How a GPS and time tracking app can save your roofing business money

Roofing is a wonderful career for those who enjoy and appreciate the work that goes into building a stable roof. A strong team with an excellent attitude towards work is usually what it takes to build a successful roofing business. In most cases, the long-term success of any business is dependent on how well the business organizes its work, the talent they hire, and the vision they carry over to that talent. Alongside a great work ethic, a successful business is also one that is capable of generating continuous sales while maintaining costs at a ratio that maximizes profits. Saying “I will achieve success by doing this and that” is one thing, but achieving success is quite another. The roofing market in the US is projected to reach $47,517.8 million in 2025, growing at a CAGR of 5.9%. At a growth rate of 6%, we can assume that the market has matured and is now growing gradually - meaning there is tons of competitors offering the same service across the country.So, you, as a smart businessman have to find ways of taking some of the pie from your competitors. And, the way you do that is by (1) managing your business better (so that profit margins are higher allowing for bigger investments), (2) providing a higher-grade service (try adding a complementary service that boosts recurring revenues), (3) investing in modern solutions that increase productivity and affect both point 1 and 2.You can also play around with price - in an attempt to generate market share - but be careful not to cannibalize the quality of your service. In this post, we will be looking at point (3), namely how investing in a GPS and time tracking solution - as part of the everyday workflow - can save your roofing business money.

With a roofing business, your staff will never be working twice from the same spot; thus, your office is always on the move. When they are never in the same spot, tracking productivity becomes a challenge? This is where a good GPS and time tracking app comes into play. Employers that turn to this app typically do so because they need to locate their staff (for a potential reassessment) or to monitor their progress throughout the day. It’s a far better approach than having to call every employee to ask them if they are available to take on another task, or head over to another site for an urgent matter.

Now let’s get into the details of how exactly your roofing business can do this.

Advantages of GPS and time tracking software

It's hard to monitor a crew when they are operating across various workplaces. Diligent managers that stay on top of their roofing crews can increase profits through a time tracking app by:

• Gaining a better understanding of your employees’ workdays,

• Optimizing the routes taken and stops made while on the clock,

• Checking how efficient employees are at completing jobs

• Identifying productive vs unproductive activities with color-coded routes

This way, you can keep track of your team’s daily movements. For example, Atto’s GPS location tracking feature generates simple map-based timelines of every employee’s daily movements. This helps you visualize their workdays in a clear, simple-to-understand fashion. However, this is not everything!

Geofencing

A geofence border is a virtual border that is defined with GPS coordinates. Geofencing is usually integrated into the mobile app for an excellent GPS and time tracking experience. It reminds employees to clock in and out while entering or leaving a worksite. This helps with accurate reporting and eliminates misunderstandings over missing app logins or wrong timesheets. 

Transparency 

Despite your faith in staff, GPS tracking helps verify that your crew is working at the right job site. You can decrease instances of ”buddy punching”, encourage crew members to show up on time for a job, save payroll costs and reduce time wasted across unproductive activities.

If a crew uses GPS and time tracking software, everyone can have a clear understanding of work progress, various projects, and the position of one another due to real-time reporting. The outcome of transparency is therefore precision and organized data. The chance of errors is significantly reduced if all information is correct. 

Improve Customer Service

GPS tracking enables you as a roofing business owner to answer customer inquiries more efficiently since it provides an on-site and real-time view of the location of each team. This will enable you to identify which crews are closer to the new work location, which crews are nearing the end of their project and which are free to take on new jobs. GPS monitoring can help you identify the appropriate team for the right customer faster and can provide more precise predictions for your clients. This also allows you to respond more quickly to your client’s demands.

Increase productivity 

Does it feel like there is never enough time in one day to do it all? Well, you’re certainly not alone. Complexities often burden the construction sector and make it difficult for companies to build effective processes. Uncertainty is one of the major problems. You're never sure what the day will bring and that can hinder productivity as well.

Knowing where your roofers are and when they’re clocked in means that you can manage your projects and get tasks done faster. Having a GPS and time tracking app takes the ease off of work and let employees focus on roofs rather than on administrative issues. This way, a roofing business can boost operational efficiency, security, and company growth. 

Process streamlining

To make your estimations easier and more exact, use GPS and Time Tracking data to have true facts about previous tasks. You will understand what sort of hazards you may expect—such as the movers that take additional time to work and need tighter monitoring.

Tracking time facilitates the efficient prioritization of jobs. You may simply assess the jobs that are most profitable, risky, and resource-consuming tasks.

Accurate Payments

In a workplace, staff should be appropriately rewarded according to their working hours. A time tracking app for a roofing business enables automatic tracking and decreases timesheet mistakes substantially. Also, since you know when and where every employee clocks in and out, misunderstandings and salary problems are less likely to happen. You can be confident that your staff is not underpaid or overpaid.

Reduces Paperwork 

The necessity to fill handwritten timesheets is eliminated since GPS and time tracking records time and location automatically. If your business utilizes time tracking technology, you will have fewer documents to deal with such as multiple hand-filled timesheets, timesheets that are lost or destroyed, and unreadable timesheets that are hard to understand. You can also minimize paperwork and streamline payroll processes to improve precision and efficiency.

In this world of new technological advancement for almost every aspect of our lives and businesses, GPS and time tracking is a critical tool in planning tasks and maintaining exact timelines. Using such apps can definitely help reduce costs and save money by using your staff efficiency, adequate payrolls, and complete transparency. So why not try it out and experience all of the advantages first hand. We’re sure you won’t be disappointed.