The $1,300/Month You're Losing to Bad Time Tracking

January 2026 · 4 min read

Let's do some uncomfortable math.

You've got a 5-person crew. They're skilled, they work hard, and they're billing out at $85/hour. Life is good.

Except every week, you're losing money you don't even know about.

The Hidden Time Leak

Here's what actually happens with time tracking on most job sites:

Monday: Guys forget to write down their start time. "It was around 7... maybe 7:15?"
Tuesday: Lunch break ran long but nobody adjusted the sheet
Wednesday: Someone worked an extra hour but didn't want to "make a big deal"
Thursday: The paper timesheet got wet/lost/eaten by a dog
Friday: You're reconstructing the week from memory at 9pm

Conservative estimate? Each worker loses 30 minutes per week to time tracking chaos. Rounded hours, forgotten overtime, "eh, close enough" syndrome.

Let's Do The Math

5 workers × 30 min/week = 2.5 hours lost/week

2.5 hours × $85/hour = $212.50/week

$212.50 × 52 weeks = $11,050/year

That's not a rounding error. That's a truck payment. That's a nice vacation. That's profit walking out the door.

But Wait, It Gets Worse

The 30-minute estimate is conservative. It doesn't include:

Scope creep you forgot to bill: "While we were there, we also fixed the..."
Materials you ate the cost on: Extra trips to Home Depot that never made the invoice
Change orders that got verbal approval but no documentation
Travel time between job sites

                Real number? Most contractors we talk to are losing $1,000-2,000/month when they actually audit their time tracking. The bigger the crew, the bigger the leak.
            

Why Paper and Spreadsheets Fail

The problem isn't laziness. Your crew works hard. The problem is friction.

When tracking time requires:

Finding a pen
Finding the timesheet
Remembering exact times
Doing math
Not losing the paper

...it doesn't happen accurately. Or at all.

The Fix: Make It Effortless

What if tracking time was as easy as sending a text?

"Clock in" → GPS-stamped, timestamped, done.

"Clock out" → Hours calculated, added to timesheet automatically.

No app to open. No form to fill. No paper to lose. Just a WhatsApp message.

That's what ChargeHammer does. Your crew messages a bot. The bot handles everything else.

The Real ROI

Let's flip the math:

Recover 2.5 hours/week = $212.50/week

Catch unbilled extras = ~$500/month

Your admin time saved = 5+ hours/week

Annual benefit: $15,000-20,000

For a tool that costs less than your phone bill.

See your exact numbers

Use our ROI calculator to plug in your crew size and rates.

Calculate Your ROI →