Time on jobs

Operate, then Time on jobs. Garments and decoration are the easy half of what a job costs. The other half is hours, and this is where they get recorded.

How staff clock on

At the time clock station on any shop floor tablet or phone: type or scan the order number, tap Clock on. Tap Clock off when they move to something else.

Four behaviours worth knowing:

Behaviour	Why it is like that
One clock per person, enforced in the database	Two taps on a shared tablet cannot open two clocks or double-count an hour
Rate frozen at clock-on	A pay rise next quarter does not rewrite the cost of a job that shipped last month
Stage recorded	The entry remembers the stage the job was at, so you can see where time actually goes
Hours shown on the order	Next to what the job sold for

The list

Column	Meaning
Staff	Who
Job	Which order
Stage	The stage the clock started in
On and Off	Start and end. An empty Off means they are still on the clock
Hours	Duration
Labour cost	Hours multiplied by that entry's own snapshotted rate

Filter to anyone still on the clock to find forgotten clock-offs, which happen daily in every shop that has ever used a time clock.

Correcting an entry

A manager can edit the times on any entry. Minutes and cost recompute from the entry's own snapshotted rate, not the person's current rate, so a correction cannot accidentally reprice history.

Add time lets a manager enter time after the fact, for the operator who forgot to clock on at all.

What this feeds

Where	What it shows
The order	Hours booked and their cost, next to the sell price
Reports, labour section	Hours and labour cost for the period
Reports, margin section	Margin after labour, not just gross

Without labour rates on your team records, hours book at zero and margin after labour equals gross margin. Setting rates is a five-minute job that makes the whole reporting section honest.

Getting staff to actually use it

Two things make the difference:

1. Put the station where the work is. A tablet on the press bench gets used. A screen in the office does not.
2. Print worksheets so the order number is on the job and can be scanned, rather than remembered and typed.

If adoption is patchy, start with one press. Costed data on half your jobs beats guesses on all of them.