What you get
- Attendance that becomes payroll without re-entry
- Labour cost allocated to the project that incurred it
- One system for site, commercial, and procurement
Comparison · Pakistan
A HajariBook alternative for when attendance is no longer the only problem
A free attendance app is a genuinely good first step. Smart Construction is where contractors go when attendance has to connect to payroll, certification, procurement, and project cost.
Overview
HajariBook alternative for construction businesses in Pakistan
Free attendance apps such as HajariBook are doing something genuinely useful. Getting the labour register off paper and onto a supervisor phone is a real improvement, it costs nothing to try, and for a contractor whose only problem is attendance it may be the whole answer. This page is not going to argue that a free tool is bad.
What is worth being clear about is when a single-purpose tool stops being enough. It is usually one of three moments. The first is when someone is retyping the app is monthly output into a payroll spreadsheet, which is both a recurring cost and a recurring source of error. The second is when leadership asks what labour cost a specific project and the answer requires manual work, because the register knows who was present but not which job absorbed the wage. The third is when contract labour supplied by a subcontractor has to net against that subcontractor is running balance, and the attendance record and the ledger are in different systems.
At that point the attendance record needs to live where the money lives. Smart Construction treats the same daily-wage register as a first-class workflow, present, absent, half day, and overtime, captured per project on a phone, and then uses it directly: PKR payroll calculated from it, project cost allocated from it, and contract labour posted against the supplying subcontractor is ledger.
The honest framing is a sequence, not a rivalry. Start free if attendance is the problem. Move when attendance stops being the only problem.
Core capabilities
- Daily-wage attendance with overtime and half days
- PKR payroll calculated from recorded attendance
- Subcontractor ledgers for contract labour supplied per day
- Certification, procurement, and site records in the same platform
How it works
Capability by capability
Everything below is included on Starter, Growth, and Enterprise. Plans differ only on active project and user limits.
Where a free attendance app is the right choice
One or two sites, a single crew, attendance as the only pain point, and no immediate need to connect the register to payroll or project cost. A free single-purpose tool is genuinely the correct answer and there is no reason to pay for more.
- Attendance only, one or two sites
- Nothing to integrate yet
Attendance to payroll without re-entry
The register is the payroll input. Present, absent, half day, and overtime feed a PKR payroll run directly, so the month-end job becomes review and approval rather than transcription.
- One record, two uses
- Overtime and half days carried through
Labour cost attributed to the job
Because attendance is recorded per project, wage cost lands on the site that incurred it. Labour is usually the largest controllable cost on a Pakistani site, and attribution is what makes it manageable rather than merely observable.
- Per-project wage allocation
- Cost visible during the job, not after
Contract labour that reaches the ledger
Where a subcontractor supplies labour by worker-day, those days post against that subcontractor running balance alongside advances, retention, and back-charges, so what they are owed is one figure rather than two records to compare.
- Worker-days posted to the party
- Advances netted against supply
The rest of the site record
Site diary, progress photos, material receipts and usage, equipment movement, and safety records sit next to the attendance register, so the field position is one timeline instead of several apps.
- Diary and photos alongside attendance
- Materials and equipment on the same day view
The commercial half
Certification in PKR with retention and variations, purchase order approvals, and vendor and subcontractor ledgers. This is the half a single-purpose attendance tool does not attempt, and the half that decides project profitability.
- PKR certification with retention
- Procurement approved before the spend
Before and after
What changes in practice
The same work, run the way most contractors run it today and the way it runs on the platform.
- Spreadsheets and WhatsApp threads: Attendance in one app, payroll in a sheet
- On Smart Construction: One register driving both
- Spreadsheets and WhatsApp threads: Labour cost known only in total
- On Smart Construction: Wage cost allocated per project
- Spreadsheets and WhatsApp threads: Contract labour tracked separately from advances
- On Smart Construction: Worker-days and advances on one balance
- Spreadsheets and WhatsApp threads: Site records split across tools
- On Smart Construction: Diary, materials, and attendance on one timeline
- Spreadsheets and WhatsApp threads: No commercial control alongside labour
- On Smart Construction: Certification and procurement in the same platform
Use cases
Situations this is built for
Recognisable scenarios from construction businesses operating in Pakistan.
The monthly retyping job
- The situation
- A supervisor records attendance in a free app, exports it, and someone in the office retypes it into a payroll workbook every month, introducing errors and consuming days.
- How Smart Construction handles it
- Use the attendance record itself as the payroll input, with rates held against each worker and the run calculated from the register.
- What changes
- A recurring multi-day task becomes a review step, and wage disputes drop because there is one record rather than two.
Growing from one site to four
- The situation
- A contractor who ran one site now runs four, and a per-site attendance app no longer produces a picture anyone can act on across the portfolio.
- How Smart Construction handles it
- One platform holding all four sites, with attendance, cost, procurement, and certification rolled up but still traceable per project.
- What changes
- Leadership sees labour cost, progress, and cash exposure across the portfolio without collating exports.
A thekedar balance nobody could state
- The situation
- A subcontractor supplies labour by the day and also takes advances. The days are in an attendance app and the advances are in a notebook, so the true balance is a negotiation.
- How Smart Construction handles it
- Post supplied worker-days and advances to one running balance per party, netting continuously.
- What changes
- The balance is a number both sides can see, which shortens settlement and removes the annual argument.
Benefits
What improves, and why it matters
One record, not two
The attendance register is the payroll input, so nothing is retyped.
Cost you can attribute
Wages land on the project that incurred them, during the job.
Labour meets the ledger
Contract labour posts against the supplying subcontractor balance.
The whole site record
Diary, photos, materials, equipment, and safety in one timeline.
The commercial half too
PKR certification, procurement, and vendor ledgers alongside labour.
Honest about the tradeoff
A free tool is the right answer until it is not. This says when.
Modules
Key modules included
Full construction ERP on every plan: projects, commercial, labour, and site in one subscription.
Attendance
Per-day, per-project capture on a supervisor phone.
Payroll
PKR wages calculated from the register, not retyped.
Cost
People cost allocated to the site that incurred it.
Commercial
Certification and subcontractor balances alongside labour.
Included
Everything covered on this page
One subscription. Nothing on this list is a paid add-on.
- Daily-wage attendance with half days and overtime
- Per-project attendance capture on a phone
- PKR payroll calculated from the register
- Wage cost allocated to the correct project
- Contract labour posted to the supplying party
- Advances against wages tracked and netted
- Site diary, progress photos, and materials
- PKR certification with retention and variations
- Purchase order approvals before the spend
- Role-based access for supervisors and office
Terminology
The vocabulary on this page, explained
Plain definitions of the terms Pakistani contractors and consultants use day to day.
- Muster roll
- The daily attendance register for site labour. Traditionally paper, and the record everything about wages depends on.
- Worker-day
- One worker present for one day. The unit contract labour is usually supplied and invoiced in on Pakistani sites.
- Thekedar
- A labour contractor supplying crews. Usually paid against supplied worker-days with advances taken during the month, which must net against the balance.
- Cost attribution
- Assigning a cost to the project that caused it. Without it, labour is a company total rather than a project figure anyone can manage.
- Single-purpose tool
- Software solving one problem well. Cheaper and simpler until the problem it solves has to connect to the ones next to it.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Should we just use a free attendance app?
If attendance is your only problem, yes. A free app that gets the register off paper is a real improvement and costs nothing to try. The honest answer is that a single-purpose tool is the right choice until the register has to connect to something else.
When does a free attendance app stop being enough?
Usually at one of three moments: when payroll is being retyped from the app into a spreadsheet every month, when you cannot say what labour cost a specific project, or when contract labour supplied by a subcontractor has to net against that subcontractor is ledger. At that point the attendance record needs to live in the same system as the money.
Can we move our existing attendance history across?
We load the positions that matter for current operations, including active crews, rates, and outstanding advances. Historical registers are usually archived rather than migrated, because the value is in getting the current cycle right.
Is Smart Construction free?
No. Plans are published in PKR on the pricing page and start at PKR 10,000 per month plus a one-time setup fee, with every module included. If attendance is your only requirement, a free single-purpose app is a reasonable choice and we would rather you started there than paid for capability you do not yet need.
What does Smart Construction do that an attendance app does not?
It uses the attendance record rather than only storing it: PKR payroll calculated from the register, wage cost allocated to the project, and contract labour posted against the supplying subcontractor balance. Alongside that sits the commercial half, certification, retention, procurement, and vendor ledgers, which a single-purpose tool does not attempt.
Can supervisors use it on their own phones?
Yes. Attendance, site diary, and progress photos are designed for capture on a supervisor phone with role-based access, which is the same working pattern a standalone attendance app establishes.
Related construction software
See it on your projects
Book a walkthrough built around your own workflows, or compare PKR plans before you subscribe.
Call +92 333 2466662 during Pakistan business hours, or book online.