Comparison
Paper timesheets vs CrewTime: the real cost
15 minutes, your EBA, no sales script.
Who each one is for
Different tools, built for different environments
Both products are good at what they were designed for. The question is which environment you actually run payroll in.
Paper timesheets
Where paper still makes sense
- Small crews on one site where the foreman sees every hour worked.
- Jobs with no allowances, no shift work and no cost code reporting.
- Short jobs where nobody needs labour cost until the invoice goes out.
- A crew that will not accept an app yet, which is a real constraint and not a failure.
Project Payroll CrewTime
Where paper starts costing money
- Multiple sites, multiple jobs a day and labour split across cost codes.
- Enterprise agreement allowances that depend on work type and location.
- Anyone who needs labour cost this week, not after month end.
- Businesses carrying underpayment risk they cannot see in a shoebox of sheets.
Compared
Paper timesheets and Project Payroll CrewTime, capability by capability
When hours are recorded
- Paper timesheets
- Reconstructed on Friday afternoon, often from memory
- Project Payroll CrewTime
- Captured at the moment of clock on, on site
Accuracy of the record
- Paper timesheets
- Handwriting decoded in the office, then re keyed
- Project Payroll CrewTime
- One record, entered once, no re keying
Site allowances
- Paper timesheets
- Only paid if the work type and site were written down
- Project Payroll CrewTime
- Condition flags confirmed by the foreman, priced by the rules engine
Multi job days with cost codes
- Paper timesheets
- Split guessed later, if at all
- Project Payroll CrewTime
- Each block lands against the right job automatically
Job costing speed
- Paper timesheets
- Labour hits the job about a week late
- Project Payroll CrewTime
- Labour posts to cost codes in the same week it was worked
Audit trail
- Paper timesheets
- A folder of sheets, if they all come back
- Project Payroll CrewTime
- Timestamped records, foreman approvals and retained photos
Payroll handoff
- Paper timesheets
- Manual entry into payroll, with typos priced in
- Project Payroll CrewTime
- Synced straight through to the pay run
Migration effort
- Paper timesheets
- No change, and no improvement
- Project Payroll CrewTime
- Photo Timesheet Capture means paper keeps working on day one
None of this is a criticism of the crew. Paper is a system built for a different era of job costing, and it fails quietly rather than loudly, which is what makes it expensive.
Where we are different
What construction native actually means
The silent allowance miss
When a paper sheet has no work type and no site recorded, the allowance simply never gets paid. Nobody queries it because nothing looks wrong. It surfaces later as a claim, with back pay, interest and a lot of reconstruction.
Friday afternoon is not a record
By Friday, Tuesday and Wednesday have blurred. Start times round, breaks get estimated and overtime sequences get remembered generously in both directions. Capture at clock on removes the guessing.
Photo Timesheet Capture, the migration bridge
You do not have to switch cold turkey. Photograph the sheet, OCR drafts the entries, a human reviews every line before it hits payroll, and the original photo is retained as the audit record.
Cost codes without extra work
Because the job is chosen at clock on, labour posts to the right cost code without anyone splitting hours in a spreadsheet afterwards.
More on the capture side in CrewTime, the pay rules in the EBA knowledge hub and the numbers on pricing.
Paper timesheets comparison questions
Our crew will not use an app. Can we still move?
Yes. Keep the paper process on day one. Photograph the sheets, OCR drafts them, a person reviews before payroll, and you move crews to digital clock on when they are ready.
What does a paper timesheet actually cost us?
Three things: office hours spent decoding and re keying, job costing that arrives a week late, and allowances that never get paid because the sheet did not record work type or site. The third one is the expensive one.
Do we lose the audit trail if we go digital?
You gain one. Punches are timestamped, foreman approvals are recorded, and where a photo of a paper sheet was used, the original image is kept.
Is the OCR trusted on its own?
No. Human review is mandatory before anything reaches payroll. The OCR only drafts.
How long does the change take?
Crews are usually invited by SMS and clocking on the same week. The payroll side runs on our normal migration plan, including a parallel pay run before you rely on it.
Reviewed August 2026. Comparison based on publicly available information.
Get started
Keep your paper process on day one.
You do not have to change how the crew works to fix what the office is doing. Photograph the sheets, we handle the rest, and crews move to clock on when they are ready.
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