A Drywall Contractor Time Tracking App for Hangers, Tapers and the Site Loop

Mud has to dry between coats, so a taper never stays on one site for a full day. That is the problem with drywall hours: they are scattered across five or six houses and land on whichever one the foreman remembers. JobSnap is a drywall contractor time tracking app that clocks each worker in and out of every site on the loop, and keeps photos of finished walls before the other trades get to them.

How a drywall day actually runs

Board crews of two to four hangers spend a few days in one house or on one floor. Tapers work differently. First coat here, second coat at the house that was boarded last week, sanding at a third, then back to the first one tomorrow. In November, in a house with no heat yet, the compound takes longer and the loop stretches. On commercial jobs the same company may run a steel stud crew, a ceiling crew and a taping crew on one building.

The tools move with them: drywall lifts, banjos and automatic tapers, stilts, sanders with vacuums, scissor lifts, propane heaters and dehumidifiers. Pay is often piecework, by the sheet or the square foot for hangers and by the square foot or the house for tapers, while the contractor bills the GC per square foot or a lump sum.

Where the loop, the damage and the blue tape go unrecorded

• The loop. Six one-hour visits become one line on a sheet. You cannot tell which house needed a fourth coat.
• Damage by other trades. The electrician cuts a box in the wrong place, the plumber goes through a finished wall, the painter says the taping is bad. Each fix is a trip you do not get paid for unless you can show the wall was done right.
• The blue tape walk. The GC walks the house with blue tape and the deficiency list grows. You come back, and the back-charge talk starts.
• Sites that were not ready. No heat, insulation not inspected, board delivered to the wrong floor. The crew loses half a day and nothing records why.

How a drywall crew uses JobSnap

• Every stop on the loop. Each house gets a geofence, and time tracking clocks the taper in on arrival and out on leaving. Six stops make six entries, each on its own job, without anyone typing a job name.
• Hours per house beside the piece price. The timesheet shows the hours each house took. Keep paying by the sheet if that is how you work; the hours tell you which builders and which models cost you money.
• Photos before handover. With the jobsite camera, shoot each finished room before the next trade walks in. When a wall gets damaged, shoot it again, circle the hole and send both to the super.
• The deficiency list as a checklist. Walk the blue tape with a voice note or a checklist linked to the job, and tick items off as the crew fixes them.
• A daily report that says why. "No heat on site" goes in the delays answer, with the date and the weather. Heaters and lifts can log equipment hours on the same job.
• Board first, tape later. In crew scheduling, a job can have two blocks of dates, board this week and tape next week, each given to a different crew.

A one-person patch-and-repair business can track time in a notebook. JobSnap starts paying when you run separate hanging and taping crews. The houses you work in come from framing crews, and after you come the painters, who will see every flaw under raking light.

What it costs

$5 CAD per active employee per month, $20 minimum, every feature included. Three hangers, three tapers, a sander and a foreman make eight people: $40 a month. Add a second taping crew of three in the busy season and pay $55. Pause them when it slows down. Free 30-day trial, no credit card.

Questions drywall contractors ask

My tapers are on piece rate. Why would they punch in?

Their pay does not change. The punches show which jobs ate their time, so you can bid the next one properly. Keep paying by the sheet; the hours sit next to the piece price on the timesheet.

Can a taper switch sites six times a day without fiddling with the app?

Yes. With a geofence on each house, the shift on each site starts and ends on its own. A one-tap punch works too.

How do I prove another trade damaged a finished wall?

A dated photo of the finished room, then a photo of the damage, both on the same job. Share them from your phone with the GC before you quote the repair.