LOCATION
Houston, Texas
CONTRACTOR TYPE
Specialty
TRADE
Drywall
NO. OF EMPLOYEES
1000+
INTEGRATIONS
About Karsten Interior Services
Karsten Interior Services has grown into one of Houston’s go-to commercial specialty contractors. They deliver drywall, framing, acoustical ceilings, paint, and interior finish-out work for a wide range of projects. This includes hospitals and research labs to corporate headquarters, schools, and retail developments. In a few short years, they’ve doubled their workforce, growing from 450 to more than 1,000 employees. To manage that growth, they needed something faster and more accurate than paper-based time tracking could deliver.
CHALLENGES
Paper Sign-Ins, Guessed Sign-Outs, and Hours Lost to Rekeying
Before SmartBarrel, Karsten’s time tracking ran entirely on paper. Each day began with an attendance sheet built in Excel, printed out, and handed to a foreman on a clipboard. Every morning, workers signed in with their name and employee number. At the end of the day, workers were supposed to sign out the same way. Roughly 10% forgot and some would leave their employee number empty, leaving foremen to guess what time they left.
From there, every day foremen would take a picture of the paper timesheet and emailed it to the accounting team. Then, after a full day of work onsite, foremen spent another 1-2 hours rekeying every name, hour, and cost code by hand into Plexxis, a process prone to errors from mistyped entries and going based off memory for missed sign-outs.
Another issue was tracking workers who split their day across two jobsites. Without a way to verify who was where and when, a worker’s entire eight-hour shift could get attributed to the wrong project, throwing off job costing.
As Karsten took on more projects and hired more workers, paper-based time tracking couldn’t keep up with their growth, and admin work, errors, and corrections piled up.
SOLUTION
Excuse-Free Clock-Ins and Built-In Accountability for a Growing Workforce
Karsten rolled out SmartBarrel across their jobsites, using all three clock-in options: the portable time clock, kiosk mode on tablets, and personal punch mode on mobile phones.
Describing the shift, Sonia said,
"With flexible ways to clock in and out, it made time tracking excuse-free, and it worked. We also found that workers became more accountable for punching. It was up to them, not the foremen, to make sure they punched in. Those are the hours that make up their paycheck."
With SmartBarrel, workers enter their phone number, take a picture, and are punched in. SmartBarrel’s AI powered facial verification confirms the right worker is clocking in, eliminating buddy punching. Every punch appears automatically in the foreman’s dashboard, where they can assign the right cost codes, verify hours, and approve for the day.
With SmartBarrel, each foreman reclaimed 2 hours per day amounting to 10 hours per week saved by completely eliminating the need to key in data in Plexxis due to SmartBarrel’s native integration. They’ve also solved workers splitting time between jobsites as workers would punch in at each site, and SmartBarrel correctly records where they worked.
For smaller jobsites where they only use Kiosk and Punch Modes on the mobile app, Karsten leverages SmartBarrel’s geofence technology. With the ability to clearly define their jobsite location, punches can only occur when workers are within those boundaries.
Superintendents and project managers have felt the shift too. Supers overseeing multiple jobsites get access to a dashboard showing exactly who is on a project in real time and when. PMs get up-to-date manpower reports showing hours worked by job, on demand.
Seeing the impact from a wider lens, Sonia said,
"Using SmartBarrel has truly streamlined our construction operations. We've eliminated payroll errors and cut down on the tedious administrative tasks that used to eat away at our time. The AI biometric facial verification is a standout feature. No more worrying about time theft or manual entry errors. Integrating it with Plexxis was a breeze, and it's been consistently reliable."
The team has also leaned on SmartBarrel’s broadcast messaging to keep crews informed. With sites occasionally affected by flooding, a text sent from the dashboard can instantly notify the entire crew of a site closure. For Spanish-speaking workers, English messages can be auto-translated to Spanish so everyone stays informed.
RESULTS
Doubling the Workforce While Staying Efficient, Productive and Error-Free
SmartBarrel’s impact can be felt across all levels of the organization. Workers are more accountable and empowered, knowing that punching in and out is what determines their paycheck.
Foremen are more productive too. Instead of playing timekeeper, they can focus on keeping the project moving. SmartBarrel’s auto-populating timesheets have given them back 2 hours a day, all while eliminating the rekeying errors and foggy-memory mistakes by 90%.
Payroll teams receive accurate hours and cost codes each week. With consistently reliable data submitted, Karsten’s two-person payroll staff has been able to keep pace with a growing workforce, no extra hires required.
Going forward, Karsten plans on adopting even more SmartBarrel tools including automating reimbursements and managing PTOs.
Why SmartBarrel for Drywall, Framing and Acoustic Contractors
- Excuse-free clock-in: Device, kiosk, and mobile app options, backed by biometric facial verification and geofencing, close every gap paper timesheets left open.
- Scale without adding admin headcount: Karsten doubled its field workforce and kept payroll running on the same two-person team.
- Real-time visibility for supers and PMs: A birds-eye view of who’s on which jobsite, without waiting on payroll to pull a report.
- Built to keep crews informed: Broadcast messaging and automatic Spanish translation keep every worker in the loop, from safety reminders to site closures.
