No app to install. Any phone that can text. Built in Nova Scotia for a 15-person crew. From $29 a month.
Example company and crew. Type your own texts to see the replies.
Timesheets come back folded, wet, or not at all. Someone's always "pretty sure" it was 9 hours.
Hours arrive in five different formats, mixed in with photos and "running late." You scroll back on Sunday to find them.
Adding up lunches, overtime and half-days by hand, then typing it all into payroll. Every two weeks.
Type them in, upload a list, or text add Joe Smith 902 555 0100 from your phone. Each one gets a welcome text and saves your number as a contact.
in 7 in the morning and out 4:30 at night, or the whole day in one text. Every text gets a one-line reply so they know it counted.
Missing out times and odd texts are flagged in a morning email. Approve the pay period, then run payroll from the report or the export file.
Each pay period: a report in the same order as QuickBooks' Run payroll screen, and a file set up the way your payroll app imports it. You keep running payroll the way you do now.
| Crew (example) | Regular | Overtime | Days off |
|---|---|---|---|
| D. Mason | 80.00 | 4.50 | — |
| R. Boutilier | 76.50 | 0.00 | 1 sick |
| K. LeBlanc | 80.00 | 7.25 | — |
| T. Fraser | 64.00 | 0.00 | 2 vacation |
| Total | 300.50 | 11.75 |
EmpID,Name,REG,OT,SICK 104,D. Mason,80.00,4.50,0 117,R. Boutilier,76.50,0.00,8
Export file in your payroll's own layout: your columns, your pay codes, your employee numbers.
I'm Jim Jardine. A local crew of 15 was adding up hours from paper slips and text messages every payday. I built them a way to text their hours instead, and it has run their payroll hours ever since.
This is that same idea, made for any crew in Atlantic Canada. No app for your crew to learn, no tracking where they are, and a person you can actually call.
+ $5 a month for each extra active person. Off for the season? Switch them off and stop paying for them.
Prices in Canadian dollars, plus applicable taxes.
Side by side with QuickBooks Time and ClockShark, two of the best-known apps for tracking crew hours.
| Compare | CrewText | QuickBooks Time | ClockShark |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crew need an app | No, they text | Yes | Yes |
| Works on a flip phone | Yes | No | No |
| Tracks where your crew are (GPS) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Needs a QuickBooks Online subscription | No | Yes | No |
| Monthly price for 5 people | $29 CAD | about $70 US | about $85 US |
| Built in Atlantic Canada | Yes | No | No |
Competitor prices from their published pricing, 2026; check their sites for current offers.
No. Any phone that can send a text works, flip phones included. If they want to see their hours, there's a web page they can save to their home screen.
They can add a past day any time, like fri in 7 out 4, up to 31 days back. Missing out times show up in your morning email.
You get a report in the same order as QuickBooks' Run payroll screen, and an export file built to the layout your payroll app imports. We don't run payroll or pay your staff; you keep doing that the way you do now.
You do, in settings: daily and weekly overtime, lunch, rounding, stat holidays. Each setting links to your province's employment standards page.
Only for the people who are active. Switch someone off when they're laid off for the season and back on in spring. 6 people in winter is $34 a month.
Your hours belong to you, and you can export everything at any time. It's stored in Canada.
Any time, from your billing page. Service runs to the end of the month you've paid for, and you have 30 days after that to download your records.