Tracking Estimated vs. Actual Labor Hours for Crews

Learn how comparing estimated vs. actual labor hours can uncover hidden inefficiencies, improve job costing accuracy, and boost profitability in your landscaping business.

Labor is the single largest cost in most landscaping jobs. Yet, many businesses treat labor tracking as a rough estimate - or worse, an afterthought. The truth is that tracking the difference between what you planned and what actually happened is one of the most powerful levers for increasing margins, boosting crew efficiency, and delivering better results to clients.

Whether you’re just getting started or already using software like LMN, Aspire, or Jobber, this blog will walk you through how to master the process of tracking labor hours and using that data to drive real operational improvements.

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Why Labor Hour Tracking Matters

Most landscaping businesses have felt the sting of underestimating labor. You quote a job thinking it’ll take 20 crew hours, only to find out it took 30. Multiply that across several projects, and your margin disappears quickly. And it’s not just about losing money. Inaccurate labor tracking can create ripple effects that impact scheduling, customer satisfaction, and even crew morale.

The financial impact of inaccurate labor estimates

Labor is one of the few costs in landscaping that can fluctuate wildly from job to job. Materials may be fixed, but labor is highly variable and prone to hidden losses. A 15% overrun on a $5,000 job with thin margins could be the difference between breaking even and losing money. Scale that across 10–20 jobs a month, and you're suddenly thousands of dollars off target without a clear understanding of why.

The real danger is how easily it slips under the radar. If no one is tracking actual hours at the task level, it's easy to chalk overruns up to “just how it goes.” But that mindset can quietly erode your profitability, season after season.

Real-world scenario: You estimate 6 hours for sod installation. The crew logs 9. No notes, no explanation—just a bigger labor bill. And without job costing in place, this will happen again.

Now consider the bigger picture: a 3-person crew typically generates around $400 in revenue per hour. If you lose 15 hours a month to untracked overages, that’s $6,000 in lost revenue. Over 9 months, that’s $54,000 from just one crew. Multiply that across 5 crews, and you’re looking at a $250,000 revenue gap, all from problems you can’t see without the right system in place.

How tracking labor helps with better planning and accountability

When you consistently track estimated vs. actual labor hours, you create a closed-loop system where every job generates feedback to inform the next. This improves:

• Job costing accuracy for future bids
• Scheduling reliability (because you know what’s realistic)
• Crew performance insights (you see who’s on track and who needs support)

This is about identifying patterns and helping teams succeed. It also gives operations managers and estimators a way to test their assumptions. Were the original time estimates too aggressive? Did weather or staging impact performance? Labor tracking gives you the visibility to answer those questions and adapt accordingly.

Lean Tip: Use technology to ensure every crew member knows—in real time—what’s expected and how much labor is left the moment they step on site. When everyone has that visibility, it transforms how work is planned, executed, and held accountable.

Why crews need visibility into their performance

Your field crew is one of your biggest assets, but only if they’re engaged and informed. When they don’t know how long something should take or how their actual performance compares to expectations, they’re flying blind. Labor tracking:

• Creates clarity: Everyone knows what success looks like.
• Boosts morale: Teams are more motivated when they meet or beat targets.
• Builds ownership: Crews become part of the solution, not just the labor force.

And when something doesn’t go as planned, tracking helps shift the conversation from “Why are you behind?” to “What slowed you down, and how can we fix it together?”

Example: A crew lead notices they’re always over time on spring cleanups. They review notes and realize they’re spending 45 minutes blowing off hardscapes because the equipment isn’t staged. A quick change—keeping blowers on the truck instead of in the trailer—saves 3–4 hours a week across multiple crews.

What Are Estimated vs. Actual Labor Hours?

Before you can optimize labor performance, you need to understand what you’re comparing. The concept is straightforward, but its implications touch nearly every part of your business, from bidding to scheduling to crew development.

Estimated hours

Estimated labor hours are the time projections you assign to specific tasks before the job begins. These numbers set the baseline for productivity expectations, crew planning, and ultimately, your profitability. Solid estimates don’t come from guesswork — they’re built from a blend of:

• Crew input and field feedback – The foundation of everything. Without it, you can’t build reliable historical data or sharpen estimator intuition.
• Historical job data – Only as accurate as the crew feedback it’s built on.
• Estimator experience – Strengthened by real insights from the field, not guesses.

• Job-specific considerations like site access, client requests, or seasonal conditions

Here’s how estimates might look on a residential install:

• Edging a 150-ft flower bed: 3 hours
• Installing 400 sq. ft. of sod: 5 hours
• Planting 3 large trees: 6 hours
• Cleanup and walk-through: 1 hour

These estimates are commitments to your clients, baked into your pricing and timeline. That’s why they need to be shared clearly with your crews in job packets, on tablets, or even on whiteboards inside the truck.

Lean Tip: Keep your time buffers tight. A 5–10% buffer is usually enough to cover minor delays. Adding too much padding dilutes accountability and makes it harder to spot real inefficiencies.

Estimating software like LMN, Aspire, or Jobber can help you standardize time expectations across your jobs by building out templates for common tasks and services. This consistency is key — it removes the variability of “gut feel” and replaces it with data-backed projections.

Actual hours

Actual labor hours are what your team logs on-site as they complete the work. This is the real measure of how long tasks really take, accounting for field conditions, weather, crew efficiency, and more. Tools like LMN Crew, ClockShark, or QuickBooks Time allow crews to clock in and out of tasks directly from their phones, making it easy to track tasks in real time.

To get the most value out of actual hours:

• Track by task, not just the total job duration.
• Capture data daily, ideally with notes from the Crew Managers
• Tag time entries to specific crews and jobs for performance benchmarking.
• Use photos and notes to explain delays or issues when needed.

Lean Tip: Use mobile time-tracking apps with GPS and Work Areas to eliminate manual entry errors and ensure consistency. Automation means less admin and more accuracy.

Here’s a side-by-side example of how actual hours can reveal valuable insight:

That extra 2 hours on mulching may not sound like much, but multiply that by 3 crews across 5 jobs that week, and you’ve just burned 30 labor hours. Without actuals, you’d never know where the time went.

How this data informs scheduling, pricing, and forecasting

Once you’ve got consistent estimated vs. actual data rolling in, your operations shift from reactive to proactive. Patterns begin to emerge, and you can start answering questions like:

• Which crews consistently hit or miss their targets?
• Are certain tasks underquoted across the board?
• Where are delays happening, and what’s causing them?
• What jobs need better staging, equipment, or prep?

Over time, this transforms into a “truth database” you can rely on — one that powers:

• More accurate job quotes based on real labor performance
• Smarter scheduling that reflects true crew capacity
• Ongoing process improvement, task by task, crew by crew
• Stronger customer relationships, with clearer expectations and fewer surprises

Pro Tip: Create a monthly dashboard that shows your top five time-wasting tasks and their average overruns. Share it with your team and use it to spark discussion during crew huddles.

No more guessing. No more inflated quotes or eroded margins. Just smarter, faster, data-driven decisions that make your business more efficient and profitable.

Benefits of Comparing Estimated and Actual Labor Hours

Unlock performance and profit improvements by analyzing these metrics.

Tracking labor hours uncovers insights that make your entire operation more efficient. When you routinely compare estimated vs. actual labor hours, you start to see where time, money, and energy are being lost — or where your team is overdelivering.

Spot operational bottlenecks and scheduling gaps

When the same tasks consistently run over the estimated time, it’s a red flag. Maybe your crews are spending too much time staging materials, or equipment isn’t where it needs to be. These insights give you the chance to fix inefficiencies in real time, rather than guessing after the season ends.

Example: If turf installations are always taking 25% longer than expected, you may need to revisit your staging process or adjust for access issues on-site.

Identify top-performing crews and repeatable workflows

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Comparing estimates to actuals helps you identify which crews are routinely meeting or beating time targets and learn what they’re doing differently. Maybe it’s how they break up tasks, how they communicate, or how they prep materials. Use those insights to create repeatable best practices across your business.

Improve the accuracy of future bids and proposals

Bidding is part science, part art, but historical labor data makes it more accurate. When you know exactly how long tasks have taken in the past, your estimates become sharper and more competitive. You’ll win more jobs without underpricing your time, and avoid the common trap of razor-thin margins.

Pro Tip: Adjust your estimating templates quarterly based on actual performance trends. Even small changes (e.g., 0.5 hours per task) can protect thousands in margin throughout a season.

Increase transparency and trust with clients

If a client questions why a job took longer than expected, you can back it up with data. Photos, timestamps, and foreman notes show that you're managing the job professionally. This not only strengthens trust, it gives you the confidence to stand by your work and pricing.

Client-facing example: “Our estimate for this was 8 crew hours. We logged 9.2 because access was limited, and it added material handling time. Here’s what we documented.”

You don’t need to start from scratch. We’ve built a practical, step-by-step system to help you implement estimated vs. actual labor tracking in your own business, without adding overhead or complexity.

👉 Download the Tracking Estimated vs. Actual Labor Hours SOP

This resource walks you through the LeanScaper Method with templates, tips, and checklists you can use right away.

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How to Track Labor Hours with LMN

You don’t need spreadsheets or paper timesheets to manage this process. With platforms like LMN, tracking and analyzing labor data is built right in. Here’s how to set it up effectively:

Import job estimates directly into timesheets

Start by pulling estimates from proposals into your job costing module. Each job should include task-based time estimates, not just total job hours. This allows for precise comparison later.

Example: For a 3-day job, break it down into mulching (6 hours), planting (5 hours), cleanup (2 hours), etc.

Set up Work Areas for precise tracking

Every task should have a unique code that matches your estimating system. This helps ensure that crews are logging time against the correct activities, not just lumping it into “general labor.” Work Areas should be easy for crews to select on mobile.

Pro Tip: Keep the task list short and intuitive. Too many codes can overwhelm your team and lead to inaccurate tracking.

Use real-time crew timesheet inputs via mobile

Your crews can use LMN Crew to clock in and out of specific tasks on-site. This creates real-time visibility for office staff while giving the Crew Managers a sense of accountability. Midday check-ins by supervisors can help ensure estimates are still on track.

Lean Tip: Encourage crews to add brief notes or photos if anything delays progress, like weather, equipment failure, or site conditions.

Generate reports that show where you’re over or under

At the end of the week, generate labor variance reports to compare actual vs. estimated hours by job, task, and crew. Use color coding to quickly spot problem areas and begin investigating root causes.

Key Metrics to Track Weekly:

• Percentage of jobs delivered on time
• Top three tasks that exceeded labor estimates
• Average labor variance by crew

Best Practices for Analyzing the Data

Collecting labor data is only the first step. The real value comes from analyzing trends and applying what you learn. Each variance, whether positive or negative, is an opportunity to ask better questions, make smarter decisions, and drive continuous improvement across your business.

Review weekly variance reports

Make this a routine. Every week, generate labor variance reports from your software to compare estimated vs. actual hours across tasks, jobs, and crews. Flag any major overages and recurring issues.

Look for patterns, not just outliers. One-off issues happen, but if “planting” is consistently taking 30% longer than estimated across multiple jobs, you’ve found a process problem.

Meet with crews to understand why overages happen

Don’t make assumptions. Meet briefly with the Crew Managers or crew leads to get the story behind the numbers. Maybe the soil was rocky. Maybe access was limited. Maybe the instructions weren’t clear. These conversations provide the context behind the data.

Pro Tip: Use the "Five Whys" technique. Keep asking “why” until you find the true root cause. For example:

• Why did mulching take 2 extra hours? Because we had to move the mulch pile twice.
• Why did that happen? Because it was staged in the wrong area.
• Why was it staged there? Because the foreman didn’t have a site map.
• Solution: Add a site map to the job packet.

Re-estimate recurring jobs based on past actuals

Recurring maintenance jobs are goldmines for process improvement. Use your data to fine-tune these estimates over time. Small tweaks in weekly maintenance job estimates can add up to massive time savings over a full season.

Example: If your spring cleanups are regularly taking 1.5 hours longer than estimated, update your seasonal proposal templates accordingly. Better to win with accuracy than lose with underbidding.

Align labor budgets with realistic field conditions

Sometimes, the issue isn’t the crew, it’s the conditions. Tracking labor against weather delays, access issues, or staging challenges helps you adjust your labor budgets to reflect reality. This leads to more achievable goals, less frustration in the field, and better job costing overall.

What to Do When You Spot a Gap

The true power of labor tracking is realized when it drives real operational change. If you’re consistently seeing gaps between estimated vs. actual labor hours, that’s your cue to step in and optimize.

Adjust future estimates based on actuals

Use your data to tighten up estimates — whether that means increasing time for a specific task or removing excess padding that’s no longer needed. This keeps your quotes competitive and your profits intact.

Pro Tip: For maintenance companies, build a weekly or bi-weekly “estimate audit” into your workflow. Regularly review key services like mulching, plant installs, or seasonal cleanups, and adjust your templates based on actual field performance. The more frequent the review, the more accurate your estimates become.

Reallocate crews or shift schedules to reduce overages

If one crew consistently finishes faster, while another struggles, redistribute the workload. You might need to mix skill levels across teams or adjust job start times to account for traffic, staging, or daylight availability.

Lean Tip: Use performance data to assign jobs. This helps balance productivity across the board.

Retrain teams on underperforming tasks

If a specific task (e.g., bed edging or tree planting) is dragging down performance, it might be time for a refresher. A quick field demo or standardized process document can eliminate hours of wasted time across dozens of jobs.

Example: Instead of using laminated task cards for jobs like edging, use Greenius to standardize training. Upload the right tools, expected time, and step-by-step process into the platform so crews can access it anytime. It’s a modern, scalable way to keep everyone aligned in the field.

Communicate findings to clients when needed

When overages are due to scope changes or unforeseen conditions, use your data to explain it clearly to clients. This builds trust and positions you as a professional who’s managing time and budget responsibly.

👉 Download the Tracking Estimated vs. Actual Labor Hours SOP

A free, step-by-step framework to help you analyze labor data, adjust estimates, and improve task execution without overhauling your workflow.

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Tangible Results

When you build labor tracking into your workflows, the impact is tangible. You're not just collecting data, you’re using it to run a smarter, leaner, more profitable landscaping business.

Reduced job site surprises

Mid-job chaos becomes rare when everyone knows the time expectations and is tracking progress throughout the day. Crews work with more focus, the Crew Managers can catch issues early, and office staff stay informed in real time.

Healthier profit margins

Over time, tighter estimates, better scheduling, and reduced labor waste directly increase your bottom line. You’ll be more confident in your bids and less likely to lose money due to underestimating how long tasks take.

Increased crew accountability

When crews understand what’s expected — and see the results of their performance — they rise to the occasion. Labor tracking creates ownership at every level, from crew members to managers, without adding micromanagement.

More accurate and competitive quotes

Data-backed quoting gives you a major advantage. You’ll win jobs more confidently and price your services in a way that’s both competitive and sustainable. That’s how real growth happens.

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• Tools to audit your labor tracking process
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Why is labor the most important cost to track in landscaping?

Labor often accounts for more than 50% of your job costs. Unlike materials, it's variable and can spiral quickly if not tracked closely. Understanding where your time goes helps you control costs and increase profitability.

2. How can software like LMN help streamline labor hour tracking?

LMN allows you to import estimates, assign Work Areas, track hours in real-time with mobile apps, and generate variance reports. It connects estimating, scheduling, time tracking, and reporting into one system, removing guesswork and reducing overhead.

3. How often should I review my labor reports?

At a minimum, review reports weekly. This cadence keeps issues from snowballing and allows you to make fast, incremental improvements. For larger crews or high-volume companies, a midweek pulse check is also recommended.