Construction Crew Payroll From Site Attendance

Construction payroll usually goes wrong somewhere between the site register and the payslip. How to pay crews from recorded attendance and handle overtime and advances properly.

Published 9 March 2026 ยท 3 min read

Three things cause most construction payroll problems: registers that do not match what happened on site, overtime agreed verbally, and cash advances that get forgotten. Any of them can turn payday into an argument, and an argument on site costs more than a payroll error.

This article is about paying salaried and monthly crews from recorded attendance. Daily-wage labour paid in cash at the end of each day or week works differently and is covered briefly at the end.

Start from attendance that holds up

Payroll is only as good as the attendance behind it. For each worker you need days present, hours worked, overtime, leave and absence. Construction site attendance tracking covers how to get that right.

The monthly run

  1. Close the month's attendance. Sort out missed clock-outs and disputed days before you calculate anything.
  2. Turn attendance into pay inputs: working days, days worked, absences, unpaid leave and overtime hours. Review and approve these as a separate step.
  3. Calculate base pay, site and travel allowances, and overtime at your agreed rate.
  4. Deduct unpaid leave, advance instalments and any agreed deductions.
  5. Review every line, and add one-off bonuses or corrections with a note.
  6. Approve, lock and issue payslips.
  7. Record the payment.

Overtime

Most construction pay disputes start with overtime. Decide and write down:

  • when overtime starts (after the standard day, or only on weekends and holidays);
  • the rate;
  • who has to approve it.

Then pay it from recorded hours, not from what a foreman remembers.

Advances

Advances are common on construction sites, and it is easy to lose track of them. Record each advance when it is given, agree the instalments, deduct them through payroll and let the worker see what is still owed. See expenses, reimbursements and advances.

Payslips

Give workers a payslip they can open on their phone, showing days worked, overtime, deductions and advance repayments line by line. That prevents more disputes than any policy, because workers who can check their own figures argue far less.

Daily and weekly wage labour

A lot of construction labour is paid by the day, in cash, often through a labour contractor. Recorded attendance still helps here, since it gives you a headcount to check against the contractor's bill. The pay run itself, though, usually happens outside a monthly payroll system.

In Movtro

Movtro's HR module runs monthly payroll from attendance recorded in the app. Each worker's days worked, overtime and absences become the period's pay inputs, and HR reviews and approves them before they affect pay. The run adds base salary, recurring allowances and deductions, overtime at your multiplier, unpaid leave deductions, advance instalments and a tax deduction line, and every line is visible. Locking the period issues payslips, which workers open in the app and can download as a PDF.

Movtro employee Compensation tab on a phone with a bricklayer's monthly pay, field and mobile allowances and the tax deduction.

Limits: payroll runs monthly only, so there are no daily or weekly wage runs. Movtro does not calculate statutory tax or send bank payments, and each worker needs their own phone to clock in.

Payroll, payslips, advances and expense claims come with the Operations + People plan.

See payroll for field staff, or start free.

Related: Construction Workforce Management