Engineering firms need project and labor records by client, contract, and phase, and Everhour supports structured team time tracking.
Enter your time in and out for each day. Overtime and gross pay are calculated automatically.
| Day | Time In | Break Start | Break End | Break | Time Out | Total |
|---|
The calculator gives you the number — Everhour takes it from there.
One click and you're timing. Start a timer, add an entry, edit the details. This is exactly how it feels in Everhour.
Set a budget, assign rates, and get alerted before you're over.
Measurement
Track your budget through time or costs
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Tracked hours flow straight into a polished invoice — no copy-paste, no manual math.
Engineering firms land here because a weekly total is too thin. You need time entries that identify the person, client, contract, project, service phase, and whether the labor is direct, indirect, overhead, or non-billable. The same record often supports invoicing, project profitability, staffing, and payroll review, so vague notes labeled engineering work create cleanup before the invoice or cost report goes out.
For U.S. payroll, the FLSA sets the federal baseline. Covered employers must keep accurate records for nonexempt workers, and records for employees covered by FLSA minimum wage or overtime provisions must include hours worked each workday and total hours worked each workweek. The law does not require a specific app or form. The chosen method must be complete and accurate.
Start with fields that survive billing and audit questions: employee, date, workweek, client, contract type, project, phase or service line, task description, direct or indirect cost category, billable status, hours worked, approval status, and billing or labor rate when rates are part of the review. U.S. users normally record time-based billing, payroll, and rate fields in U.S. dollars.
An engineering line can read: Federal-aid highway project, preliminary engineering, design engineering, cost plus/time-and-materials contract, direct labor, billable, hours worked recorded for the workday, and manager-approved. Federal-aid engineering and design-related services under 23 CFR Part 172 include program management, construction management, feasibility studies, preliminary engineering, design engineering, surveying, mapping, and architectural services, so those categories make practical phase labels.
Direct labor and billable labor are separate decisions. FAR 31.202 requires direct costs of a contract to be charged directly to that contract, while costs tied to other final cost objectives belong to those objectives. FAR 31.203 treats indirect costs as remaining costs after direct costs are charged, accumulated in logical groupings with an allocation base common to the cost objectives that benefit.
AASHTO materials for architectural and engineering consulting firms point auditors toward Statements of Direct Labor, Fringe Benefits, and General Overhead and the accounting, job-costing, and labor-charging systems behind them. Those entries also feed utilization, commonly calculated as Billable Hours ÷ Working Hours Available × 100, so firms need a consistent line between billable, non-billable, direct, and indirect time.
A free, one-off time collection works for a small firm that needs a clean weekly recap, a corrected invoice detail, or a temporary project export. It is enough when one person reviews every entry, contracts are few, and hours only need grouping by client, project, phase, and workweek. Federal FLSA recordkeeping rules require employers to preserve payroll records for at least three years and basic time and earnings records for at least two years.
A managed workflow becomes necessary when engineers, project managers, and accounting need the same approved record. Everhour Team Management adds lock rules, admin time correction, personal tracking limits, weekly capacity, approval workflow, roles, project assignments, team groups, and team-wide policy defaults. That structure turns daily entries into approved records for billing, payroll review, utilization, and capacity planning.
This content is for general information only, may not be fully up to date, and is provided without any warranty or liability.
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Organize entries around the way costs and invoices get reviewed: employee, date, workweek, client, contract, project, phase or service line, direct or indirect category, billable status, and hours worked. Engineering firms with Federal-aid highway work often use service labels such as preliminary engineering, design engineering, surveying, mapping, construction management, or architectural services because 23 CFR Part 172 defines those categories.
Direct labor is a cost assignment; billable status is an invoice decision. FAR 31.202 says direct costs of a contract are charged directly to that contract. AASHTO's questionnaire separates contract types such as lump sum, cost plus/time-and-materials, cost plus fixed fee, and other, so firms should track both the cost category and the billable status.
One timesheet can support all three if it captures the right fields. Payroll review needs hours worked each workday and total hours worked each workweek for employees covered by FLSA minimum wage or overtime provisions. Utilization needs billable hours and available working hours. Project costing needs client, contract, project, phase, and direct or indirect cost category.
Separate phase labels connect the timesheet to the service being billed or reviewed. For Federal-aid highway work, 23 CFR Part 172 includes program management, construction management, feasibility studies, preliminary engineering, design engineering, surveying, mapping, and architectural services. Engineering and design-related services using Federal-aid highway program funds and leading directly to construction must comply with 23 U.S.C. 112 and 23 CFR Part 172, plus 2 CFR Part 200 for federally funded consultant services.
Under the federal baseline, covered nonexempt employees must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a fixed 168-hour workweek at not less than one and one-half times the regular rate. Hours may not be averaged across two or more workweeks for FLSA overtime purposes. State wage and overtime rules can add requirements.
Everhour Team Management lets admins lock editing after a period or after approval, correct time for team members, set daily, weekly, or monthly tracking limits, and route submitted time through manager approval. Roles, project assignments, and team groups keep engineering entries tied to the right reviewers and departments.
Everhour Reporting turns logged time, budgets, costs, and project data into configurable reports with columns for task, project, client, member, comments, billable time, labor costs, profit, invoice status, and budget metrics. Teams can filter, group, and export reports in CSV, Excel/XLSX, or PDF for review.
Everhour Team Management gives engineering firms locked periods, approval workflows, admin corrections, weekly capacity, roles, and project assignments so time entries become approved records for billing, payroll review, and staffing decisions.
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