Field team management software for the trades

Our picks by business type

What to look for

• GPS verification tied to the time clock, so hours logged match where the employee actually was, not just when they tapped a button.

• Digital checklists with photo and signature capture, which replaces paper forms crews lose or forget to turn in.

• Fleet or vehicle tracking if your crew drives between jobs, so a dispatcher can see where every truck is from one dashboard.

• Spend controls on what a driver can buy with a fleet card, so fuel, parts, and other field purchases stay within limits set by driver or vehicle.

• Payroll-ready reporting, so hours tracked in the field or office translate directly into a payroll run without manual re-entry.

FieldPulse

FieldPulse's fleet tracking lets a manager "monitor your fleet from one dashboard," while digital work order cards show job status, assigned technicians, and scheduled times in one place.

Its scheduling and routing tools use map-based assignment to "get the right people to the right jobs quickly," and custom forms let a crew "stop hunting for paperwork" by completing required documentation digitally in the field.

Custom workflows also let a business configure its own job-status sequence rather than using a fixed process.

Connecteam

Connecteam's time clock combines "one-tap clock-ins, location verification, and automatic clock-outs" specifically to prevent time theft.

Its task management lets employees "complete tasks and digital forms from their phones, with photos and signatures," and AI-powered scheduling can generate a ready-to-use schedule from a set of requirements.

Connecteam also offers a free plan for small teams under a set employee count with full feature access, which covers time tracking, scheduling, and team chat without a paid subscription.

Coast

Coast is not a time clock or scheduling tool; it is a fuel and expense card built for field teams, and it works alongside whichever of the tools above a crew already uses for hours and dispatch. Spend controls let a manager set purchasing limits by merchant category, location, time, or individual driver, with "real-time transaction blocking using GPS data" pulled from connected telematics providers.

A driver collects "receipts and job codes in seconds, directly from their phone," which routes fuel and field purchases into per-vehicle and per-driver reports instead of a stack of paper receipts.

On the card side, Coast can "set custom policies for your drivers and vehicles, like allowing purchases only at approved merchants, blocking specific stations or brands, or flagging fuel purchases that exceed a vehicle's tank capacity," and cards can be swapped between people or vehicles in seconds if one goes missing.

Time Doctor

Time Doctor supports both automatic and manual time tracking, plus offline tracking for capturing hours without an internet connection, and an attendance feature that automatically captures missing hours.

Its activity summary gives a daily breakdown of time spent across tasks and tools, while real-time dashboards offer live visibility into hours and productivity, and screenshots or screen recording can add optional visual verification.

On the workforce side, it generates payroll-ready reports and supports work scheduling, and it lists integrations with tools like Slack, Jira, and Asana.

Buildertrend

Buildertrend is built to manage larger, multi-week projects with scheduling, budgeting, change orders, and a customer portal, which suits roofing and landscaping jobs that run longer than a single-day service call. It sits alongside a field service app rather than replacing it, and is typically used together with, not instead of, an accounting platform.

Free options

Connecteam offers a genuine free plan for small teams under a set employee count, with full access to its time clock, GPS tracking, scheduling, and team chat features.

FieldPulse, Coast, Time Doctor, and Buildertrend are paid subscriptions; current pricing for each appears in the table on this page.

Related reading

• Compare two popular field-management platforms directly: Connecteam vs FieldPulse
• Full tool profiles and alternatives: /tools/connecteam/alternatives, /tools/buildertrend/alternatives
• New to the category? Read what field service management software is
• Pair field team tracking with scheduling and dispatch software and payroll software to turn hours into paychecks