Sunshine Landscape was recently helped by the FieldLogix GPS fleet tracking system to reduce overtime costs dramatically. The company relied, prior to FieldLogix, on a paper time sheet system for their field employees to document work hours each day. They decided to install the FieldLogix GPS fleet tracking system in November of 2007 after becaming suspicious of the accuracy of this "honor" based system. The company's labor savings paid for the entire first year of the system's costs within 18 days of installation.

Finding out that you have been losing money for years and didn't even know it is very troubling, and this is exactly what happened to Carlos Contreras at Sunshine Landscape in Palm Desert, CA. For years, Carlos' team of 15 employees have been using paper time sheets to document their work hours for payroll reporting. These paper time sheets were based on an "honor system", in his words. The employees would document their work hours and would turn the time sheets in at the end of the week. The fact that things didn't quite add up with the hours they documented and what actually took place in the field is something he always suspected, and then Carlos decided that GPS tracking would help him address these concerns and give him more control over what took place in the field. He selected FieldLogix, after researching 5 different GPS fleet tracking systems, due to its user-friendly interface, affordable hardware, and extensive e-mail alert features.

Carlos' suspicions were immediately confirmed upon installing FieldLogix. He found, by using the system's activity reports, that his "honor system" was being abused by his employees. His overtime costs dropped immediately, by having an accurate way to measure daily work hours. With no change in the workload, his overtime costs dropped by more than 2 hours per man per day. Based on his calculations, he paid for the entire first year of the system within the first 18 days. "It dropped my labor costs by 35-45 percent" stated Carlos, mentioning that he wished that he bought a GPS system years ago, but put it off because it wasn't a high priority at the time. Carlos is not alone in his discovery, as a study by the Aberdeen Group reports that companies that have implemented a GPS tracking system see a 13.4 percent average reduction in overtime costs.