What Punchless tracks. And what it doesn't.
Plain answers to the questions every technician asks when they first hear the words “GPS tracking.”
Your drive time is measured, and you can see it
Time spent driving between the shop and a job site, or from one job to the next, is work. Punchless records it as its own line on your timecard — not folded into the job, not rounded away, not left to anyone's memory of how long the trip took. At the end of the day you can see the number: 47 minutes on the road, logged, with the route that produced it.
Whether the drive from home to your first job is paid is your employer's decision, and the law genuinely differs on it — the federal rule excludes an ordinary commute, California treats travel your employer controls as paid wherever it starts. Your employer chooses a policy and Punchless applies it consistently. What matters for you is that the commute is shown either way, marked paid or unpaid, instead of quietly disappearing.
Travel between the shop and a job site is paid under both readings of the law, and is never treated as a commute.
What Punchless records
What it does not record
Punchless collects GPS data while Work Mode is on. Your manager can see your current location on the crew map, and GPS path data is stored for dispute resolution. The key protection: tracking only runs while Work Mode is on. Turn it off and nothing is collected - closing the app alone does not stop it. If you leave it on after hours, the phone asks whether you are still working.
Your day, in the app.
Open Punchless and begin your shift. The app confirms your current state (At shop) and activates geofence monitoring. That's it: you can put your phone away.
The app works silently in the background. When you arrive at a job site, it records the time. When you leave, same. Your timecard builds itself while you work.
Return to the shop and end your shift. Your draft timecard is visible immediately — review it, edit any entries if needed, then submit. Your manager approves from there, usually within 24 hours.
Your data rights
More questions.
Do I need to manually clock in or out?+
No. The app detects when you arrive and leave job sites automatically. You don't need to open the app or tap anything during your shift.
Can I see my own timecard before my manager does?+
Yes. The app shows your current shift state (on site, in transit, at shop) and the draft timecard being built in real time. You can edit entries yourself before submitting, so you can correct anything before your manager ever sees it.
What if the GPS got my arrival time wrong?+
Fix it yourself before submitting — you can edit any draft timecard entry directly in the app. If it's already been submitted, flag it for your manager. Every edit, yours and theirs, keeps what the entry said before alongside who changed it.
Does the app run when I'm off the clock?+
Location is recorded only while Work Mode is on. Turn it off when you finish - or your company can set work hours and the app switches it for you. If you forget and leave it on after hours, the phone asks "Still working?" so your evening is not recorded by accident. Closing the app does not stop tracking; turning Work Mode off or signing out does.
Will it drain my phone battery?+
Less than continuous tracking, because the app does not poll continuously. It asks for your location at most once a minute, at battery-friendly balanced accuracy, and only after the phone has moved about 30 metres — so sitting at a job site, it goes quiet. We do not publish a battery percentage we have not measured. Watch it on your own phone for a week and hold us to what you see.
Do I get paid for drive time?+
That is your employer's policy, not ours — but Punchless measures it either way, so it is a number rather than an argument. Driving between the shop and a job site, or between jobs, is work and is recorded as its own line on your timecard. The home-to-first-job commute depends on your employer's policy and your state's law, and appears on your timecard marked paid or unpaid rather than vanishing.
Does Punchless know it is really me carrying the phone?+
No, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Punchless tracks a device. There is no face scan, no fingerprint and no photo check-in — we use no biometrics at all. What the record does show is a continuous, consistent pattern of movement that is difficult to fake convincingly, which is a different and more honest claim than proving identity.
Can I see my own GPS history?+
Yes. You can view your own GPS path data and shift events in the app — the same records your manager can see. Historical GPS data is automatically deleted after your company's retention window: 12 months by default, at least four years if your company is on the Compliance plan, and never less than 30 days.
Are you the manager setting this up?
Watch how the record writes itself →