Friday afternoon. Pay run's due. Half the crew haven't sent their hours, the other half sent a text that says "same as last week". You spend an hour chasing, guessing and fixing, and you still don't know which job the hours belong to.
The fix isn't a stricter boss. It's making the hours a two minute job at the end of each day, on the phone they already have in their pocket.
Daily, not weekly
Nobody remembers on Friday what they did on Tuesday. Hours logged the same day are right. Hours logged on Friday are a guess. Make the sign off part of packing up: tools away, hours in.
Against the job, and the line
Hours against the job tell you what to pay. Hours against each line of the quote tell you whether you priced it right. Ask the crew to split their day across the tasks they worked on: three hours on ceilings, four on walls. It takes seconds when the tasks come straight off the quote.
What to ask at sign off
- Start, finish and break, so the day's hours are right for the pay run.
- Hours on each task they worked on.
- Anything extra the client or builder asked for, so it gets charged, not forgotten.
- Receipts for anything they bought, as a photo.
- What's left and what's needed for tomorrow.
Remind them once, then once more
Set one reminder for when the day normally ends, and one chase about an hour later for anyone who hasn't signed off. After that it's on you, not them: you see who missed a day and either put it in for them or mark it as sick or leave. No group chat, no Friday hunt.
Make the hours do something
Crews take sign offs seriously when they can see they matter. Show them the job's hours against the quote. When a job's running over, they'll often tell you why before you ask. And when the hours flow straight into the pay run, Friday becomes a check, not a chase.
TradieXai's sign off takes about two minutes on a phone: hours split across the quote's tasks, extras flagged, receipts snapped, reminders sent for you, and hours into Xero for the pay run.