Time tracking guide
Employee Time Clock vs. Job Time Tracking in an Auto Shop
An employee time clock records attendance: when a person starts work, takes breaks, and finishes. Job time tracking assigns time to a specific repair. Billed labour is what the customer is charged. These records serve different purposes and should not be treated as interchangeable.
Updated · Strut product team
01 / Time tracking guide
A staff schedule records the plan
A planned 8 AM to 4 PM shift tells the team when an employee is expected. It helps a manager arrange opening coverage, service-advisor handoffs, and technician availability. It does not prove the employee worked those exact hours. If a shift runs late or the person leaves early, the attendance record needs to reflect what happened, while the original plan remains useful for understanding the difference.
- Purpose: coverage planning
- Owner: the person arranging shifts
- Example: an 8 AM to 4 PM scheduled shift
02 / Time tracking guide
A time clock records attendance and breaks
Clock events describe a person’s working day across all the tasks they perform. That can include vehicle work, cleanup, meetings, and customer handoffs. Paid and unpaid breaks need distinct records for a meaningful timesheet review. Strut’s workforce time clock covers attendance, breaks, correction requests, timesheet approval, and locked-hours CSV export. Clock actions require an online connection.
- Purpose: a reviewable record of employee hours
- Owner: the employee and authorized reviewer
- Example: clock-in, break start, break end, clock-out
03 / Time tracking guide
Job time and billed labour answer different questions
Job time tracking measures effort against a particular repair. Billed labour follows the shop’s pricing and customer approval, which may differ from actual elapsed effort. A technician may spend time diagnosing a problem while an estimate uses a different labour allowance. Strut’s employee time clock is not a promise of automatic job timers, flat-rate efficiency reporting, or an attendance-to-invoice conversion.
- Job time: effort recorded against a repair
- Billed labour: the amount charged to the customer
- Attendance: hours recorded across the employee’s day
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Choose the workflow that matches the problem
If the recurring problem is missing punches or unclear breaks, start with attendance and a correction process. If it is uncovered shifts, start with staff scheduling. If you need repair-level productivity reporting, ask for a demonstration of that specific capability rather than assuming any time clock includes it. Bring one real example to a demo and trace who records it, who reviews it, and where the final record goes.
- Test a missed-punch correction
- Ask who can view and approve team hours
- Confirm export format with your payroll process
Map this to your shop