How Apex Construction Eliminated $84K in Annual Time Theft
A Phoenix-based general contractor with 8 active job sites was hemorrhaging money from buddy punching, lost timesheets, and overtime errors. Here's how they fixed it in 30 days.
The Company
Apex Construction is a commercial and residential general contractor based in Phoenix, Arizona. With 45 field workers spread across up to 8 active job sites, they handle everything from ground-up builds to tenant improvements.
Mike Hernandez oversees all 8 sites and manages crew scheduling, payroll sign-offs, and subcontractor coordination. Before Timedox, his mornings started with a stack of paper timesheets and a lot of phone calls.
"I was driving between sites just to verify who was actually there."
Apex used paper timesheets. Foremen collected them at end of day and faxed or drove them to the main office. Sheets were illegible, lost, or fabricated. Mike had no real-time visibility into who was on which site.
Buddy punching was rampant. Workers would clock in for friends who showed up late. Overtime was miscalculated manually, leading to underpayments (grievances) and overpayments (lost margin).
"We estimated we were losing about $1,600 a week across all sites. That's not a rounding error. That's a full-time salary disappearing into thin air."
$84K
Estimated annual losses from time theft
4+ hrs
Lost weekly collecting paper timesheets
38%
Of punch-ins couldn't be verified
Why they chose Timedox
Mike needed two things: GPS verification to prove workers were at the right site, and biometric clock-in to eliminate buddy punching. Timedox delivered both.
"We put fingerprint time clocks in every job trailer. Workers clock in with their fingerprint, and the GPS coordinates are logged automatically. I can see everyone's status from my phone. No more driving site to site."
The Timedox mobile kiosk also covered remote pads and sites without trailers. Foremen used their own phones as GPS-verified clock-in stations for the crew.
Biometric Clock-In
Fingerprint verification at every job trailer. Zero buddy punching.
GPS Verification
Every clock-in stamped with GPS. Proof of presence at the right site.
Overtime Calculations
Automatic daily/weekly overtime calculations per union and local rules.
What Apex Construction sees every day
The same Timedox dashboard every customer uses. No custom build, just clear data.
Dashboard
Team Overview
Active now
18
+3 from yesterday
Total hours
142h
On break
2
Sites
4
Sarah Miller
Headquarters
James Chen
Downtown Office
Maria Lopez
Remote
David Kim
Field Site A
From signup to full adoption
Hardware installed at 8 sites
Timedox fingerprint time clocks were mounted in each job trailer. Crew enrollment took 30 seconds per person. Total fleet setup: one day.
Buddy punching dropped to zero
Fingerprint verification made it physically impossible to clock in for someone else. The problem vanished overnight.
First clean payroll run
Mike ran payroll using Timedox data for the first time. No missing timesheets, no handwriting interpretation, no phone calls to foremen. Payroll took 2 hours instead of 8.
Overtime patterns identified
Timedox reports revealed that one crew was consistently hitting 52-hour weeks while another was under 35. Mike rebalanced staffing, cutting overtime costs by 40%.
Full ROI realized
Between eliminated time theft, reduced overtime, and recovered payroll processing time, Apex saved $42K in six months. Annualized, that's $84K.
Inside Apex Construction
The numbers after one year
$84K
saved annually from eliminated time theft
0
buddy punching incidents after biometric rollout
6 hrs
saved per payroll cycle on timesheet processing
40%
reduction in unnecessary overtime costs
"We went from losing timesheets to having perfect records across 8 job sites. I can see who's where from my phone. Payroll disputes dropped to zero. Timedox paid for itself in the first month."
Mike Hernandez
Project Superintendent, Apex Construction
Ready to eliminate time theft on your job sites?
Timedox works with fingerprint clocks, mobile GPS, or both. Start a free trial and see your crew data in real time.