PunchTime Tracking for Moving Companies: Crews, Drive Time, and Overtime (2026 Guide)
Time Tracking for Moving Companies: Crews, Drive Time, and Overtime (2026 Guide)
The short answer: A moving company sells hours. The customer pays for the crew's time and the crew is paid for the same time, so every minute has to be right twice. Track it with a punch-in at the warehouse, paid drive and wait time between jobs, overtime calculated on the real week, and a manager approval before payroll. Punch does all of it at one flat price per workspace, so adding helpers for peak season does not add a per-user fee.
A moving day does not fit a timesheet written on Friday. The crew loads the truck at 7:00, drives across town, waits forty minutes for a closing to fund, carries a sofa up four flights, and unloads at a second address after dark. Then the customer asks why the invoice says nine hours.
If the answer lives in a driver's memory, you lose that conversation. You can also lose a wage claim with the same missing record.
Where the Moving Timesheet Breaks
Four problems show up in almost every small moving company.
- The day starts before the first house. Loading pads, dollies, and boxes at the warehouse is work. So is the drive to the first customer once the crew has reported in.
- Waiting time gets written off. A crew standing in a driveway because the elevator is booked or the keys are late is engaged to wait. That time is paid.
- Helpers rotate. A three-person crew on Monday is a four-person crew on Tuesday with a day laborer added. Paper timesheets lose the extra person first.
- Overtime arrives in clusters. Moving is seasonal. A crew can run 50-hour weeks from June through August and 30-hour weeks in January, and the overtime math changes with every week.
The fix is a punch that records the person, the time, and the place on its own, with no reconstruction at the end of the week.
Punch In at the Warehouse, Track the Whole Day
Most moving days start at a fixed place: the warehouse or the truck yard. Draw a geofence around it in Punch. A mover can only punch in when the phone is inside that radius, which ends the habit of punching in from the drive over.
Geofencing applies to punch-in only. Movers punch out and start and end lunch from anywhere, so nobody is stuck on the clock at a customer's house because GPS dropped inside a basement. If the warehouse has no reliable signal, Punch records the punch offline and syncs it when the phone reconnects. Our guide to tracking hours without cell service covers how that works.
For crews that gather at the yard each morning, set up a shared iPad as a kiosk. Each mover punches in with their own PIN. Day laborers and new helpers do not need to install anything to get a correct record on day one. See how the shared iPad kiosk works.
Punch does not use facial recognition and does not take a photo at punch. Your crew spends the day inside strangers' homes. A geofence at the warehouse verifies the start of the day without putting a camera in anyone's face.
Drive Time and Wait Time Are Hours Worked
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the workday starts with the first principal activity and ends with the last. Once a mover has loaded the truck or received the day's assignments at the warehouse, the drive to the customer is part of the workday. So is the drive between a pickup and a delivery, and the ride back to the yard to return the truck.
Riding as a passenger counts the same as driving. A helper in the cab between jobs is on the clock.
Waiting follows the same logic. When a crew is on site and ready, and the customer is not, the crew is engaged to wait. That time is paid, even if nobody is lifting anything. Our travel time guide and hours worked guide explain the rules in more detail.
The lunch break is the one gap you can take out, if the mover is fully relieved of duty. A helper eating in the cab while watching an open truck is not on a break. In Punch, crews punch out for lunch and back in, so the meal period on the timesheet is the one that happened, not an automatic 30 minutes that may never have been taken. Read why automatic lunch deductions create wage claims.
The Motor Carrier Trap: Most Movers Still Get Overtime
Some moving companies assume their crews are exempt from overtime because they work around trucks. That is usually wrong.
The FLSA motor carrier exemption only reaches employees whose work affects the safety of vehicles operating in interstate commerce. A local mover who never crosses a state line, and whose loads are not part of an interstate move, is generally not covered by it at all.
Even for interstate work, the small vehicle exception narrows the exemption further. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, drivers, driver's helpers, loaders, and mechanics who work on vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or less are owed overtime in any workweek they do that work, even if they also work on heavier trucks that same week. A crew that runs a cargo van on Tuesday and a box truck on Thursday can lose the exemption for the whole week.
The safe default for a small moving company is simple. Pay overtime after 40 hours, and get advice before treating anyone as exempt. Our motor carrier exemption guide walks through the edge cases.
Punch calculates overtime from the punches, on the workweek you set. It ships with overtime presets for 50+ countries, including the federal U.S. 40-hour rule. A crew that crosses 40 hours in a busy July week shows up as overtime before payroll, not after.
Tips, Day Laborers, and Seasonal Crews
Customers tip movers, often in cash at the end of the job. Under the FLSA, an employer may not keep any part of an employee's tips, and that includes owners, managers, and supervisors. Tips are the crew's money. Keep the hours record clean so pay and tips are never mixed together.
Moving also runs on seasonal labor. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a 2025 median wage of $18.38 an hour for hand laborers and material movers. At that rate, a five-person crew that underreports thirty minutes a day each is losing more than $11,000 in unpaid wages across a year of five-day weeks. That is a wage claim waiting to be filed.
Seasonal helpers and day laborers who are employees are owed the same records as your full-time crew. Our seasonal employee guide covers the rules that do not relax when the crew doubles. If you are paying some movers as contractors, read the 1099 vs. W-2 guide first.
Approve the Week, Then Run Payroll
On Friday, the office should not be rebuilding the week. It should be approving it.
In Punch, managers review every timesheet for the pay period, weekly or bi-weekly. They can approve or reject entries one at a time or in bulk. A mover who forgot to punch out after a late delivery can be corrected before the week closes, not argued over after the check is cut.
Approved hours flow into payroll. Punch connects to QuickBooks Online and Square, and exports CSV files for QuickBooks or Excel. Owners and managers get Reports with exports, so hours by person and by day are available when a customer questions an invoice or an auditor asks for records.
Time-off requests live in the same app. A mover asks for a Saturday off in Punch and the manager approves it before the weekend rush.
Pricing is flat per workspace. The owner is always free, and every plan includes every feature. Adding six helpers for June does not change the bill, and neither does removing them in September.
Make Every Billable Hour a Recorded Hour
A moving company is paid for time and pays for time. When both sides of that equation come from the same punch, the invoice and the paycheck agree, the overtime is right, and a disputed move has a record behind it.
Set up the warehouse geofence once. Put a kiosk in the yard. Approve the week before payroll.
Start with Punch and let every move prove its own hours.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Overtime, travel time, and tip rules vary by state and change over time. Confirm your obligations with the enforcing agency in your state, or with a qualified professional.