How TruControls cut payroll prep from 4 hours to 45 minutes and tracks every labor hour in real time with Workyard
TruControls provides security systems for multifamily communities, HOAs and gated communities, commercial properties, and warehouse and logistics facilities across Dallas-Fort Worth. Its team designs, installs, upgrades, and supports security system infrastructure, including access control, security cameras, intercoms, smart locks, and gate access systems, with each project tailored to the property’s security needs and day-to-day operations.
For TruControls, a Dallas–Fort Worth security integrator with technicians working across multiple properties, tracking time relied on Excel spreadsheets, phone calls, and text messages. Each timesheet had to pass through three layers of management, with four to six employees involved in verification before payroll could be processed.
Nobody fully trusted the labor hours behind their job costs, so quoting the next job meant guessing.
TruControls moved onto Workyard, which provided them verified GPS time tracking, accurate job costing, and an easy-to-use mobile app in one platform.
With Workyard,
TruControls now:
- Cut payroll prep from 4 hours to about 45 minutes each payroll cycle
- Gets 15–20 administrative hours back every month across payroll processing, timesheet corrections, and labor reporting
- Has 90% fewer timesheet corrections and missing punches
- Runs 100% of field hours through GPS-verified records, assigned to the correct job
- Catches jobs trending over budget while the work is still in progress
The Challenge
When TruControls had one or two techs, an Excel spreadsheet did the job: log when a tech went in, where they went, and how long they stayed, then feed it into payroll and job costing. By the time two and three crews were running, that system was an administrative nightmare. Hours came in by phone call and text from techs who were already at their second or third site of the day, and every entry still had to be keyed again into the accounting and payroll software.
The verification alone ate four to six hours every payroll period — chasing timesheets, fixing errors, and confirming hours tech by tech across three layers of management. TruControls put the cost at more than $200 a week in missed billing and extra admin fees just to adjust timesheets. And the constant where-were-you, when-did-you-leave calls taxed both sides: office time spent asking, field time spent answering.
"We really lost faith in our ability to even know how long it was taking us to do these jobs. Were we actually profitable? Did we actually allocate enough hours to each job?"
Austin Lafferty, TruControls
Labor hours the team couldn't stand behind fed straight into proposals, so pricing the next job leaned on guesswork instead of records. For a crew installing across multiple disciplines: cameras one day, access control and perimeter fencing the next, the numbers behind each bid mattered, and TruControls couldn't trust theirs.
The Solution
TruControls reached the point Austin sums up as "we can't keep doing this forever." The shortlist requirements were automation: automatic clock-ins, geofencing, and integrations. They weighed Workyard against another platform and picked Workyard because it combined GPS time tracking, job costing, and an easy-to-use mobile app in one system, with pricing tiers to grow into rather than a tool to outgrow. They started on the entry tier; today they run on Workyard Pro.
A project manager sets up each tech's site for the day or the week, and Workyard handles the rest: clock-in at the geofence when they arrive, clock-out when they leave, lunch breaks logged automatically.
Nobody walks back to the truck for a forgotten phone, and the where-are-you calls from the office have stopped. Adoption took almost no pushback from the crew, because the app asks almost nothing of them.
The Results
Payroll prep that took 4 hours now takes about 45 minutes each cycle. A quick check and any adjustments, instead of a three-manager verification chain. Across payroll processing, timesheet corrections, and labor reporting, that's 15 to 20 administrative hours back every month.
Timesheet corrections and missing punches are down 90%, and 100% of field hours now come in GPS-verified and assigned to the correct job. Labor costs on active jobs are visible in real time, not discovered after payroll runs.
"If you have field crews, Workyard is one of those tools that pays for itself. It saves us hours every payroll, keeps everyone accountable, and gives us real-time visibility into every job."
Austin Lafferty, TruControls
The benefits from solid job costing followed. On a several-month job with crews returning again and again through the build, TruControls tracked more than 250 labor hours. Austin says they'd have had no way to keep up with those hours before Workyard. The time spent verifying timesheets now goes to bigger-picture work as TruControls grows.