Payroll Leakage: The Hidden Cost Killing Your Margins

Payroll leakage — the gap between what construction firms should pay and what they actually pay — is one of the most overlooked margin killers in the industry. It encompasses everything from buddy punching and inaccurate timesheets to rounding errors and manual data entry mistakes.

In this webinar, a panel of construction finance leaders shared their experiences moving from paper-based timekeeping to digital workforce management. The consensus was striking: most organisations discovered payroll leakage of between 5% and 15% once they had accurate, digital time records to compare against their previous paper-based systems.

The discussion covered practical implementation strategies, including how to manage the change management challenges of introducing digital timekeeping on active construction sites. Panellists emphasised the importance of involving site supervisors early and demonstrating the technology's simplicity before mandating adoption.

One recurring theme was the downstream impact on project cost reporting. With accurate time data, firms were able to produce far more reliable cost-to-complete forecasts, improving their ability to spot margin erosion early and take corrective action before projects entered loss-making territory.