4 Best Franchise Management Software Applications Equipped With GPS
Samson Kiarie
Last update on:
April 18, 2024 1:42 AM
Published on:
Managing a multi-location franchise business is no easy feat. With so many daily tasks and responsibilities to complete at each location, managers often seek additional assistance in the form of software and tech tools.
The best franchise management software automates routine business tasks and gives franchise owners full visibility into each branch’s operations. Some franchise management software also boasts global positioning system (GPS) capability, which enables owners to monitor employees' real-time location, time, and mileage.
In this guide, we’ll reveal the top franchise management software applications equipped with GPS and discuss how each solution automates franchise operations for brand consistency. Read on to find the best cloud-based tool to track employee location, time (including overtime and break tracking), and mileage for franchise workers.
Streamline Franchise Management with GPS Tracking.
Franchise management software is an all-in-one solution that enables franchise owners to streamline end-to-end operations across the network. The system helps automate the various facets of franchise operations, from sales and workforce management to customer relationship management (CRM) and inventory management.
Thanks to technological advancement, you can now blend your franchise management system with a GPS tool. This combination helps bridge the gap between management (headquarters) and retail stores or branches. GPS-enabled franchise software allows managers to:
Create geofences around a store, branch, and point of sale (POS) to prevent employees from clocking in outside their designated work sites
Enforce break rules to avert potential litigation
Track field employee’s mileage for accurate reimbursement and tax write-offs
Track field employees’ routes during the day to ensure no employee is taking an alternative route for scenic purposes
Track the time employees, such as a franchise regional manager, spend at each store during scheduled visits.
Some of the software solutions with GPS capabilities include:
Timeero — Best overall franchise management software with GPS
Hubstaff — Franchise management software with geofenced time clock
Jobber — Franchise management software for employee time tracking
RazorSync — Franchise management software for job dispatching
Top 4 Franchise Management Software Applications With GPS
While these tools give franchisors real-time visibility into field operations, their capabilities and prices differ widely. Read on to find out the strengths and weaknesses of each software solution.
Timeero — Best Overall Franchise Management Software With GPS
Timeero is the best franchise management software with GPS for franchises looking to streamline time, location, and mileage tracking. The software scales to your business needs, making it ideal for small, medium, and enterprise franchisors.
It also offers a flat learning curve for all employees and often doesn’t require assisted onboarding — many employees figure it out within minutes. If needed, our customer success team can help get the system up and running and show employees how to use the app.
Here are the features that place Timeero above other franchise management solutions:
Time Tracking with Geofencing and Facial Recognition
The Timeero app works flawlessly on Android and iOS devices.
Curbing time theft within your franchise network can significantly boost profitability. Suppose 10 employees leave 20 minutes early but clock out at the scheduled time. In one week, you’d be paying for over 16 hours of work that wasn’t done, which eats away at your profits.
Some franchise owners install cameras at the branches to verify whether employees leave early but stay clocked in. However, using cameras to confirm employee attendance is error-prone and time-consuming.
Timeero offers the perfect solution to curbing time theft, ensuring each employee's timesheet is accurate. The app tracks time accurately and attributes the hours to the selected task or job. It also uses geofencing and facial recognition to thwart time theft.
Timeero Geofencing
Timeero enables you to set geofences around each franchise branch and restrict employees from clocking in or out outside the virtual boundary. If an employee who’s running late for work attempts to clock in a few blocks away, Timeero won’t let them.
Employees can clock out outside the geofence, but Timeero will flag their timesheet. This makes it easy to spot the timesheet during payroll and investigate the case. No more guessing where the employee clocks out. Just open the timesheet and click “view on map” to see the clock-in and clock-out addresses.
Even better, Timeero enables you to set geofence reminders. When an employee enters or leaves a designated geofence, the app sends them a notification prompting them to clock in or out.
Timeero Facial Recognition
Timeero’s facial recognition prevents buddy punching. The app takes photos of employees as they clock in and compares them to their profiles. In case of a mismatch, managers are notified and prompted to look into the case. The timesheet is also flagged to draw the manager’s attention during timesheet approval.
Break Tracking
Timeero's California break tool allows you to enforce your break tracking policy so you have nothing to worry about during compliance audits.
Timeero also enables you to track rest and meal breaks in full compliance with labor laws to reduce the likelihood of litigation. It’s easy to create custom break rules and assign them to relevant employees. You can also use our California Break tracker if you have a workforce in California.
Besides configuring relevant breaks, Timeero enables you to enforce break policies to avert potential breaches. For example, if an employee manually starts a 30-minute meal break, they can’t end it early.
Employees following the California break policy must sign the daily sign-off form to confirm that they have adhered to the rules. The form shows the expected and actual break time the employee took. If an employee didn’t take the legally permitted break time, they must explain and append their signature using Timeero’s signature tool.
The details of the daily sign-off form can exonerate you in case of future legal disputes. Learn more about break tracking mistakes you should avoid. We also have a comprehensive break tracking policy guide with free break tracking templates.
Real-Time Location Tracking
Timeero is the best GPS tracking app thanks to its real-time location tracking capability. When you open the “Who’s Working” tab, you see each employee's location. You can also zoom in to see the tasks the employees are working on.
GPS location tracking helps dispatch employees more effectively. Suppose you have franchise businesses that liaise with hospitals to help families find assisted living homes. When you get a call from a hospital, you can check the most proximate employees and ask them to take the clients to different sites.
Segmented Tracking
Segmented tracking helps small businesses and large enterprises track field employees’ stops and use the metrics to improve operations.
If you have field employees who hop from one branch to another, such as regional managers, you’ll greatly benefit from segmented tracking insights. The tool tracks the field employees’ trips and segments them based on their stops.
For example, it shows when a regional manager entered and left each branch and computes the time spent at each address. It also calculates the employee’s driving time and total mileage. With these insights, you can create benchmarks to reduce employee driving time and ensure they spend more hours working.
Mileage Tracking
If you require field employees to use their personal cars, you must compensate them for mileage. Relying on manual mileage tracking makes it difficult to separate personal and business drives.
Without accurate, proper trip classification, your mileage log won’t meet the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requirements, meaning you can’t use it to claim tax write-offs. Not to mention that with inaccurate mileage logs, employees’ reimbursement won’t be fair.
Timeero's mileage tracker eliminates confusion and complexities. It uses motion-detection technology and a minimum speed threshold to track mileage. This means that as long as the employee is clocked in, they don’t have to flip a switch for the app to track mileage.
When the vehicle exceeds the predefined speed threshold, Timeero logs the mileage. You can also configure the commuter mileage tool to automatically deduct employee commutes from their total mileage. This ensures that employee mileage logs are accurate and meet IRS standards.
Other Helpful Timeero Features
Employee scheduling with permission to reject or accept a shift
Overtime and double-time tracking
Suggested mileage
Message Blast for team messaging
Real-time GPS location tracking
Offline mode
Integrations with QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks, Desktop, Gusto, ADP, Viventium, Paychex, Paylocity, Xero and Rippling
Hubstaff — Franchise Management Software With Geofenced Time Clock
Hubstaff’s home window displays essential team metrics such as total time worked and each member’s work hours.
Hubstaff is a comprehensive franchise workforce management solution designed to reduce churn and workforce costs. It’s helpful for franchise businesses that want to track employee time and improve productivity to increase company growth. Some of its notable features include:
Geofenced Time Tracking
Hubstaff allows you to create location-based job sites. For example, you can create a geofence around each franchise branch. With geofencing, you can set the app to automatically clock employees in or out when they enter or leave the job site. This enables you to see the time employees spend at each job site.
The provider offers an intuitive mobile, desktop, and web-based time tracker, making it ideal for different types of employees. You can give office-based workers permission to use the web-based time clock, while letting field employees leverage the mobile time clock.
Employee Scheduling
Hubstaff has a solid employee scheduling module that lets you create daily, weekly, or monthly schedules for hourly and salaried employees. When you assign employees a schedule, they are notified in advance, giving them time to make shift arrangements if needed. If an employee requests a shift change, you can quickly adjust schedules and find coverage quickly.
Hubstaff notifies you when an employee arrives late, misses a shift, or abandons a shift. You can set hourly limits for each shift or employee to avoid overworking anyone on your teams.
Other Hubstaff Key Features:
Payroll management
Online invoices
Project cost management
Time off management
Employee monitoring
Timesheet approvals
Jobber — Franchise Management for Employee Time Tracking
In addition to scheduling, Jobber provides a franchise marketing platform for monitoring marketing campaigns such as social media, SMS, and email marketing.
Jobber is another reliable field service management software for businesses that want to automate internal business operations while improving customer service. It offers key features such as invoicing, job management, and customer experience management on a single platform. Some of its notable modules include:
GPS Time Tracking
With Jobber, employees can clock in manually or configure the app to log work hours automatically. To use the automatic time tracker, you must first set geofences around the stores or branches, and enable geofence automation. There are two automation options.
First, you can set the app to send reminders when the employee enters the geofence. Second, you can configure the app to automatically track time when the employee enters the geofence. With the second option, Jobber clocks employees in and out as they interact with the geofence.
GPS Location Tracking
Jobber also helps you track the location of each employee, but it doesn't track real-time location. Instead, the app creates GPS waypoints, imprinting a location pin on the map when an employee:
Clocks in or out
Adds a note or attachment
Marks a visit, task, or on-site assessment complete
The GPS waypoints show where each of the above actions happened. They help monitor employee field activities but can’t track real-time location.
Other Jobber Key Features
Employee scheduling and dispatching
Route optimization
Quote and work order management
Client manager
Automated notifications and confirmations
Marketing automation
RazorSync — Franchise Management Software for Job Dispatching
RazorSync uses color codes to identify field employees on the map.
RazorSync is a field service management solution designed to improve customer satisfaction, automate franchise operations, and enhance team management. Businesses with employees who move between franchise locations will benefit from RazorSync’s time tracker, location tracker, and route optimizer.
GPS Location Tracking
RazorSync’s “field workers” tab shows the real-time location of your field employees. The app uses red question marks to mark the location of unassigned service requests, and different colors to indicate the live locations of different employees on the map.
Color codes make it easy to spot where each field employee is at a glance. This makes it easy to assign tasks to employees that are closest to an unassigned job. All you need to do is click on the unassigned job and quickly assign it to the most proximate field employee.
Time Tracking
RazorSync also enables franchise employees to track time. The mobile field app works seamlessly on Android and iOS devices, allowing field or office-based employees to clock in and out on their smartphones. Once you approve the employee timesheet, the data is exported directly to your payroll or accounting software for customer billing and payroll processing.
Other RazorSync Features:
Employee scheduling
Inventory management
Customer communication
Billing automation
Route optimization
Transform Your Franchise With the Best GPS Software
Growing a franchise business is an intricate balancing act, but it becomes much easier when you use the right tools. Franchise management software is a must-have if you want to streamline operations all the way to the branch level and manage your workforce more effectively.
Forward-thinking franchisors are prioritizing franchise management platforms with GPS functionality, like Timeero. This app provides vital features such as real-time location, time, and mileage tracking to enhance workforce management.
Start a 14-day free trial today to experience Timeero's features firsthand. No credit card is required—just create an account, and you’re good to go. Book a free consultation to get expert advice on tailoring Timeero to your franchise’s needs.
Franchise Management Software with GPS: FAQs
What Is the Best Franchise Management Software?
Timeero is the best franchise management software with GPS. The app streamlines workforce management with time, location, and mileage tracking features.
What Are the Key Features To Look For in Franchise Management Software With GPS Tracking?
The key features to look for in franchise management software with GPS tracking include a geofenced time clock, a real-time location tracker, and an automatic mileage tracker.
What Are the Benefits of Integrating GPS Tracking With Franchise Management Software?
The biggest benefit of integrating GPS with franchise management tools is that it helps streamline workforce management. It improves franchise operations such as employee dispatching, remuneration and customer billing.
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Samson is a mathematician turned content marketer specializing in SaaS and Tech content. He focuses on the practical aspects of software systems while keeping abreast of the industry’s cutting-edge principles to create informative and engaging content. When he’s not writing, Samson spends time playing or watching soccer.
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