How do I record time an employee spent driving between work sites?

Clean Smarts can add time spent driving between work locations to an employee's timesheet.

How does it work?

There are two ways that you can choose to calculate driving time.

The first method uses Google's Map API to provide the estimated driving time between the two locations. For example, if a cleaner leaves site A at 2:00 p.m. and clocks into Site B at 2:30 p.m. and the Google estimated drive time is 23 minutes, a drive-time entry will be added to the cleaner's timesheet for 23 minutes. If, in this same example, the cleaner arrives at Site B at 2:15 p.m., the driving time would be the actual difference between clock-out at Site A and clock-in at Site B of 15 minutes.

The second method of calculating the drive time is to use the actual time between check-ins. In other words, it is a simple plug between the clock-out time at one location and the clock-in time at another location.

You select which method to use under Admin > Company Settings > Timekeeping:

In addition to the drive-time, the mileage between two service locations is also recorded to the user's timesheet, which is viewable under the View Time Detail report. The mileage is the shortest distance between the service locations as provided by Google's Map API. We currently do not track the actual route the vehicle travels or actual mileage.

NOTE: drive time won't be calculated between shifts worked on different work days (as set in your Company Settings). For example, if your workday ends at 12 a.m., leaving a location at 11:30 p.m. and clocking into a location at 12:10 a.m. will not result in a drive-time entry being added to your timesheet. Drive time also will not be calculated if the time between the clock-out and the next clock-in is more than 8 hours.

How driving time is classified for budgeting and paid time

By default, driving time is considered paid time. Driving time is designated on the Approve Hours and View Time Details reports with a car symbol. Drive time does not have a pay code by default, but you can change this in Company Settings under Timekeeping:

In the Excel spreadsheet report in Approve Hours, drive time is totaled in its own column, but since it is considered working time, the drive time is also included in Regular/Overtime/Double Overtime. If you set a non-paid time custom pay code as the default pay code for driving time, however, the drive time will be excluded from Regular/Overtime/Double Overtime.

NOTE: Drive time is associated with the destination location for budgeting purposes. This can be changed for your account so that time is associated with the starting location instead but is currently not a setting you can change from Company Settings. Please contact support in this case.

How to enable drive-time for a user

Drive time is enabled on a user-by-user basis and must be enabled by an administrator, or in other words a user with the ability to edit user profiles.

1. In the web app, go to Admin > Manage Users and click on the edit icon for a user.
2. Under the section "Driving Time", check the box labeled "Automatically calculate driving time between shifts". 
3. Save the user's profile.

This change will take effect as soon as it is enabled for any future check-ins. In other words, it does not apply retroactively to prior check-ins.

Manually adding driving time to an employee's time

You can add driving time manually to a user's timesheet. Under Timetracking > Approve Hours or View Time Detail, do the following:

1. Click on "Add Time Entry" or "Add Entry"
2. Select the location, user, and enter the driving time beginning and end dates and times.In the case of creating time manually, the time entry does not rely on the estimated trip time. It just uses the dates and times provided to calculate the duration.
3. Check the box labeled "Classify as driving time?"
4. Select the starting location (for purposes of calculating mileage).
5. Click Save.