Labor Tracking Software for Fabrication and Machine Shops

FabWise tracks labor hours at the job and task level in real time. Workers clock in and out from a kiosk or workstation, tagging the job and task they're working on. Every hour is attributed to a specific job — not pooled into a general shop-time bucket to be sorted out later. The result is labor data accurate enough to cost jobs, quote future work, and process payroll without a reconciliation step.

What Labor Tracking Means in a Fabrication Context

Labor tracking in a manufacturing context is different from hours tracking in a service or office context. The questions are different:

• Not just "how many hours did each person work?" but "how many hours went to each job?"
• Not just "did everyone clock in on time?" but "which tasks are running over budget?"
• Not just "who worked overtime?" but "which jobs are driving the overtime?"

Generic time tracking tools answer the first question in each pair. FabWise answers both.

The distinction matters for job costing, quoting, and scheduling. A shop that knows total hours per worker but not hours per job is flying blind on margin. A shop that knows hours per job and per task can make decisions — reprice a customer, adjust a quote template, identify which operations are consistently running over.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, metal and plastic machine setters, operators, and tenders make up a significant portion of the manufacturing workforce — occupations where per-job labor attribution is essential to shop profitability but rarely captured accurately with off-the-shelf tools.

How FabWise Tracks Labor — The Three-Layer Model

Every shift record in FabWise has three attribution layers:

Worker — who performed the labor. Linked to the worker's record in FabWise, which carries their role, department, and scheduled shift information.

Job — which customer project or production order the labor went to. Jobs are defined by the shop admin; workers select from the active job list at clock-in.

Task — what type of work was performed within the job. Tasks are configured per account: welding, fitting, machining, inspection, rework, finishing. Workers select at clock-in.

This three-layer model means every hour in FabWise is fully attributed. The admin dashboard can filter labor by any combination: all hours for a specific job, all welding hours across all jobs this week, all labor by a specific worker for the pay period. The data is there because it was captured at the source.

Real-Time Labor Visibility — Not End-of-Week Reports

The admin dashboard shows current labor status in real time:

• Which workers are clocked in right now, and to which jobs
• Hours accumulated on each active job this week
• Workers who are clocked out but scheduled to be in (absence flag)
• Flagged records requiring supervisor review (missed breaks, potential overtime, unscheduled shifts)

This is operational visibility, not after-the-fact reporting. A shop manager can see the current state of the floor without asking anyone, and catch problems — a worker on the wrong job, a job running over budget — while there's still time to make adjustments.

Compare this to end-of-week reports generated from time card reconciliation: by the time you see the data, the job is already closed and the damage is done.

Labor Data for Job Costing

The primary downstream use of accurate labor tracking is job costing. When hours per job are captured correctly, labor cost is straightforward to calculate: hours × burdened labor rate. The costing is only as accurate as the hours.

The labor burden rate — the employer's total cost per labor hour including taxes, insurance, and benefits — typically runs 25–40% above base wages. A $28/hr machinist costs $35–$39/hr fully burdened. Job costing that uses the base wage understates true labor cost by a quarter or more, which is why quotes based on base wages consistently underperform.

FabWise provides accurate hours. You apply your burdened rates to calculate labor cost. The export gives you hours by worker, by job, by task, by time period — everything you need for job cost analysis without requiring FabWise to store or process pay rate data.

Labor Data for Payroll

The same time records that feed job costing also feed payroll. FabWise does not separate "job tracking data" from "payroll data" — they're the same shift records.

At pay period close, the admin reviews and approves all shifts for the period. The payroll export produces a file formatted for ADP, Gusto, QuickBooks Payroll, or a custom CSV spec. The export reflects the approved records — original captures where no correction was needed, corrected values where a supervisor made a documented adjustment.

Your payroll provider receives accurate hours per worker per period. They handle overtime classification, tax calculation, and compliance. FabWise handles the capture.

Multi-Job Shifts — When Workers Move Between Jobs

In most fabrication shops, workers don't spend an entire shift on a single job. They move between jobs as priorities shift, as operations complete, as machines become available.

FabWise handles multi-job shifts natively. A worker clocks out of Job A and clocks into Job B — the transition is recorded with a timestamp on both records. The admin dashboard shows the worker's job-by-job breakdown for the shift. The payroll export includes all segments.

No manual splitting of hours required. No end-of-week estimation of "I think I spent about three hours on the machining job and five on the welding job." The transitions are captured in real time.

Supervisor Corrections — When Captures Need to Be Fixed

Workers make mistakes: wrong job selected at clock-in, forgot to clock out, clocked out at the wrong time. FabWise handles corrections without destroying the original record.

A supervisor attaches a correction to any shift record: the adjusted value, the reason, and their name. The original capture is preserved on the record. The correction is a separate event with its own audit trail. When the record flows to payroll, the export uses the corrected value where present.

This matters for both accuracy and accountability. If a record is challenged — by a worker, by a payroll auditor, by legal — you have the full sequence of events: what was captured, who corrected it, when, and why. FabWise's audit trail is complete.

Integrating with Your Existing Systems

FabWise does not replace your ERP, HRIS, or job management software. It adds accurate labor time capture to your existing workflow through export.

The typical integration:
- Payroll: export to ADP, Gusto, or QuickBooks Payroll at period end
- Job costing: export hours by job by period to your job cost spreadsheet or ERP
- Scheduling: FabWise reads from your shift schedules to flag absent workers and match scheduled vs. actual hours

For shops evaluating more formal integration, the NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership offers guidance on data integration for small and mid-sized manufacturers. FabWise's export formats are designed to be import-compatible with the most common manufacturing data consumers.

Is FabWise Right for Your Labor Tracking Needs?

FabWise is the right fit for:

• Fabrication, metalworking, machining, and welding shops with 5–100 workers
• Shops that need labor attributed to specific jobs — not just total hours per worker
• Environments with shared time clock terminals (kiosk) and individual workstations
• Operations that use ADP, Gusto, QuickBooks, or a custom payroll CSV
• Shops currently running on paper time cards or spreadsheets and losing margin to inaccurate job costing

FabWise does not include payroll processing, HR management, project management, or material cost tracking. It captures and organizes labor time — accurately and in real time — so the systems that need labor data receive correct input.