LOCATION
Hillsborough, North Carolina
CONTRACTOR TYPE
Specialty
TRADE
Heavy Civil
NO. OF EMPLOYEES
2000+
INTEGRATIONS
About Thalle
Thalle Construction Co., Inc. is a leader in heavy civil construction, headquartered in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Over the past decade, they has grown from a regional builder into a company operating across the United States, employing more than 2,000 people. They work on large scale infrastructure projects spanning water treatment plants, dams and reservoirs, highways and bridges, pipelines, marine structures, mass earthwork, and more.
With a workforce spread across dozens of active jobsites at any given time, managing labor and payroll at scale was a growing challenge, especially for a two person team. That’s where SmartBarrel stepped in.
CHALLENGES
Illegible Timesheets and Rekeying Errors for Hundreds of Workers
For Ciera Thomas and Denise Riley, Thalle’s two person payroll team, collecting hours from the field was far more complicated than it needed to be.
Two sets of hours were submitted. Each week, they were sent illegible, handwritten sign-in sheets. In addition, every day, they received an Excel spreadsheet with hours worked that day. They had to then cross-reference sign-in sheets with Excel spreadsheets before uploading the hours to their ERP.
The problem? The spreadsheet was riddled with errors that rarely matched the paper timesheets. This inaccuracy triggered back and forth emails with crew leaders to correct and verify hours. On average, it took two hours to process payroll for one job.
This slow and manual process resulted in paycheck errors with workers missing time. Ciera remembered having over 20 corrections per week for missed time. That doesn’t include additional errors rekeying hours from paper to spreadsheet to Vista, their ERP.
Payroll reruns resulted in extra admin hours and unhappy workers in the field. As Thalle took on more projects and crew sizes grew, they needed to replace this slow, inefficient process with a solution that was simple to use, automated and accurate.
SOLUTION
Accurate Time in, Accurate Payroll out.
SmartBarrel simplified and sped up their manual time collection process. They’ve replaced paper sign in sheets and Excel with AI biometric facial verification. On jobsites, workers type in their phone number, take a picture and they are punched in. Hours appear in real-time on auto-populated timesheets. Foremen quickly review, approve and push to their ERP in seconds, ensuring Ciera and Denise receive 100% accurate timesheets. The ease and simplicity of SmartBarrel made training fast and efficient. Recalling the process, Ciera said,
"Integrating SmartBarrel into our ERP system was as simple as it comes. On some jobsites, we trained workers on SmartBarrel on day one and they have been using it ever since."
For Ciera and Denise, the time savings have been transformative. It now takes just 1 hour to process payroll for all 17 active jobs compared to 2 hours for a single job before SmartBarrel. This means Thalle reduced payroll processing time from 34 hours per week to just 1, achieving the same results a stunning 97% faster. For large jobsites with hundreds of workers, it only takes 5 minutes.
The efficiency gain was just the beginning. Denise remains impressed with SmartBarrel’s hands-on and collaborative approach as the partnership continues to grow.
"From day one, my experience has been awesome. SmartBarrel has gone above and beyond to ensure that we are using the program to best suit our needs. From in-person training to monthly check-ins, they have been there from the start. We went from using paper sign-in sheets and Excel spreadsheets to using SmartBarrel for over 1,000 employees."
RESULTS
Improved Payroll Processing Means Better Work-Life Balance
For Denise and Cierra, SmartBarrel is more than just a software solution. Looking back at their manual process, they spent many days and hours in the trenches together just to get payroll right. That meant sacrificing personal time, days off and vacations. Reflection on the shift, Denise said,
“SmartBarrel’s had a great impact on company morale. We are a two person team so the guilt of taking off and leaving your teammate with all the work is gone!”
Beyond the payroll team, field teams are also seeing the benefits of a construction-specific solution. Implementation, training and adoption has been high.
“It's both foreman and construction-native friendly. This has genuinely streamlined our workflow, making management easy and effective.”
Why SmartBarrel for Heavy Civil Contractors
Heavy civil construction presents unique workforce management challenges that off-the-shelf time tracking tools simply aren’t built to handle. Crews rotate across multiple remote jobsites. Workforces can number in the hundreds or thousands. SmartBarrel is purpose-built for these realities.
- Scalability: Taking on more projects or larger jobs shouldn’t impact the back office. SmartBarrel lets you scale without increasing payroll admin staff like Thalle.
- Biometric accuracy at scale: AI facial verification eliminates buddy punching and ensures every punch is tied to the right worker, across every site.
- Seamless ERP integration: SmartBarrel connects directly with Vista and other leading construction ERPs, eliminating manual data entry and rekeying errors.
- Fast, user-friendly adoption: Designed for workers in the field, and just as simple for payroll teams.
- Hands-on training and enablement: From in-person training to monthly check-ins, SmartBarrel stays engaged as you grow and expand.
