Travel time FAQs
What employers ask about recording and paying travel between jobs. If yours is not here, call the Leeds team on 0113 350 9043.
Does travel between jobs count as working time?▼
For workers with no fixed workplace, travel between assignments during the working day generally does count, and it counts towards minimum wage pay. Ordinary commuting from home to a fixed place of work generally does not. Where it gets less obvious is the first and last journey of the day for mobile workers, which has been the subject of case law and is worth getting advice on for your own arrangements. The
gov.uk guidance on minimum wage is the starting point.
How do you track engineer travel time versus on-site time?▼
The engineer clocks out when they leave one job and in when they arrive at the next, so the gap between the two is recorded as travel rather than being lost or absorbed into the following job. At the end of the day you have two separate figures: time on site and time getting there. That distinction is what most paper timesheets lose, because people write down the hours they worked and round the driving away.
Does it record mileage as well as time?▼
It records time, which is what determines pay. Mileage for expenses is a separate calculation and most businesses handle it through their expenses process or an accounting package. If mileage reimbursement is your main problem, a dedicated mileage app will serve you better than we will, and we would rather say so.
Can travel be paid at a different rate from working time?▼
Because travel is recorded separately, it can be treated separately when the hours reach payroll, so if your contracts pay travel at a different rate the figures arrive already split rather than needing unpicking. Whatever rate you use, the total still has to average out at or above minimum wage across the pay period, which is the point at which unpaid or underpaid travel usually causes a problem.
What if someone forgets to clock at a job?▼
It shows as an exception for a manager to sort out, with the correction recorded and visible to the employee. That is better than a paper timesheet, where a missed entry usually gets filled in from memory a week later and nobody knows it happened. The realistic aim is not perfect clocking, it is knowing which records need a second look.
Does it work in areas with no signal?▼
Yes. Clockings are held on the phone and upload when signal returns, which matters more for travel than for anything else, since the places people drive between are often the places with no coverage. Nothing is lost and the employee does not have to do anything about it.
Is this tracking where staff drive?▼
No.
GPS is recorded at the moment of clocking and nowhere in between, so the app knows where a journey started and ended but not the route or anything about it. If you want vehicle tracking that follows a van through the day, that is a different product from a different supplier, and it carries obligations under UK GDPR that this does not.
What does it cost?▼
Travel time recording is part of the
Syncro Connect app rather than an extra, so it comes with the £3 per employee per month excl. VAT that covers the software and the app together. No separate subscription and no per-device charge.