Part 3 of the Janitorial Margin Playbook Series — how overtime erodes profitability and what operators can do to prevent it.

Margins in janitorial are already under pressure, and overtime is one of the fastest ways for profitability to slip. While some overtime is unavoidable, chronic overages are often the result of weak scheduling, poor oversight, or underpriced contracts. Left unchecked, they can quickly snowball into hundreds of thousands in lost profit.

For many operators, this is where janitorial workforce management software or commercial cleaning software makes the difference, providing the real-time visibility needed to keep cleaning company labor costs under control and help reduce janitorial overtime before it becomes a systemic issue. If you missed the foundation in Part 1: Margins — The Most Important Metric, it explains why protecting margin is the starting point for all other KPIs, including overtime.

Overtime’s Compounding Cost

Every extra hour paid above budget adds directly to labor cost, which already represents the largest share of expenses in janitorial operations.

Even small increases in overtime hours can push labor as a percentage of revenue past healthy benchmarks, eroding janitorial business margins and making it harder to compete on price.

Overtime is defined under the Fair Labor Standards Act as time-and-a-half for any employees earning under $43,888 annually, once they exceed 40 hours in a workweek. Some occupations and pay structures have exemptions, but this standard applies for most frontline janitorial staff. That premium makes accurate janitorial time tracking software and payroll oversight critical for reducing janitorial overtime. 

Benchmarks: Overtime by Company Size

Overtime may seem inevitable, but it can be kept in check.

The Snowball Effect: A Cost Example

Here’s how quickly savings add up when overtime is brought under control:

Some overtime is unavoidable. Chronic overtime isn’t. Here are simple but effective steps to take:

• Review scheduled vs. actual hours daily: Do a quick scan by site as a pulse check, making sure accounts aren’t drifting too far off budget.
• Run a 30-hour report midweek: Establish a cadence of checking employees approaching overtime so supervisors can reassign shifts to under-utilized staff before payroll closes.
• Cross-train staff: Reduce reliance on single employees by training multiple staff to cover key sites.

Overtime often compounds other margin leaks like time theft. Part 2: Time Theft — The Hidden Drain on Profitability explains how high edited punch rates and weak attendance controls open the door to time theft, which further erodes profit.

‍Beyond Payroll: Overtime’s Operational Impact

Beyond payroll savings, reducing overtime strengthens operations across the board:

• Better scheduling discipline creates more predictable workloads.
• Balanced hours give supervisors more scheduling flexibility and reduce the fire drills that lead to burnout.
• Margin protection builds confidence in bidding, since you know actual results will match planned budgets.
• Stronger compliance ensures wage laws are followed and payroll errors are minimized.

In short, keeping overtime in check delivers more than cost savings. It helps stabilize operations, supports retention, and positions your business for sustainable growth.

Want the full set of benchmarks and KPIs? Download the Janitorial Margin Playbook to see where your company stands and how to start closing margin gaps today.

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Continue the Series

Read Part 1: Margins — The Most Important Metric
Learn why margins are the foundation of profitability and how to benchmark your performance.

Read Part 2: Time Theft — The Hidden Drain on Profitability
See how edited punches and missing accountability silently drain payroll and margins.

Part 2 of the Janitorial Margin Playbook Series — how time theft erodes margins and what operators can do to prevent it.

Margins in janitorial are already razor-thin, with labor consuming up to 70% of revenue. That leaves little room for error. As we noted in Part 1: The Most Important Metric, understanding your overall margin is the starting point, but time theft is one of the hidden factors that can quietly erode it.

Imagine running payroll and noticing a site is consistently logging 20% more hours than budgeted. At first it looks like a data glitch, until you dig in and discover a pattern of missed punches, early departures, and edits made after the fact. What feels like small slips can snowball into hundreds of thousands lost each year.

The good news: while some amount of time theft is inevitable, it can still be tracked, measured, and reduced — but only if owners know what to look for.

A Triple Threat to Profitability

Unchecked, time theft creates more than a payroll problem:

• Margin Loss: You pay for hours that weren’t worked, shrinking net profit.
• Competitive Pressure: Higher labor costs make it harder to price competitively without undercutting your margin.
• Customer Risk: Short-staffed shifts mean poorer service quality. Clients notice, trust erodes, and retention suffers.

Because janitorial work often happens after hours or across multiple, dispersed sites, direct supervision is harder — making time theft both more likely and harder to detect.

Time Theft on the Job

Time theft doesn’t always mean malicious intent. Sometimes it’s an innocent mistake; other times it’s a recurring issue that signals deeper problems. Common examples include:

• Missed punches or “buddy punching” (one employee clocking in for another).
• Leaving early or arriving late while recording a full shift.
• Taking unapproved, extended breaks.

Whether accidental or intentional, every discrepancy carries a cost. Clients also feel the impact: property managers paying a fixed monthly fee may receive less service than expected, while those paying hourly may be overcharged for inefficient work.

The Benchmark That Matters: Edited Punch Rate

Your edited punch rate is the percentage of shifts with manual edits to time entries. Some edits are a normal part of the payroll process, but consistently high rates signal deeper issues.

A company running at 20% edited punches isn’t just losing margin, it’s also wasting supervisor time on payroll corrections, and fueling frustration among employees who follow the rules. Over time, this imbalance hurts morale and retention.

How Much Does Time Theft Really Cost?

Here’s a sample formula to estimate the amount a high edited punch rate may be costing you.

That’s $350,000 disappearing from profit, largely because punches aren’t consistently tracked and enforced. For a mid-sized BSC, that can mean the difference between investing in growth and barely breaking even.

The Broader Impact on Margin

Time theft doesn’t exist in isolation. It compounds with other margin leaks: overtime, underpriced bids, and bloated G&A. By tightening time tracking, operators not only stop payroll leakage but also:

• Strengthen client trust with consistent service.
• Improve competitiveness in bidding.
• Free up supervisor time.
• Reduce turnover by creating a fairer environment where reliable employees aren’t stuck covering for others.

Reducing Time Theft: From Policy to Practice

Time theft can be reduced to manageable levels. The key is combining policy, visibility, and enforcement.

• Enforce clear clock-in rules. Employees should know expectations, and supervisors must follow through, supported by janitorial employee attendance tracking systems.
• Use mobile timekeeping tools. Easy-to-use apps reduce “I forgot” excuses and capture GPS/location data.
• Audit high-edit staff and sites. Outliers often reveal systemic problems.
• Flag repeat offenders. A small subset of employees can cause a disproportionate share of issues.

Case Study: Cleantech Service Group

Here’s how one company put these practices into action.

• The Challenge: Cleantech struggled with limited visibility and preventable account loss, often learning about issues only after a client complaint.
• The Solution: BrightGo provided real-time oversight with geofenced clock-ins, mobile inspections, and building health dashboards, giving managers the tools to verify attendance and catch problems early.
• The Results: Cleantech saved over $1M by eliminating time theft, reduced payroll leakage, and saw fewer missed and late shifts thanks to verified clock-ins.

“We didn’t have our finger on the pulse. We had no way to see what was happening on site without calling the client. Now, with a few clicks, we can see what’s happening and where each building stands. That visibility helps us catch problems early and retain more accounts.”
— Riley McNamara, Vice President

Read the full case study to see how Cleantech took on time theft.

Tech-Driven Transparency

Paper timesheets and manual reviews can’t keep up. Modern janitorial time tracking software gives operators the visibility they need:

• Mobile clock-ins with geofencing to verify location.
• Real-time dashboards that highlight edited punches.
• Alerts when staff approach thresholds for edits or overtime.
• Easy reporting for supervisors and payroll reconciliation.

Beyond the financial savings, these tools also boost client confidence and employee morale. When hours are tracked transparently, service delivery becomes more consistent, employees feel accountability is fair, and managers spend less time chasing errors.

The Takeaway

Time theft may feel like an inevitable cost of doing business, but it can be reduced with careful tracking. Left unchecked however, it can drain hundreds of thousands from your bottom line.

The operators who win aren’t the ones ignoring it or overburdening supervisors with paperwork. They’re the ones using benchmarks, enforcing clear policies, and adopting technology that makes accountability seamless.

If you missed Part 1 of the series, take a look for the profitability benchmarks that show where cleaning companies stand, and why thin margins make issues like time theft so costly.

Want the full set of benchmarks and KPIs? Download the Janitorial Margin Playbook to see where your company stands and how to start closing margin gaps today.

In the janitorial industry, growth often came with complexity. More sites meant more staff, more variables, and more chances for things to go sideways. For Vancouver-based Cleantech Service Group, that complexity was starting to slow them down. They needed to rethink how their field operations were structured.

In 2023, the Cleantech team adopted BrightGo's janitorial workforce management software to bring their workforce management into a single, integrated system. The platform combined real-time janitorial time tracking, mobile inspections, and site-level cleaning company KPIs. The results? A 50% reduction in account loss, $1M+ saved by reducing time theft, and 60% revenue growth over two years.

The Visibility Shift: Moving from Gut Feel to Data

Cleantech had the scale of a mature operator, but like many growing cleaning companies, their systems hadn’t kept pace. Leaders couldn’t reliably confirm who was on site. Supervisors were still managing inspections by hand. And by the time issues surfaced, a client was already frustrated, or gone.

“We didn’t have our finger on the pulse. We had no way to see what was happening on site without calling the manager or the client.”
— Riley McNamara, Vice President

The company began reworking its janitorial operations with BrightGo as its central platform, focusing on three foundational improvements:

• Real-time janitorial time tracking software: Verified, GPS-based clock-ins give Cleantech live visibility into who’s on site, when they arrive, and how long they work—eliminating backfilled hours and guesswork. Supervisors receive real-time alerts for missed or late shifts, allowing them to intervene quickly. This continues to prevent time theft in the janitorial industry, saving millions in lost wages.
  
  
• Mobile janitorial inspection software: Managers use BrightGo’s mobile app to log site conditions, assign follow-ups, and verify resolution with notes and photos. Cleaners know exactly what’s expected, and supervisors can close the loop without chasing updates. As Elizabeth Pannell shared, “Our inspections are logged in real time, tasks are clearly assigned, and staff can fix issues with full visibility.”
  
  
• Building health metrics: BrightGo scores each site based on employee attendance tracking, inspection results, and unresolved issues—giving managers a real-time snapshot of performance, risk, and support needs. Rather than reacting to complaints, supervisors focus their time where it matters most.
  

Measurable Outcomes

Since adopting BrightGo, Cleantech:

• Saved over $1 million by reducing time theft
• Cut client churn in half, with retention at an all-time high
• Increased revenue by 60% over two years
• Reduced operational friction, including fewer repeat site visits and faster follow-through
  
  

“This has been our best year ever at Cleantech. These changes gave our teams the tools to catch issues early, work more efficiently, and keep clients happy.”
— Michael Anastasi, Chief Operating Officer

Rethinking Field Operations: Lessons from Cleantech

Cleantech didn’t make these gains by adding headcount or overhauling their business model. They focused on structural improvements to how daily work gets done—especially how it gets tracked.

Key takeaways:

• If you can't verify it, you can't manage it. Real-time clock-ins reduce payroll bloat and give supervisors a clear view of attendance.
• Inspections are only useful if they lead to action. A mobile workflow helps supervisors assign follow-ups and confirm resolution.
• Not every site needs the same attention. Health scores help managers prioritize which buildings need hands-on support.
  
  

For janitorial teams looking to grow without sacrificing quality or margin, Cleantech’s shift offers a clear blueprint: build systems that surface risk early, support accountability, and let your team focus where it matters most.

Read the full Cleantech case study →

See the Janitorial Software Behind Cleantech’s Growth

BrightGo is janitorial software built for cleaning companies navigating growth, client churn, labor inefficiencies, and rising customer expectations. It combines janitorial time tracking, janitorial inspection software, and field-level performance data to help operators make faster, more informed decisions.

‍Get a demo or email us at hello@brightgo.com See how data-backed tools can strengthen your operations and support long-term growth.