People & HR

How to track pto and time off as Local Service Business Founders

People & HRFor Local Service Business Founders3 apps11 steps~22 min to set up

You've got a crew of eight plumbers and two HVAC techs, and PTO tracking lives in a whiteboard in the shop, a notes app on your phone, and your memory. Someone calls in sick on a Thursday and you're texting your foreman trying to figure out if it's a real sick day or a vacation day they forgot to log. Paylocity or ADP handles payroll deductions when you remember to enter the time off — but half the time you find out about a missed entry during payroll week. There's no calendar view showing you which jobs are at risk because two techs asked off the same Friday in July. You're the HR department, and it's eating into your dispatch time.

Build this on Starch → See the apps used

People & HRFor Local Service Business Founders3 apps11 steps~22 min to set up

Outcome

What you'll set up

A shared PTO log that your field staff can update without calling you — pulls from your payroll system and shows balances, upcoming time off, and who's out each week

An alert that fires to you (and your foreman) whenever two or more techs on the same trade request the same day off, so you're never caught short on a job

A simple booking flow so techs can request time off directly and you approve or deny from your phone, with no spreadsheets or whiteboards involved

The Starch recipe

Apps, data, and prompts

The combination of Starch apps, the data sources they pull from, and the prompts you use to drive them.

Apps used

Knowledge Management Scheduling Task Manager

Data sources & config

Starch syncs your Paylocity data on a schedule — employee records, balances, pay periods, and approved time off feed directly into the tracker. For teams on ADP, Starch syncs that instead. Google Calendar connects via scheduled sync so the weekly who's-out view overlays your job calendar. Jobber and Housecall Pro are automated through your browser — no API needed — so Starch can cross-reference scheduled jobs against planned absences.

Prompts to copy

Build me a PTO tracker for my 10-person field crew. Pull employee names, balances, and approved time off from Paylocity. Show me a weekly calendar view of who's out so I can spot scheduling conflicts before they blow up a job.

Set up a time-off request form my techs can fill out from their phone. When someone submits a request, check Paylocity for their remaining balance and flag it if two people on the same trade are already off that week. Send me a task to approve or deny it.

Create a company policy doc in our team wiki for PTO rules — accrual rate, blackout dates (summer and holidays), how far in advance requests need to come in, and what counts as a sick day versus a vacation day.

Run these in Starch → or paste them into your favorite agent

Walkthrough

Step-by-step

1 Connect Paylocity (or ADP) — Starch syncs your employee roster, PTO balances, and approved time-off records on a schedule so the data is always current without you manually exporting anything.

2 Connect Google Calendar via scheduled sync so Starch can see your crew's scheduled jobs alongside who's off — a tech requesting Friday off when three jobs are booked that day gets flagged automatically.

3 Tell Starch: 'Build me a PTO tracker for my field crew showing each tech's name, trade (plumbing/HVAC/electrical), remaining balance, and any upcoming approved days off this month.' Starch builds the app.

4 Add your conflict rules: 'Alert me by SMS or task if two or more techs in the same trade request the same day off.' Starch wires up the automation so you catch it before you approve it, not after.

5 Set up the request flow: 'Create a time-off request form my techs can submit from their phone with their name, dates, and type (vacation or sick). Route it to me as a task with their current balance shown.' No email chain required.

6 Open Knowledge Management and create your PTO policy doc — accrual rate per pay period, summer and holiday blackout windows, advance notice required (14 days for vacation, same day for sick), and how to submit. Link to it from your onboarding materials so new hires find it themselves instead of asking you.

7 Set up a Monday morning automation: 'Every Monday at 7am, pull this week's approved time off from Paylocity and any Jobber jobs scheduled for those days, and send me a text summary of any days where we're thin on coverage.' You see the risk before dispatch, not during it.

8 Use the Scheduling app to let office staff or the foreman book a quick 10-minute approval call for edge-case requests — if someone's asking for two weeks off in August, you want a real conversation, not just a form.

9 Add a quarterly task to yourself via Task Manager: 'Review PTO balances in October and remind anyone with more than 40 hours unused — we don't carry over.' Starch flags it so you're not manually auditing a spreadsheet at year-end.

10 Run Starch's browser automation against your Jobber or Housecall Pro account to pull the weekly job schedule and overlay it with the PTO calendar — so you can see at a glance if Tuesday's big commercial job has full crew coverage or if you need to pull someone in.

11 Share the live PTO calendar view link with your foreman so they can self-serve the 'who's out this week' question instead of texting you at 6am.

See this running on Starch

Connect your tools, describe what you want, and the agent builds it. Closed beta is free.

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Worked example

July 4th Week 2026 — Coverage Crunch Caught Early

Sample numbers from a real run

Plumbing techs requesting July 3 off	3
Plumbing jobs scheduled July 3	4
Available plumbing techs after approvals	2
Estimated revenue at risk (2 jobs uncrewed)	3,800
Hours of owner time to resolve (vs. prior year)	0.5

In 2025, you found out on July 2nd that three of your five plumbers had approved time off on July 3rd because you'd approved each request separately over the previous six weeks without a conflict view. Two commercial jobs nearly got rescheduled; one customer complained. In 2026, Starch's Monday alert on June 22nd flagged it: 'Three plumbing techs (Mike, Danny, Rosario) are approved off July 3. You have four plumbing jobs that day — Rivera HVAC retrofit, Kowalski drain replacement, two others. Recommended: deny one request or pull a tech from the HVAC crew.' You denied Danny's request (his balance was lowest, 12 hours remaining), texted him the reason, and dispatched normally. The whole thing took 30 minutes instead of a last-minute scramble the day before a holiday.

Measurement

How you'll know it's working

Days with fewer than 2 available techs per trade per week (coverage risk days)

PTO balance carryover at year-end per employee (helps catch anyone hoarding time you'll owe out)

Average time from PTO request submitted to approved or denied (you want this under 48 hours)

Percentage of field days where a job had to be rescheduled due to unplanned absence

Number of payroll corrections per quarter caused by time-off entries missed before cutoff

Comparison

What this replaces

The other ways teams handle this today, and how the Starch version compares.

Whiteboard + phone texts

Zero cost but zero visibility — you only know who's off when someone tells you, and conflicts show up the morning of a job, not a week before.

Paylocity or ADP time-off module (native)

Handles approvals and balance tracking inside payroll, but gives you no cross-reference against your job schedule, no conflict alerts, and no mobile-friendly request flow your techs will actually use.

Google Sheets with a shared tab

Easy to set up, free, but someone has to manually update it, it doesn't talk to Paylocity, and it definitely doesn't text you when two HVAC techs both take the same Friday off.

Gusto or Rippling HR module

Good standalone HR platforms with solid PTO tooling, but a separate subscription on top of your payroll system, and they still don't know what's on your Jobber job board that week.

Jobber or Housecall Pro scheduling view

Shows you who's dispatched but doesn't track PTO balances, accrual, or time-off requests — it's dispatch, not HR.

On Starch RECOMMENDED

One platform — knowledge management, scheduling, task manager all running on connected data. Setup in plain English; numbers stay current via scheduled syncs and live agent queries.

Try it on Starch →

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

My guys don't use apps — they call me. How do I get them to actually submit requests through Starch?

The request form Starch builds is a simple URL — you can text it to them or tape a QR code to the shop wall. It works in any phone browser, no login required if you set it up that way. Most field crews adapt in a week once they see you actually respond to the form faster than a call.

Will Starch work with Paylocity or do I need to switch payroll systems?

Starch syncs your Paylocity data directly on a schedule — employee list, balances, and approved time off. If you're on ADP, Starch syncs that instead. You don't change payroll systems; Starch reads from whichever one you're already running.

What if I use Jobber or Housecall Pro for scheduling — can Starch see my job calendar?

Yes. Starch automates Jobber and Housecall Pro through your browser — no API needed. It can pull your scheduled jobs for any given week and compare them to who's off, so the conflict alert is grounded in your actual dispatch, not just a guess.

I have one part-time office admin and the rest are field techs. Who manages Starch day to day?

You or your admin set it up once. After that it runs on its own — the Monday morning alert goes to your phone, techs submit requests via the form, and you approve or deny from wherever you are. There's no ongoing maintenance unless you want to change a rule.

Is this HIPAA compliant for tracking sick days?

Starch is not SOC 2 Type II certified today and has no on-prem option. For most small field service businesses tracking basic time-off types (vacation vs. sick) this isn't a blocker, but if your legal counsel says you need certified data handling for employee health data, that's worth checking before you put sensitive medical detail into any Starch field.

Can Starch help me write the actual PTO policy, not just track the data?

Yes — the Knowledge Management app is a good place to draft and store it. Tell Starch: 'Help me write a simple PTO policy for a 12-person field service company in Texas — we accrue 1 hour per 40 worked, requests need 14 days notice for vacation, and we don't carry over more than 40 hours.' It drafts a plain-English doc you can edit, then your team can find it with the AI search built into the wiki instead of calling you to ask what the rules are.