LOCATION
Fort Myers, FL
CONTRACTOR TYPE
Specialty
TRADE
Concrete, Masonry, Structural Steel, Tilt-Wall
NO. OF EMPLOYEES
260+
INTEGRATIONS
About Ogden Brothers Construction
Founded in 2005 in Fort Myers, Florida, Ogden Brothers Construction has grown into a premier structural contractor serving clients across Southwest Florida. Specializing in concrete, masonry, structural steel, and tilt wall construction, the company has completed more than 550 projects from Marco Island to Tampa.
CHALLENGES
Handwritten Cost Code Corrections Drove Admin Time & Frustration
Using ExakTime, workers would clock in and select the cost code they were working. Time capture was often accurate, but cost codes were not. ExakTime displayed all available cost codes in CMiC, an overwhelming list of similar-looking codes. As a result, workers would routinely select the wrong cost code.
With so much room for error, Ogden Brothers required several layers of approval. Foremen had to drive into the office to review timesheets weekly. Payroll staff printed ExakTime timesheets on paper and sorted them by supervisor.
Together, payroll staff and supervisors would painstakingly review hours and cost codes by worker, line by line. As expected, hours were often miscoded. Supervisors would verbally correct it, then payroll wrote the correction by hand. Once this concluded, payroll staff had to rekey hours and cost codes into CMiC.
Driving into the office, printing and sorting timesheets, and line-by-line verification added 10 hours per week of admin time. Next, manual rekeying into CMiC, took an additional 10 hours. In total, Ogden Brothers was spending 20 hours a week just to get the right hours and cost codes into their ERP.
SOLUTION
Accurate & Coded Timesheets Instantly Appear in CMiC
Partnering with SmartBarrel made an immediate difference. First, timesheets are now auto-populated within the SmartBarrel dashboard and visible to both supervisors and the Payroll team as soon as a worker punches in. All punches are biometrically verified to ensure 100% accuracy. For workers, the check-in is simple. They enter their phone number, take a picture and are punched in.
From there, additional significant improvements were made. First, supervisors, not workers, assign cost codes directly in SmartBarrel. Secondly, only the cost codes specific to the job are available and can be further limited by crew, ensuring only relevant cost codes can be selected, syncing accurate time back to CMiC. Describing the shift, Controller Bryan Smrz said,
“I've been notably impressed with SmartBarrel’s efficiency. The system not only streamlines time tracking with its biometric facial verification, but also accurately processes cost codes, far better than our previous methods.”
More importantly, their multi-step, in-person approval process has also ended. Gone are the days where supervisors had to drive to the office, printing, sorting and manually correcting timesheets. With SmartBarrel, once timesheets are approved in the field, accurate hours and cost codes are exported then imported into CMiC in minutes. Admin staff are no longer keying in hours and cost codes manually.
RESULTS
Less Babysitting, Chasing Down and Correcting
The biggest change for Ogden Brothers Construction was not just time savings. It’s transformed their entire time tracking, cost coding and payroll process.
Supervisors review and approve hours in the field daily to ensure accuracy, not reconstructed by memory in the office a week later. Instead of spending hours fixing errors, payroll teams now review clean, accurate data. Discussing the improvement, Bryan mentions,
“Now that the data is so clean, it only takes us two hours to process payroll and we can get paychecks to our crew leaders faster. We can focus on what is next and do less babysitting, chasing down and correcting."
Why SmartBarrel for Concrete, Structural Steel and Tilt Wall Contractors
Flexible time tracking, built for the field: Whether it’s a hardware device, kiosk mode on a tablet or mobile phone, SmartBarrel gives crews options. You can use all three on a single jobsite and it all works the same way: type your phone number, take a picture and you’re punched in.
Biometric accuracy across every site: AI facial verification eliminates buddy punching and ensures every punch is tied to the right worker. The system learns each worker automatically without needing photo uploads or jobsite photo shoots.
Accurate cost codes, straight from the field: With supervisors responsible for cost coding and only having job specific cost codes, you remove the burden on the worker and increase accuracy in job costing. SmartBarrel’s simple interface allows supervisors and crew leaders to easily code time, review hours and approve, all in just a few clicks and all within their smartphone or tablet.
Scalability across jobsites: Growth shouldn’t create more payroll complexity. SmartBarrel standardizes time capture and approval across all jobsites, allowing crew leaders to focus on running work in the field instead of admin tasks like timekeeping. Take on more jobs without adding admin workers.
