPS location data when your employees clock in and out, and review their locations on their time cards to make sure they were on site.
• Real-time GPS: See all employee locations on a map at any time, or access breadcrumb trails of where they traveled over the course of a day.
• Photos on punch: Require your employees to take a photo of themselves when clocking in or out. This helps prevent the time-theft practice of buddy punching.
• Employee scheduling: Use Buddy Punch’s drag-and-drop schedule maker to easily create work schedules and assign employees to specific roles, locations, or projects.
• Payroll integrations: Run payroll using Buddy Punch, download your timesheet reports, or send your payroll information directly to QuickBooks, Paychex, and more.

You can see a full list of Buddy Punch’s features here.

Customer reviews

Buddy Punch has an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars across more than 1,000 customer reviews on Capterra. Here’s what customers have to say about its geofencing features:

• “We can use a geofence if the employee is not punching in at the yard to see where they are when they punch in. It has prevented stealing time.”
• Best time clock we ever had for ease of use. Also, if an employee does not punch out, we are notified. The geofence is great.”
• “It’s very easy for employees and administrators alike to track time. It provides accountability for our employees with location settings such as GPS/geofencing. It provides our employees with mobility — we can send them to any job site, and they have the ability to punch in/out.”

Pricing

Buddy Punch’s plan that includes geofencing, GPS on punch, and employee scheduling starts at $5.99 per user per month plus a $19 per month base fee. Admin users are included for free in all plans. Real-time GPS tracking is also available for an additional $2 per user per month.

With QuickBooks Time, you can create geofences for specific office locations, job sites your employees are working at, or customers you’re doing work for.

To create a geofence in QuickBooks time, you can enter an address that’s recognized by Google Maps, or for job sites where an address isn’t available, you can use latitude and longitude values. The minimum radius for geofencing in QuickBooks is 100 meters, and the maximum is 1,000 meters.

Create geofences in bulk or automatically via an API

One unique feature of QuickBooks Time is that you can also automate the process of creating geofences using their API, which syncs your data with other platforms. If your company needs to create geofences in bulk, the API is a great way to save time.

Auto clock in/out

Once a geofence is set up, employees will receive alerts on their mobile devices when entering and leaving the radius. This helps them remember to start or stop tracking time when arriving at or leaving a worksite.

Additionally, you can set up workflows to automatically clock employees in and out when entering and exiting the geofence. On the employee’s side, notifications prompt them to specify why they’re leaving work locations, letting them select between options like taking a break, clocking out, or switching jobs.

Customer reviews

QuickBooks Time has an overall rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars on Capterra across almost 7,000 user reviews. Here’s what customers have to say about its geofencing features:

• “A comprehensive time clock application. Geofencing is a handy tool for ensuring employees stay on site. Base plus subscriber fee can be pricey, and internet connection must remain stable in order for employees to be tracked accurately.”
• “I appreciate the advanced features like GPS tracking, geofencing, and mileage tracking. These are particularly useful for managing my mobile workforce.”
• “The mobile app is great for managing things on the go, and the geofencing feature ensures everyone clocks in and out at the right location.”

Pricing

QuickBooks Time’s geofencing feature is only available on its Elite plan, which starts at $10 per user per month. A $20 per month base fee also applies for the first three months; after that, the base fee jumps to $40 per month. The base fee covers the cost of one admin user.

It’s worth noting that you must be a QuickBooks Online customer to subscribe to QuickBooks Time. If you don’t already subscribe to QuickBooks Online, that can increase the cost of your QuickBooks Time subscription.

Hubstaff’s time-tracking software is another great option for creating geofences in bulk. While QuickBooks Time requires you to connect to its API to create bulk geofences — which might not be an option if you don’t have anyone particularly technically savvy on your team — Hubstaff allows you to create bulk geofences using a CSV, XLS, or XLSX file.

To do so, you can download a template from Hubstaff. Using the template, you add your geofencing data: the name and address of your job sites, the email addresses of the employees who should be assigned to those job sites, and the size of each geofence radius in meters. 

After that, you can import it to Hubstaff to create all of your geofences at once.

Geofence settings

Once you have geofences set up in Hubstaff, you can select what happens when employees enter or leave the geofence:

• Have the time-tracker start and stop automatically when entering the job site.
• Have the app send a reminder for employees to clock in or out.
• Take no automatic action.

If the third option is selected, the geofence is used only to ensure employees are on-site when clocking in and out. This can be controlled at the individual or organization level, allowing you to customize which employees should be restricted to clocking in and out based on their locations.

Customer reviews

Hubstaff has an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars across more than 1,500 user reviews on Capterra. Here’s what customers have to say about its geofencing features:

• “Time tracking, HR features, URL/app tracking, project management, good GPS tracking, great one-on-one customer service.”
• “Whenever my team goes out for fieldwork, this tool provides me a clear picture about their field location, thus I can manage the workload by assigning the task to the nearest team member to visit certain clients.”
• “I like the wide variety of tracking features included that not only let employees register work time but also allow us to see activity such as screenshots and location trackers.”

Pricing

Hubstaff’s geofencing features are only available on its Team and Enterprise plans. The Teams plan is $10/seat per month when paid for annually, and then you have to pay for an additional “Locations” add on to get access to geofencing, which costs another $4/seat per month. The Enterprise plan doesn’t require the purchase of a separate add on and is $25/seat per month.

To enable geofencing in Timeero, you simply select the “require geofencing” checkbox when creating a location in the software. After that, you can set the geofence’s radius, which can be as small as 100 meters in diameter or as large as 1,000 meters.

After that, you can choose how your geofence behaves. You can:

• Require employees to be within the geofence to clock in/out.
• Automatically clock employees in and out when entering/exiting the geofence.
• Send employees notifications when entering and/or leaving the geofence’s boundaries to remind them to clock in or out.

Flexible features for employees working in rural locations

The most unique feature of Timeero is that you can make geofencing required for employees but set the system up so that they can still clock in or out even if they’re not within the geofence. When this happens, the action is flagged so an administrator can look into it.

This feature is helpful if your employees are working in a location where mobile phone service isn’t available or is unreliable. Instead of being prevented from clocking in or out and having to contact someone in the office for help, they can clock in and out anyway.

Customer reviews

Timeero has an overall rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars across 74 user reviews. Here’s what customers have to say about its geofencing features:

• “It tracks hours and mileage with geofencing at an excellent pricepoint. I love that it exports to QuickBooks!”
• “The GPS tracking and geofencing are what really set this app apart from others we’ve tried. Having traveling technicians, it is critical that we are able to track our employees’ time away from the office to ensure they are compensated appropriately.”
• “Easy to use, love the new interface. The GPS function is very helpful so I know what our employees are doing.”

Pricing

Geofencing features are available on Timeero’s Pro and Premium plans, which start at $8 per user per month.

Connecteam has a low-cost plan that lets you track time for up to 30 employees and create up to 10 geofences for a flat rate of $49 per month. If you’re a small business with few locations, this can be a lower-cost option (depending on how many employees you have) than the other tools that charge on a per-user basis.

How geofences work

In Connecteam, employees have the option to clock in/out even when they’re not located within a geofence. When they do, they have to provide a reason for why, and then the reason and punch are added to their time cards and sent to their manager to approve or deny the request.

This is helpful if an employee leaves work but forgets to clock out. They can still clock out even though they’re outside of the geofence, and their manager can use Connecteam’s breadcrumbs feature to review the employee’s GPS location data and determine at what time they left the job site and should have clocked out.

These features can be really helpful for reducing labor costs. Managers can see exactly when employees entered and left job sites, and employees can clock out when they remember it rather than driving back to the job site to clock out and then billing for those extra hours.

Team communication features

Another great thing about Connecteam is that it has team communication features built-in, so if an employee has trouble clocking in or out or clocks in/out outside of the geofence, they can send a manager or admin a message immediately notifying them about the problem.

Customer reviews

Connecteam has an overall rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars across 350 user reviews. Here’s what customers have to say about its geofencing features:

• “Very little usage of data on employee devices. Break down of all jobs worked on plus rounded up time spent on traveling between jobs. Makes it so much easier to manage our payroll when we use detailed itemized payment categories (basic pay, travel time, commercial rate, mileage, holiday, etc.).”
• “The flexibility to assign a geofence to restrict where employees clock in and out was critical for one of our clients who relies primarily on mobile workers who aren’t in a traditional office setting. The job scheduler is incredibly intuitive, and the ability to template and duplicate shifts is such a timesaver.”
• “We like the GPS location reporting of where our team members are clocking in from. Being in the construction field, our job-sites change on a daily basis.”

Pricing

Geofencing is available on Connecteam’s Advanced plan, which is $49 per month for the first 30 users and $1.50 per user per month for each additional user above 30. However, this plan only allows you to create a maximum of 10 geofences.

To create more than 10 geofences and get access to real-time GPS tracking, you’ll need to be on the Expert plan, which is $99 per month for up to 30 users and $3 per user per month for each additional user above 30.

Runner-up apps

While the apps below didn’t make it to the top of our list, they’re also good options to consider if you didn’t find exactly what you were looking for in the list above.

Choosing the right geofence time tracker

While all of the apps on this list offer core features like automated clock-in/out and location tracking, some key differences set them apart.

• Buddy Punch is the most affordable option, offering an intuitive interface and essential geofencing features at a very competitive price.
• QuickBooks Time, with its seamless integration with the Intuit ecosystem, makes it a good choice for businesses already relying on QuickBooks for payroll and accounting.
• Hubstaff is ideal for businesses with employees working on computers and in the field, offering both geofenced punch limiting and computer monitoring features.
• Timeero stands out for teams working in rural areas with spotty connectivity by allowing for clock-in/out even when outside the geofence boundary (with proper justification).
• Connecteam caters to small businesses with limited budgets by offering a low-cost plan that includes up to 10 geofences, as well as team communication features.

Ultimately, the best geofence time tracking app depends on your specific needs and priorities. But with options ranging from budget-friendly to feature-rich, there’s a solution out there to help you optimize time management, reduce costs, and empower your mobile workforce.

Related Reading:

• The 7 Best Time Clock Apps with GPS Tracking
• The 9 Best Employee Location Tracking Apps in 2025
• Free GPS Tracking Policy Template For Employers
• The Pros and Cons of GPS Tracking for Employers
• 15 Industries That Use GPS Tracking + How They Use It