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SpotsCC1's avatar
SpotsCC1
Contributor 3
2 years ago
Solved

Non billable hour tracking in Jobber (time clock workarounds)

I use Jobber and am finding the Time Clock feature too limited for my needs. While I don’t plan on switching from Jobber any time soon, I wanted to reach out to the community to see what others have done in this situation. I can’t imagine I’m the only one facing this issue.

My main concern is that the "General" time clock category hides too much information. Having only the options for clocking "Job Time" or "General" time leaves a lot of room for error, in my opinion. For example, when a team member has a slow day and completes various "overhead" or "non-billable" tasks, it all gets lumped under "General" time. For our company, these tasks include picking up chemicals from a supplier, fixing a headlight on a truck, delivering door hangers, etc.

Relying on team members to make their own notes after the fact or expecting an admin to remember these details later feels unsustainable. If we see that a team member has clocked 5 hours on a job and 3 hours under "General" time, it could easily be mistaken for them simply forgetting to clock out for the day.

My team is small, but I imagine this issue is even more pronounced in larger teams.

Can anyone suggest workarounds or solutions they’ve found? Maybe I need to put more focus on verifying these manual adjustments, but that feels quite labor-intensive.

Thanks!

cleaning
general contracting
time tracking
  • jade's avatar
    jade
    2 years ago

    Hey there, thank you so much for your question.  I can see how this could be time-consuming for your team to keep track of, and we would be happy to submit your feedback to our Product Development team. I think many users can benefit from a category feature for time tracking!

    What I do suggest for now is having your employees leave a note directly on the general timer. It may take some time to get into the habit of doing so, but if they record the notes by going to Timesheet > Clock In > Clock out > Edit > Note in the Jobber app, these notes will then sync with the Timesheet Report where they can be exported for easier tracking.

    You can also reach out to our Support Team to find a workflow that works best for you,  You can start a live chat by going to the ? at the top right corner > Chat With Us to start the chat! or give us a call 888-721-1115 ext 1.

24 Replies

  • LynnG's avatar
    LynnG
    Contributor 2
    2 years ago

    I may be a bit late in commenting since this was posted 2 months ago, but maybe it will help someone.  If you go to your Jobber Settings, then Timesheets you should have option to create Custom Timesheet Labels.  Some that I have created are:  Admin, Drive Time, Wait Time, Paid Break, Cancel Fee.  I haven't used the General after creating my own.

    • SpotsCC1's avatar
      SpotsCC1
      Contributor 3
      2 years ago

      Definitely not too late! However, I don't see a "timesheets" option in my settings. What you are describing sounds exactly like what I am looking for. Perhaps this is a trial that you are apart of? Could you share a screenshot of where you are finding this setting option? 

      Thanks

  • danjhu's avatar
    danjhu
    Contributor 2
    2 years ago

    I would like to hear from someone about this too! I small team and ask my employees to write down details about how they are accounting their time under "General" but it would be much cleaner to have custom sub categories to improve on time management, accountability, etc. For example, I really should be tracking all of my time spent on the business - sometimes it's on specific jobs but other times it's writing up estimates, etc.  but much of it gets unaccounted for. It would be great to be able to print up reports on this sub categories as well.

    • RSCcass0905's avatar
      RSCcass0905
      Contributor 2
      12 months ago

      I love this question because it was a big one for me as well. I pay between jobs and it is tricky. What I do is set the job at a set rate so billing isn't as much by time and just check times for new jobs or jobs that differ. Then my team completes the job as they are leaving the site however they do not stop the job timer until they start the timer for the next place. This way they stay on the clock and I get accurate reading for the time they were there. This works for me because we are small business with only 7 employees at this time. I am really interested in all the other suggestions.

  • jade's avatar
    jade
    Jobber Support Team
    2 years ago

    Hey there, thank you so much for your question.  I can see how this could be time-consuming for your team to keep track of, and we would be happy to submit your feedback to our Product Development team. I think many users can benefit from a category feature for time tracking!

    What I do suggest for now is having your employees leave a note directly on the general timer. It may take some time to get into the habit of doing so, but if they record the notes by going to Timesheet > Clock In > Clock out > Edit > Note in the Jobber app, these notes will then sync with the Timesheet Report where they can be exported for easier tracking.

    You can also reach out to our Support Team to find a workflow that works best for you,  You can start a live chat by going to the ? at the top right corner > Chat With Us to start the chat! or give us a call 888-721-1115 ext 1.

  • krista's avatar
    krista
    Jobber Support Team
    10 months ago

    Hello all! Thank you for your input on how you would like Jobber Timesheets to work for your business. We love this discussion and would love to hear from you directly on how this could improve your workflows in Jobber. The more context for our development teams, the better we can build out the product. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Success Team so we can best tag and categorize the feedback. They can be reached at 1-888-721-1115 option 1 or support@getjobber.com

  • rle's avatar
    rle
    Contributor 2
    10 months ago

    I created a customer with my company name, then created jobs named for common tasks the we can clock into. I put visits for them on the weekends, so it's not too hard to find them from the app.

    The timesheet custom labels would be perfect, but I also don't have that in my settings menu.

    • SpotsCC1's avatar
      SpotsCC1
      Contributor 3
      10 months ago

      Hi there. This is a creative solution but do you have a work-around to not skew your reporting with the additional jobs completed? Or do you delete them after? I typically track my jobs per week, average job cost, etc. I would worry this might skew the reporting?

      • rle's avatar
        rle
        Contributor 2
        10 months ago

        I don't use the job reports, so that hasn't been an issue for me. I usually keep an open job for each general routine task and close them at the end of the quarter. I don't know how that would affect the reporting.

        Job costing is the only one that would interest me right now, but I'm on the connect plan and don't have access to it.

  • LynnG's avatar
    LynnG
    Contributor 2
    2 years ago

    I've been using Jobber since 2014 so not a trial & not an option in the app; maybe it's a difference in the plan we have.  

     

    • Jspangler's avatar
      Jspangler
      Contributor 2
      11 months ago

      yea, I dont see that either and I am the account owner , admin, etc... dang

    • Jspangler's avatar
      Jspangler
      Contributor 2
      11 months ago

      what plan do you have Lynn G?

      Can the Jobber person, Jade, chime in please? 

      • LynnG's avatar
        LynnG
        Contributor 2
        11 months ago

        I started with Jobber back in 2014.  They no longer offer my plan, but I'm surprised they no longer have this simple feature.  I would contact support; I've found them to always be extremely helpful when I've called.

    • DirtyDeeds's avatar
      DirtyDeeds
      Contributor 2
      11 months ago

      I don't have this option either and Jobber support can't seem to figure out how this is possible =/

  • Anthonyf2175's avatar
    Anthonyf2175
    Contributor 2
    12 months ago

    Does anyone else pay their employees commission rather than hourly? Jobber doesn't have a feature to track commission earned per visit and I find it incredibly frustrating, yet I don't see any other posts in the search column about commission tracking so I'm starting to think I'm the only one paying my guys commission and don't want to use a 3rd party tool, I don't think it would be that complicated for Jobber to allow you to assign a commission when you assign an employee to a visit. Any thoughts?

    • SpotsCC1's avatar
      SpotsCC1
      Contributor 3
      12 months ago

      I don't run a full commission pay but offer a bonus based on revenue produced. What line of business are you in? 

       

      • Anthonyf2175's avatar
        Anthonyf2175
        Contributor 2
        12 months ago

        We're in Asphalt Paving & Sealcoating. How do you keep track of the bonuses? Jobber Reports?

  • SpotsCC1's avatar
    SpotsCC1
    Contributor 3
    12 months ago

    I've been using a combination of jobber reports and our own google sheets that I've made. I'm also using a trial for p4p software to see if that is more efficient for tracking. P4P is software that helps you track employee metrics and calculates both commission and hourly pay, depending what you want. 

    • ThatHandymanVan's avatar
      ThatHandymanVan
      Contributor 2
      4 months ago

      What P4P software have you been running? I was wanting to run P4P based on closed job profits.

      • SpotsCC1's avatar
        SpotsCC1
        Contributor 3
        4 months ago

        It's actually just called P4P software. or Pay 4 performance. It's built by Mike Andes