LOCATION
Nashville, TN
CONTRACTOR TYPE
Specialty
TRADE
Concrete
NO. OF EMPLOYEES
150
INTEGRATIONS
Building a Scalable Foundation: Meet HC Concrete
Founded in Nashville in 2019, HC Concrete Construction Group delivers full-scope concrete construction across commercial, industrial, and municipal projects throughout the Southeast and Midwest. Their work spans from Texas, Florida, and the East Coast. CEO Nick Olp joined HC Concrete in 2025 to drive operational growth, modernize back-office processes, and build systems to support a scaling company.
THE CHALLENGE
Growing Fast Meant Outgrowing the Old Process
As HC Concrete expanded across multiple states, manual processes that worked at a smaller scale became a challenge. Time capture from the field was an inconsistent mix of paper timecards and handwritten notes. Cost codes weren’t always filled in and legibility was sometimtes difficult. The payroll admin spent the better part of each week chasing down hours.
"It took an entire week to process payroll. Three days of phone calls just to verify time and code it."
Verifying hours meant calling foremen and project managers to confirm who worked what, on which cost code, for how many hours. Recognizing he needed to make a change, Olp said,
"Even successful companies can be improved. As the company grows, you have to make sure you're looking into the future."
Olp aimed to modernize back-office operations and set HC Concrete up to scale. Fixing time tracking was one of the first items on his list.
THE SOLUTION
Standardization, Accuracy, and Empowerment
After researching time tracking tools used by other concrete trade contractors, HC Concrete landed on SmartBarrel. In the implementation process, Olp recalled being impressed saying,
“We wanted to go fast. And you guys were there every step of the way, pushing at the same speed."
HC Concrete uses the SmartBarrel mobile app on all their jobsites. In seconds, workers enter their phone number, take a picture and are punched in. SmartBarrel’s AI biometric verification matches the photo against previous punches to confirm identity. Each punch auto-populates timesheets so foremen know exactly who is onsite and assigns the correct cost codes immediately, not recreated from memory days later.
The impact on the payroll team was immediate. They now receive accurate, clean, coded hours. Rather than spending days chasing down and manually reconciling hours in various paper formats, they are proactive and not reactive. Describing the transformation for their payroll admin, Olp said,
“She loves it. It provides her with more control over the process and makes her more powerful. She can be a leader rather than just a receiver of information.”
Workers also benefit directly. SmartBarrel’s automated text message confirmation sends each worker a real-time record of their punch. On the rare occasion there is a discrepancy, it gets caught early and fixed, before payroll runs, not after.
“The guys in the field are begging for that information. Empowering them with a tool that gives them visibility makes them feel like part of the team, not just doing a job."
THE RESULTS
From a Week of Chasing to a Day and a Half
Payroll processing at HC Concrete went from a full week down to a day and a half and reruns have dropped to nearly zero. The payroll admin, once buried in phone calls and manual processes, now has time to focus on other priorities.
SmartBarrel also gave HC Concrete real-time labor visibility across all active jobsites. Olp can see who is on site, track hours against cost codes, and monitor overtime as it happens.
“Labor is one of the most critical controllable aspects in construction. SmartBarrel has given us visibility and control over that.”
And on the client side, the ability to produce professional reporting and verifiable time data has become a competitive differentiator.
“Using a tool that provides reports and verifiable feedback validates their choice in us as partners. It shows we are being good stewards of the owner's time and dollars.”
Why SmartBarrel for Concrete Contractors
In the concrete industry, labor is the most significant controllable cost on any project. SmartBarrel helps HC Concrete manage that labor at scale across multiple states and job sites, without adding administrative headcount. By replacing fragmented, handwritten time collection with verified check-ins and automated reporting, HC Concrete freed up their team, tightened their numbers, and walked into client conversations with a level of professionalism that sets them apart.
