Quick Answer
To track billable labour hours accurately: capture start/stop times live on a phone against a job and cost code, tag billable vs non-billable at entry, approve daily on the same device, interpret the award once, and reconcile every progress claim line back to an approved timesheet. Reconstructing on Friday from memory loses 4–8% of billable hours.
Why billable hours tracking is a margin issue
Labour is the single biggest cost line for most mining and field service contractors — and the easiest to under-claim. Every hour a crew works that doesn't make it onto an approved, correctly-tagged timesheet is either lost margin or a delayed progress claim.
For a 40-person crew on a $180/hr charge-out rate, losing just 30 minutes per person per day compounds to more than $1.3M a year in unbilled labour. That's the gap paper timesheets and end-of-week reconstruction consistently produce.
Five mistakes that leak billable hours
Reconstructing hours on Friday from memory
Fix: Capture start/stop live on a phone against a job. End-of-week reconstruction consistently underbills by 4–8%.
One timesheet per employee per day
Fix: Split time by job, cost code and plant item. A single daily bucket is invisible to the client and useless for utilisation reporting.
No supervisor approval before payroll cut-off
Fix: Approve daily on the same device the hours were entered on. Unapproved hours don't hit payroll and don't hit the claim.
Billable vs non-billable is a spreadsheet
Fix: Flag it at entry. Reconciling it in a spreadsheet the day before a progress claim is where margin disappears.
Award interpretation happens in payroll only
Fix: Interpret at the source. Overtime, RDOs, allowances and travel need to be visible to the estimator and the claims team, not just payroll.
A 6-step framework to track billable labour hours
- 1
Define what's billable in the contract
Pull the rate schedule. List every chargeable labour line — day rates, hourly, overtime, standby, travel, camp days, first-aid, leading hand. If it isn't in the schedule, it isn't billable. Publish this to supervisors before mobilisation.
- 2
Capture hours at the source, once
One digital timesheet per crew member per day, split by job and cost code. Start/stop times, not just a duration. Geo-stamp the entry so a Tier-1 client audit can be answered in a minute, not a week.
- 3
Tag every entry: billable, cost code, plant
Every line needs three tags at entry: billable/non-billable, cost code from the contract, and (if applicable) the plant item worked on. Tagging in an office spreadsheet later is where 4–8% of billable hours disappear.
- 4
Approve daily on the same device
Supervisor signs off on the phone or kiosk before end of shift. Anything not approved by payroll cut-off doesn't get paid and doesn't get claimed — that rule alone changes crew behaviour overnight.
- 5
Interpret the award once, use it twice
Feed approved hours into award interpretation (Mining Industry Award, Black Coal, site EBA) to produce a payroll view and a client-claim view from the same data. Never re-key.
- 6
Reconcile the claim to the timesheet weekly
Every progress claim line traces back to approved timesheets. If a claim line can't be traced, it doesn't go in. This is the difference between a claim that gets paid in 14 days and one that sits with a client's contracts team for eight weeks.
Paper vs spreadsheet vs SprintSuite
Where each method actually gets you on the capabilities that make labour hours billable.
| Capability | Paper | Spreadsheet | SprintSuite |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live start/stop capture on phone | |||
| Job + cost code + plant tagged at entry | |||
| Billable vs non-billable flag at entry | |||
| Geo-stamped for Tier-1 audit | |||
| Daily supervisor approval on the same device | |||
| MIA / Black Coal / EBA interpretation | |||
| Straight-through to progress claim | |||
| Straight-through to payroll (Xero, MYOB, KeyPay) | |||
| Crew utilisation & billable % reporting |
How SprintSuite tracks billable labour hours
One timesheet, entered once, does four jobs: it feeds payroll, feeds the progress claim, answers the Tier-1 audit, and reports crew utilisation.
Field timesheets
Live start/stop capture against a job and cost code — from any phone or tablet.
Award interpretation software
MIA, Black Coal and site EBAs interpreted once, used for payroll and client claims.
Progress claims and invoicing
Every claim line traces back to an approved timesheet — no re-keying, no disputes.
Frequently asked questions
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