For construction subcontractors running several projects at once: every check-in from employees, ABN subbies and labour hire lands on the right job and cost code, so you see labour spent against what you quoted every day, not months later.
For HVAC, Dust installers, painting, fitouts, roofing, plastering and electrical contractors · Xero or MYOB
Live Labour Budget · Quoted vs actual
Updated with every check-in
| Job · cost code | Labour type | Quoted hrs | Actual hrs | Used | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Job 214 · Rough-in | Employees | 400 | 280 | 70% | Tracking |
| Job 214 · Ductwork | ABN subbies | 160 | 148 | 93% | Watch |
| Job 207 · Fit-off | Labour hire | 120 | 131 | 109% | Over quote |
| Job 207 · Variation 3 | Employees | 24 | 9 | 38% | Tracking |
7:15am: "Job 214 has used 70% of its quoted hours."
Hours and dollars, by job and cost codeThe problem
Hours sit on paper sign-in sheets, in generic timesheet apps or WhatsApp. Subbie and labour hire invoices arrive by email, late. The quote lives in an estimating tool or Excel. Before anyone can see quoted vs actual, someone has to match it all up and code it to jobs in Xero, so it happens weekly, at month end, or not at all.
"On budget or not? No, we're not… we're over budget by $18,000."
"7 to 9 against this project code, 9 to 11 against this project code… and then we have to cross-check it."
"We'll get a photo of that every week or so. And then we're recording it by hand in a spreadsheet."
"Our admin team sends me an update every Friday. Of all the jobs, hours remaining, and the hours allowed for."
In the office
Labour gets allocated to the projects and costs by hand, for every small task. "Painfully, very painfully."
For the owner
You're guessing which jobs are on budget, and finding out too late to fix it. "I was unaware of that cost overrun till just now."
It's just wrong
Contractors shouldn't have to rebuild their own labour costs by hand just to find out whether a job they quoted is making money.
Pay rate vs true cost
"We might pay a guy fifty-five, but his cost is ninety-two dollars 70." Move the sliders to see the labour cost a budget leaves out when it runs on pay rate instead of true cost.
Labour cost missing from a pay-rate budget, per week (38 hrs per worker)
$42,978
A 69% gap between pay rate and true cost
What you get
Your quote becomes the budget, your crew's check-ins become the actuals, and every labour type lands in the same place, so quoted vs actual is there every day without anyone rekeying hours.
Hours × rate per job, or hours only, so you see quoted vs actual hours and dollars on every job, every day.
The crew picks the job at check-in and GPS confirms they're on site, so hours land on the right job and cost code without admin recoding them in Xero.
Moving jobs is check out, check in. Each job gets its own hours, automatically.
Employees, ABN subbies and labour hire all count against the quote, so the budget shows your whole labour cost, not just payroll.
Hours and dollars burned against the quote, by job and labour type, updated with every check-in, so you move the crew, claim the variation or fix the job before the last progress claim.
The plan
Bring one live job's quote: hours, rate and cost centres.
Send the quote and your crew list (employee, ABN subbie or labour hire, with rates). We create the job, geofence and labour budget.
They get an SMS, register in under a minute and pick the job. That's all they do. You see quoted vs actual that week, updated with every check-in.
Employees
Costed at their pay rules. Payroll still goes to Xero or MYOB.
ABN subbies
Hourly subbies costed from their in-app invoice.
Labour hire
Costed at the agreed rate, on the same budget.
Your other tools
Runs alongside your estimating tool, AroFlo, SimPRO or Procore.
Worried you'll have to move everyone over before the budget means anything?
One check-in covers employees, subbies and labour hire, and payroll still goes to Xero or MYOB. We set it up, the office needs about two hours of training, and site is one button. Try it on 2–3 live jobs first. Your data is yours and exports to Excel any time.
We get it
Chasing a subbie for an invoice, rebuilding the week from a sign-in sheet, coding it all to jobs in Xero. Swift Checkin was built to show accurate labour cost against each project and cost code: several sites, several cost centres, and a crew that's never all on the same payroll.
That's how much of a job is labour, according to our customers.
Trade contractor, watching a live labour budget
In the last 3 months, with 60+ daily site users.
Payroll pushes to Xero or exports to MYOB. You keep the software you already use.
Before & after
What you have
A quote in an estimating tool or Excel, hours on paper, a timesheet app or WhatsApp, subbie invoices in email, and labour coded to Xero projects by hand
What you have
One live labour budget per job: quoted vs actual, by cost code, covering every labour type, fed by check-ins and approved subbie invoices
How it feels
Blindsided and guessing. "It's just in our head."
How it feels
In control. You know which jobs are tracking and which aren't, while there's still time to act
An average day
Admin keys hours in from photos, cross-checks invoices and allocates labour to jobs. The PM rings site to ask where things are. The owner finds the gap at the last invoice
An average day
The crew taps in and hours land on the job and cost code. 7:15am: "Job 214 has used 70% of its quoted hours." Admin approves instead of rekeying
Your status
The owner who hopes the job lands on budget
Your status
The contractor who knows the labour margin on every job, and quotes the next one with confidence
$18K
"It doesn't tell you your overall margin on the job until the very last progress claim." A budget run on a $55 pay rate instead of a $92.70 true cost is out by 69%. One extra hour on an 8-hour day is a 12.5% overrun on that job. And a subbie invoice that misses the cut-off is processed on the next pay run, so the budget is always behind.
No. One check-in covers employees, ABN subbies and labour hire, and payroll still goes to Xero or MYOB. It runs alongside your estimating tool, AroFlo, SimPRO or Procore.
The crew picks the job at check-in and GPS confirms they're on site. Moving jobs is check out, check in, so hours land on the right job and cost code without admin recoding them.
Yes. You budget on your true cost rate, entered once, so the budget reflects what a worker actually costs you, not just what you pay them.
Hourly ABN subbies are counted from their in-app invoice, AI-checked against their hours. Labour hire is counted at the agreed rate. Both sit in the same budget as your employees.
Approved variations are added to the job budget as change orders, so quoted vs actual stays accurate as the job changes.
We set it up for you. The office needs about two hours of training, and on site it's one button. Your crew gets an SMS and registers in under a minute.
Try it on 2–3 live jobs first. Your data is yours and exports to Excel any time.
Every job shows its labour spend against the quote, for every employee, subbie and labour hire worker, every day. Want proof first? Send us one live job's quote plus last month's timesheets and subbie invoices, and we'll show labour spent against the quote, by cost centre and labour type.
