Why Time Tracking Matters for Repair Shops

Most repair shops price repairs at a flat rate — a Samsung screen replacement is ৳3,500 regardless of whether it takes 20 minutes or 45 minutes. This is the most common and customer-friendly approach.

But knowing the actual time spent per job is still valuable:

Labor billing for variable jobs: Custom repairs, water damage, complex motherboard work — these are billed by time, not flat rate. Accurate time records mean accurate billing.

Pricing calibration: If a job you price at ৳2,000 consistently takes 45 minutes but you assumed 20, you're underpriced. Time data tells you this.

Commission calculation: If technicians earn commission per job or per hour, time records are the input.

Productivity insights: Which technician completes standard jobs faster? Who consistently takes longer? Is one bench configuration more efficient than another?

Enabling the Job Timer

Go to Settings → Features and enable the Job Timer feature. Once enabled, a timer control appears on each ticket.

How Technicians Use the Timer

Starting a job: Open the ticket. Click "Start Job". The timer begins running, visible on the ticket. Taking a break: Click "Break In" when the technician steps away. The timer pauses. Click "Break Out" when they return. The system separately tracks active work time vs. break time. Completing the job: Click "End Job" when the repair is finished. The session is recorded: start time, end time, break duration, active work time.

All timer sessions are stored in the ticket's Timer tab. If a job spans multiple sessions (a repair started today, continued tomorrow), each session is logged separately and the total is accumulated.

Reading the Timer Report

In the ticket's Timer tab, you see:

Each timer session with start and end times

Break time logged separately

Total active work time for the ticket

In the technician performance report:

Total hours worked per technician per day/week/month (from timer data)

Jobs completed per hour (efficiency metric)

Average time per repair type

This report shows you which technician has the best throughput on standard repairs and which jobs are consistently taking longer than your pricing assumes.

Using Timer Data for Accurate Labor Billing

For jobs where you bill labor by the hour:

1. Technician runs the job timer throughout the repair 2. When generating the invoice, click "Import from Timer" — the logged hours auto-fill the labor line item 3. Review and confirm — the hours are exact, not estimated

For flat-rate jobs, the timer still runs — the data goes into your performance analytics even though it doesn't affect the invoice amount.

Setting Up Labor Rates

In Settings → Services, configure your hourly labor rate. When the timer data is imported to an invoice, it multiplies hours × rate to calculate the labor charge.

Different service types can have different labor rates — complex motherboard repair has a higher hourly rate than basic screen replacement, for example.

The Insight You Get After 30 Days of Timer Data

After a month of consistent timer use, you'll know:

Your actual average time per repair type

Whether your flat-rate pricing adequately covers your labor cost

Which technician needs more training to reach standard efficiency

Which repair types are consistently underpriced

This is the kind of data that transforms a repair shop from guessing at profitability to knowing it.

How to Set Up and Use RepairCoreX's Job Timer Feature