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Time Tracking for Logistics & Transportation

Time tracking that fits Logistics & Transportation

Hours captured as work happens, mapped to the routes, shipments and dispatch windows you already plan around.

Manual timesheets are reconstructions, and reconstructions lose money. Worktivity records hours automatically in the background, lets dispatchers, planners and back-office staff correct them, and turns the result into timesheets, invoices and payouts data without a second round of data entry.

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Overview

Why logistics and transportation companies need time tracking

Time is the unit logistics and transportation companies sell, plan and pay against, yet in most organisations it is entered from memory on a Friday afternoon. The gap between what happened and what was recorded is where margin quietly disappears.

Fleets are tracked continuously; the office that keeps them moving is not. Planning, dispatch, customs documentation, claims and customer service consume substantial salaried hours that never appear in a cost-per-shipment figure.

Cost per shipment is built from fuel, driver hours, tolls and handling. The office is absorbed into overhead, so the customer whose shipments generate constant documentation queries and claims costs exactly the same on paper as the one whose paperwork never varies.

Worktivity's time tracking for logistics and transportation companies measures that office. Hours attributed to lanes, customers and functions turn administrative overhead from an allocated percentage into an observed cost per shipment.

Attributing planner, dispatch and documentation hours to routes, customers and lanes completes the calculation. Operators use it to reprice the accounts whose administrative burden is disproportionate and, more often, to identify the specific documentation step that is generating the burden and fix it at source.

Worktivity closes that gap by capturing hours as they are worked, attaching them to the right project or client, and leaving a clear trail from raw activity to approved timesheet. What you bill and what you paid for finally describe the same day.

How it works

How tracked time reaches the invoice

Four steps, none of which involve a blank timesheet grid.

  • Hours captured, not remembered

    The agent records working time in the background and separates idle stretches, so a timesheet starts from evidence instead of an empty form.

  • Everything mapped to work

    Time attaches to the projects, clients and tasks that mirror your routes, shipments and dispatch windows, which makes reporting a filter rather than a rebuild.

  • Approvals without chasing

    Employees review and adjust, managers approve in bulk, and locked periods stop retroactive edits from reopening a closed month.

  • Billing and payouts in one pass

    Approved hours flow into invoices and payouts exports with the breakdown clients ask for already attached.

Capabilities

Time tracking capabilities for Logistics & Transportation

Seven capabilities, two of them specific to how logistics and transportation companies work.

Administrative cost per shipment

Attribute planning, dispatch, documentation and claims hours to lanes and customers, so the office cost behind each shipment is measured rather than apportioned.

Exception handling effort

Track the hours consumed by delays, claims, customs holds and re-planning separately. Exceptions are where administrative cost concentrates and where nobody is looking.

Automatic background tracking

Start once and the desktop agent handles the rest across Windows, macOS and Linux. dispatchers, planners and back-office staff do not stop work in order to record work, which is the only way tracking survives a busy month.

Project, client and task mapping

Structure time the way you already structure delivery, so hours roll up to the routes, shipments and dispatch windows your reporting is built on without manual re-tagging.

Timesheets and approvals

Generated timesheets arrive pre-filled. Employees correct, managers approve, and every change is logged with who altered what and when.

Idle, break and offline handling

Idle thresholds, break rules and manual entry for offline work keep the recorded day honest, including the hours that happen away from a keyboard.

Billable rates and invoicing

Set rates by person, role or project, mark hours billable or internal, and export invoice-ready breakdowns into your accounting stack.

Benefits

What accurate hours are worth to logistics and transportation companies

The return shows up in six places.

  • Recovered billable time

    Teams that move from memory-based entry to captured time routinely find hours that were previously written off, simply because nobody recorded them.

  • Estimates that improve

    Every completed piece of work becomes historical data, so the next quote rests on what the work actually cost rather than on optimism.

  • Faster billing cycles

    Closing a period stops being a week of chasing and becomes a review of data that is already sitting there.

  • Fewer client disputes

    Itemised, timestamped breakdowns answer “what did we pay for” before the question turns into a credit note.

  • Cleaner payouts

    Approved hours, overtime and leave arrive in a single export, which removes the spreadsheet stage entirely.

  • Audit-ready records

    A complete trail from captured activity to approved timesheet stands up to internal review and external audit alike.

Use cases

Where logistics and transportation companies rely on tracked time

Five places logistics and transportation companies put this to work in the first quarter.

  1. Pricing lanes with overhead included

    A lane that looks profitable on transport cost alone can lose money once documentation and exception handling are counted. Measured hours expose that before the contract renews.

  2. Justifying dispatch headcount

    Dispatch teams are chronically stretched and rarely evidenced. Hour data per shift and per lane turns a request for headcount into a costed case.

  3. Reducing exception cost

    Quantifying the administrative tail of each delay or claim identifies which customers and routes generate disproportionate office work, and what fixing them would be worth.

  4. Fixed-price work that must not overrun

    Watch consumed hours against the budget on every engagement and intervene while there is still room to act.

  5. Distributed and shift-based teams

    Track across time zones, devices and locations under one set of rules, then reconcile the lot in a single view.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Answers to the questions logistics and transportation companies ask most often about time tracking.

Can we allocate back-office time to specific customers or lanes?

Yes, by making the customer or lane the project so planning, dispatch and documentation hours accumulate against it. Two or three months of data is normally enough to show which accounts carry an administrative cost well above the average, and the difference is frequently larger than the margin on the freight.

Can drivers be tracked with Worktivity?

No. Worktivity measures computer-based work. Drivers and vehicles are covered by your telematics system. Worktivity measures the planning, dispatch, documentation and customer service effort surrounding them, which telematics does not see.

Our operations run around the clock. Does that work?

Yes. Working-hour windows, shift patterns and break rules are configured per team, and reporting handles overnight shifts and multiple time zones so a 24-hour operation reconciles into a single view.

Does time tracking require manual timers?

No. Tracking runs automatically once the agent is installed. Manual entry exists only for work that happens away from the computer: meetings, site visits, travel and calls.

Can employees correct their own hours?

Yes, and they should. Employees review and adjust their day before submitting it, managers approve, and every edit is recorded. That combination is what makes the data trustworthy rather than merely automatic.

Does it work offline?

Yes. The agent buffers activity locally and syncs when the connection returns, so travel, site work and outages do not leave gaps in the record.

Can we export to our accounting or payouts system?

Approved timesheets export as CSV or XLSX, and the API lets you push hours into your existing finance stack on a schedule.

Ready to see where your hours actually go?

Set Worktivity up for your team this afternoon. The configuration that logistics and transportation companies need is already mapped out. Fourteen days free, no card, and the data is yours either way.

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