In many municipal building yards, working times and activities are still recorded manually on paper – sometimes by several hundred employees at the same time. As a result, time tracking in the building yard is increasingly becoming a challenge for HR managers, yard managers and treasurers. Problem:
- High administrative costs
- Lack of transparency about services
- No reliable basis for recalculations
At the same time, the requirements are increasing: Working times must be recorded in a legally compliant, complete and comprehensible manner. The solution is obvious. However, it must do more than classic time tracking: digital personnel time tracking combined with order time tracking especially for public service building yards.
Reality: Why simple time tracking at the building yard is not enough
A building yard works differently to an administration:
- Employees work on the move and at different locations
- Activities change several times within a day
- Services must be assigned to projects, cost centers or orders
- Teams work together flexibly
For HR managers, this means that working hours must be recorded correctly. For building yard managers, assignments and activities must be documented in a comprehensible manner. For treasurers, the decisive factor is that it must be possible to allocate and recalculate services according to their origin. Pure “clock-in/clock-out” recording is not sufficient for this.
The core problem: paper processes prevent transparency
In practice, time tracking at the building yard often looks like this:
- Time sheets are filled out at the building yard or in the vehicle
- Foremen collect the data
- Site management or employees in the administration transfer the data manually into Excel or the software for internal cost allocation (ILV)
- Media disruptions and loss of time,
- error-prone transfers,
- delayed evaluations and
- No real-time transparency
This is particularly critical for the treasurer’s office: a proper recalculation of municipal services is hardly possible or only possible with a very long delay.
Mobile recording: right where the work is done
👉 Digital solutions for time tracking on the building yard enable time tracking exactly where it occurs:
- Via smartphone,
- via tablets in the vehicle or
- via stationary terminals.
For building yard managers, this means
- An immediate overview of current operations,
- better management of resources and
- fewer queries and less coordination effort.
For HR managers, this brings benefits:
- Less manual post-processing,
- a consistent database and
- Automated processes such as for absences.
Crucial for the treasury department: post-calculation and cost transparency
A key advantage of the combination of time and order recording is that services can be tracked and evaluated.
This makes it possible:
- a source-based allocation of personnel costs,
- Transparent presentation of building yard services,
- well-founded post-calculations and
- better decision-making basis for budget planning and management.
✅ The building yard is moving from a cost factor to a controllable service area.
Public service: Fulfilling requirements safely
In addition to operational efficiency, regulatory requirements play a key role:
- Legally compliant working time recording
- compliance with collective bargaining requirements such as TVÖD,
- the consideration of co-determination and data protection and
- audit-proof documentation.
Digital solutions must take these requirements into account and at the same time map the administration and building yard in an integrated manner. Further information on time tracking in the public sector can also be found here.
The difference: Why holistic solutions are crucial
Many solutions on the market cover either classic personnel time recording or specific requirements for mobile recording. In practice, however, it is clear that an isolated approach is not sufficient for municipal facilities.
What is needed are systems for order and time tracking at the building yard that bring together different requirements:
- Recording of working hours
- Assignment of activities to orders and cost centers
- Stationary and mobile use
- Integration into existing administrative and wage/salary systems of municipal pension associations or into payroll accounting for the public sector
Only this combination creates a consistent database that maps operational processes as well as administrative and financial requirements.
Conclusion: Manage the building yard digitally instead of analog
The digitalization of time tracking is no longer an issue for the future, but a fundamental prerequisite for modern municipal structures.
It creates the basis for:
- More efficient processes in the building yard and administration,
- legally compliant and traceable recording of working hours,
- the transparent presentation of municipal services and
- reliable data for planning, control and post-calculation.
This creates a sound basis for decision-making, particularly for personnel managers, building yard managers and treasurers, which takes both operational and financial perspectives into account.
The demands on municipal facilities will continue to increase, both in regulatory and economic terms. Especially in times of tight public budgets, digital solutions for time and performance recording make a key contribution to increasing transparency, using resources more efficiently and remaining capable of acting in the long term.
