Short version: a technician clocks in when the day starts, taps On my way when they set off for a job, and taps Arrive when they get there. The rest — time on site, travel, breaks — records itself from the work. Nobody reconstructs a timesheet at the end of the day, and everything that was paid but was not on a job still shows up, so you can see it.
The idea behind it
Most timekeeping asks the technician to run a timer. That breaks down in the field: they forget, they start it late, they stop it early, and the owner ends up with numbers nobody trusts.
ServiceVisit records time the other way around. The technician does the work, and the work starts and stops the clock. Two rules sit underneath that:
- The day is the unit of pay. Paid time runs from clock-in to clock-out, less breaks. Whatever part of that paid day was not travel or time on site is kept and reported, never quietly dropped.
- Timekeeping never blocks the work. If a clock cannot start or stop for some reason, the technician carries on and the event is recorded so the time can be fixed later. A technician is never stopped from beginning, finishing, or moving on from a job by a timekeeping problem.
The four things that get recorded
| What | When it starts | When it ends |
|---|---|---|
| The working day | Technician clocks in | Technician clocks out |
| Travel | Technician taps On my way for their next job | Technician taps Arrive |
| Time on site | Technician taps Arrive (or begins work) | Technician moves on to the next job, or closes the visit |
| Break | Technician starts a break | Technician ends it, or clocks out |
Clocking in does not start travel. A technician might clock in at home, drive to the shop for parts, and only then head to the first job. The time before the first On my way is paid time that belongs to no job, and it is recorded as exactly that.
A typical day, hour by hour
Here is one technician's day, including the parts that never go to plan. The first three jobs run roughly as scheduled; the afternoon does not. The schedule had jobs starting at 9:00, 11:00, 1:30, and 3:30.
| Time | What happens | How it is recorded |
|---|---|---|
| 7:45 | Clocks in at home | The paid day starts. No travel yet. |
| 7:45 – 8:20 | Drives to the shop and loads parts | Paid, not at a job: 35 min unassigned |
| 8:20 – 8:52 | Taps On my way for the first job | Travel, 32 min |
| 8:52 – 10:40 | Taps Arrive (early), does the work, wraps up | On site, 108 min |
| 10:40 – 10:58 | Taps On my way for the second job. That ends the first job's time on site. | Travel, 18 min |
| 10:58 – 12:20 | Arrives on time. The visit runs 20 minutes past its window. | On site, 82 min |
| 12:20 – 12:25 | Visit closed, no further tap | Paid, not at a job: 5 min unassigned |
| 12:25 – 12:55 | Lunch, started from the day view | Break, 30 min. Not paid, not counted as idle. |
| 12:55 – 1:15 | Sits in the truck doing paperwork, no tap | Paid, not at a job: 20 min unassigned |
| 1:15 – 1:40 | Taps On my way for the third job | Travel, 25 min |
| 1:40 – 3:05 | Arrives 10 minutes after the scheduled start | On site, 85 min |
| 3:05 – 3:50 | Runs to the supply house for a part, no tap | Paid, not at a job: 45 min unassigned |
| 3:50 – 4:40 | Arrives 20 minutes after the scheduled start, without tapping On my way | On site, 50 min |
| 4:40 – 5:10 | Drives back to the shop | Paid, not at a job: 30 min unassigned |
| 5:10 | Clocks out | The paid day ends. |
Notice what happened at 3:50. The technician never tapped On my way, and Arrive still worked. They did not have to have clocked in or marked travel for ServiceVisit to record time on site. What they lost was the drive, which shows up as unassigned time rather than travel. ServiceVisit does not guess that a gap was driving.
What the owner sees
At the end of that day the workday report shows, for this technician:
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Paid time | 8 h 55 min (a 9 h 25 min day, less the 30 min break) |
| Time on site | 5 h 25 min |
| Travel | 1 h 15 min |
| Unassigned (paid, not on site or travelling) | 2 h 15 min |
| Utilization (time on site as a share of paid time) | 61% |
| Breaks | 1 break, 30 min |
| Arrived on time | 2 of 4 visits. The third arrived 10 minutes late and the fourth 20 minutes late, 30 minutes of lateness in all. |
Those numbers answer questions a timesheet cannot:
- Am I paying for time that is not productive? If a technician clocks in at 8:00 and does one three-hour job, the rest of the paid day shows up as unassigned time, not as travel or work. For an hourly employee, that is the gap between what you paid and what was done.
- Where does the unassigned time come from? A shop run, a long lunch that nobody logged, paperwork, or a drive nobody marked. The pattern across a week tells you which.
- Are we arriving when we said we would? Arrival is measured against each visit's scheduled start, with a short grace period so a two-minute slip does not count as late.
How breaks work
A technician can start and end a break from their day view at any point in the day, with or without a job open. A break:
- is removed from paid time, and from utilization, so a lunch break is neither paid nor counted as idle;
- is recorded with its length and when it was taken;
- ends on its own if the technician clocks out while it is running;
- is shown in the report as total minutes and number of breaks.
The report shows break time so you can compare it with the rules that apply to you and your employees. ServiceVisit does not decide what the law requires in your state and does not block pay or work based on a legal threshold. That judgment stays with you.
While time on a job is running, a break is taken from that work order instead, so it stays attached to the visit.
When the day does not go to plan
A technician forgets to tap On my way. Nothing fails. The drive is paid time, shown as unassigned. Arriving still records time on site.
A technician forgets to clock in. Arriving at a job still records time on site, so the work is not lost. There is no paid-day row for that technician, so the workday report has nothing to compare it with.
A visit runs long. Time on site keeps running past the scheduled window. It is recorded as an overage for review, never cut short, and never takes pay away. If the technician is still recorded as on site well past the end of the visit, ServiceVisit closes the time at a safe limit, marks it as closed automatically, and asks the technician to confirm or correct it at the end of the day.
A technician starts a break while driving. The travel segment ends when the break starts. Afterward, the rest of the drive is not guessed; it stays part of the paid day as unassigned time unless the technician marks it.
A job is cancelled or the customer is not there. The visit's time stops, the technician moves on to the next stop, and the day carries on.
Corrections and what stays on the record
Every time entry keeps what drove it: a work action, the technician's own tap, an office correction, or an automatic close. When someone corrects an entry, the original value, the new value, who changed it, and why are all kept. A correction never overwrites the record.
What ServiceVisit does not do
- It does not track a technician's location continuously. Time is recorded from the actions the technician takes on the work.
- It does not decide pay rules. Overtime, minimum-wage, and break requirements are yours to apply. ServiceVisit gives you accurate, auditable time to apply them to.
- It does not guess. Where the right answer is unclear, such as an unmarked drive, the time is left unassigned and shown to you rather than assigned to a category the technician did not choose.
Frequently asked questions
Is travel time paid? Paid time is the whole clocked-in day less breaks, and travel is part of it. Travel that was marked with On my way is recorded as travel and is sent to your accounting system as its own record. Travel that was not marked still sits inside the paid day as unassigned time.
Is time on site the same as billable time? No. Time on site is how long the technician was at the customer's property, including wrap-up after the work ends. What you bill the customer is a separate decision made in your pricing and invoicing.
What is the difference between clocking out and submitting my day? Clocking out ends the paid day. Submitting the day is the end-of-day review, where the technician confirms anything ServiceVisit closed automatically or could not record. A day that is not submitted is submitted automatically early the next morning, so nobody waits on a technician who forgets.
Can two technicians work the same job? Yes. Each technician has their own day and their own time on site, even on the same work order.
Next steps
If you want a quick read on how productive your technicians' paid hours really are, start with the workday report: look at unassigned time and utilization across a week before looking at any single day. For the wider picture of productivity levers, see the technician productivity guide, and for the measures worth tracking over time, the field-service KPIs and metrics guide.